sexual arousal *trigger*

Hi eveyone, hope all is going well. I have a question and I'm not too sure how to word this so I'll just try my best. I am very confused about what my body is doing and I feel very ashamed and afraid of it. I was watching a documentary with my cousin a little bit ago and it was about a couple that would kidnap women and torture and rape them. Every time they would talk about one of the women getting raped I would start getting aroused and then feel very ashamed and confused as to why it was happening. I felt like I was holding in this deep secret and as I looked at my cousin who had no clue what was going on I thought how she'd hate me if she knew how sick I was for having those feelings. This happens a lot when I hear of rape/sexual abuse. I feel very confused and that I'm a sick person who should be locked away.

The other thing is that after I see something like this, I begin having intrusive visual pictures in my head of this particular person on top of me having sex with me complete with sounds, breathing and facial expressions. I become aroused after this as well. This person is closely related to me and acts very strangely any time I come around like I make them very nervous. I cannot go into more detail in fear of judgement and/or a member of my family coming across this website which is unlikely but I feel safer this way. I'm happy I have a session tommorow but I feel deeply disturbed right now but a part of me feels happy that I'm paying attention to it. This is all so weird. Any advice? thanks.

I am so sorry. Unfortunately, what you are describing is normal... for a survivor of childhood sexual abuse. Genital arousal is a normal, involuntary response to genital stimulation.

Is your cousin related to this person you are remembering using you for sexual gratification? Your cousin may actually be having the same thoughts you are. People who use small children in this way are profoundly sick and they typically will rape every child they can gain access to.

brandonsmom777 wrote: This happens a lot when I hear of rape/sexual abuse. I feel very confused and that I'm a sick person who should be locked away.

Of course you are confused but I can tell you something: I have had many a deep conversation with many people who were sexually abused. A lot won't admit it on a public forum. But that reaction is very very normal.

brandonsmom777 wrote: I'm happy I have a session tommorow but I feel deeply disturbed right now but a part of me feels happy that I'm paying attention to it. This is all so weird.

I'm happy you have a session tomorrow too. It is great news that you are paying attention to what these visual images are telling you. And not passing judgement on it. Just watching and accepting. That takes great strength.

B

As the others have said, it is an extremely common response to being sexually abused as a child. In some people it even is to the point of only being able to be sexually aroused while fantasizing about abuse.

Think of it this way, your brain was conditioned to link abuse and rape with sexual arousal. Just like Pavlov's dog was conditioned to drool upon the ringing of a bell. It is not your fault. It is easier said than done to not feel ashamed about it, but please try to be as kind to yourself as possible about it.

Unfortunately, yes, this is all too common for people who have been sexually abused, not just multiples. When someone known to the child is the perpetrator, there's not just the physical component, there can be emotions involved too.

In my case, my father must have known he was a pedophile and seemed to want to control himself. So after my body began walking, he avoided touching it other than hand-holding. A child needs physical contact when young. If this is mixed in with sexual content, it will become very confusing. My connection in fantasy to events similar to those that happened to me are extremely disturbing, not just because they can be arousing but that emotional feelings are present. I can now see myself trying to normalize it all, to make it okay. This is the influence of an alter who was abused.

Pedophiles like my father can be incredibly manipulative about explaining what's going on, working hard to justify and normalize it, not just for the victim but for themselves. A small child has virtually no life experience that would allow them to analyze and reject the lies. In fact, rejecting the explanations can make the child feel that their situation is even more hopeless and out of control.

I was never sexually abused, but I've heard of this happening before. Are you comfortable enough to explain these feelings to your therapist? I think hearing a professional say that this is normal for victims of sexual abuse would be gratifying.

Thanks everyone for the replies. I already figured as much was the responses would be while I was still writing the question but sometimes it's just different hearing it from others. I had my session with my T today and he basically said the same thing as everyone else on here. We're doing a lot of work and I keep telling him I feel like a liar and that this is all just fake and God is going to punish me for lying so much. He said he would be suprised if I wasn't sexually abused. I told him that makes no sense, that I would have memories of it and that things like that don't just disappear in your mind. As he was telling me that a lot of times children are told horrific things to keep the abuse a secret and as he was talking I began hearing a man's voice murmuring in my head and it almost sounded audible. My argument was that this was proof that my mind was responding to the power of suggestion and his argument was that him talking about it was triggering a memory. I don't know what to believe. I feel like my younger part is coming out a lot more and I'm so scared of the consenquences of my lies. I feel very afraid of how I feel right now. I dissociated a lot during this session to the point where I could feel myself standing in the corner of the room.

For the longest time I thought I wanted to know what happened to make me this way but now I'm not so sure I even want to know. I don't like the feelings of being a liar and a manipulator and a life ruiner and I certainly don't want to hurt anyone. I already feel like I've talked too much even to my T and there's no going back now. I fear the consenquences of my big mouth. I am afraid everyone will hate me and abandon me and I'll have to start a new life somewhere else and be so depressed by my losses I won't be able to take it and just end my life.

These memories don't even feel real and i don't know if it's some fabrication or what. Why would my brain make something like this up? What type of person am I? Thanks to you all for your time.

brandonsmom777 wrote:Thanks everyone for the replies. I already figured as much was the responses would be while I was still writing the question but sometimes it's just different hearing it from others. I had my session with my T today and he basically said the same thing as everyone else on here. We're doing a lot of work and I keep telling him I feel like a liar and that this is all just fake and God is going to punish me for lying so much. He said he would be suprised if I wasn't sexually abused. I told him that makes no sense, that I would have memories of it and that things like that don't just disappear in your mind. As he was telling me that a lot of times children are told horrific things to keep the abuse a secret and as he was talking I began hearing a man's voice murmuring in my head and it almost sounded audible. My argument was that this was proof that my mind was responding to the power of suggestion and his argument was that him talking about it was triggering a memory. I don't know what to believe. I feel like my younger part is coming out a lot more and I'm so scared of the consenquences of my lies. I feel very afraid of how I feel right now. I dissociated a lot during this session to the point where I could feel myself standing in the corner of the room.

For the longest time I thought I wanted to know what happened to make me this way but now I'm not so sure I even want to know. I don't like the feelings of being a liar and a manipulator and a life ruiner and I certainly don't want to hurt anyone. I already feel like I've talked too much even to my T and there's no going back now. I fear the consenquences of my big mouth. I am afraid everyone will hate me and abandon me and I'll have to start a new life somewhere else and be so depressed by my losses I won't be able to take it and just end my life.

These memories don't even feel real and i don't know if it's some fabrication or what. Why would my brain make something like this up? What type of person am I? Thanks to you all for your time.

I could pretty much have written this post several years ago, when the abuse memories started to come up.

Here are some of the things that I have learned that might help you: I do my best to not "go looking" for memories- the ones that have come up that way, I am most suspicious of. When I work to make it as safe as possible for me to remember, then the memories tend to come in a format that I find it easier to believe. Memories that involve the senses of touch, smell, taste, body sense, and emotion have remained the most consistent for me over times. I have kept a diary, which turned out to be a good way to tell that the same flashbacks happened this winter that happened 20 years ago- they are based on something real, not my fevered imagination. Memory is not a perfect record and if you worry less about getting the "exact truth" about what happened and more about getting the basic truth, you will be less likely to drive yourself crazy but still get the information that you need to heal.

A personal story: For whatever reason, my system got terribly over stimulated and I have been having so many intrusive memories over the last several weeks that I was completely overwhelmed. This morning, I talked with my T on the phone, trying to problem solve how to calm things down, and I was bemoaning that I don't trust my mind right now and I don't know what to believe or not to believe from what has come up over the last few weeks. She reminded me that we know that I was abused- that much is clear, who the perp was, and the type of thing that happened. That is enough to do the work to heal. The details may or may not be accurate, but it doesn't really matter, since I have no need for legal levels of proof. I just need to heal so that I can have the life that I want.

So, you don't have to know every detail, you don't even have to be 100% certain about the details that you have.

I hear you about fearing what remembering will bring up and how you will cope with it. All I can say is that it is strongly recommended that trauma survivors do significant amounts of safety and stabilizing work before they emphasize dealing with the trauma. That will give you a firm base to work from, because you are right that trauma work is hard. And even after you move into the phase of emphasizing trauma work, you will likely find yourself needing to temporarily move back to phase 1 work at times, when you start to get overwhelmed. You can go back and forth as many times as you need while you do this work.

Thank you Cat for the advice, it helps more than you know. I don't really feel like I'm looking for anything, these things just kind of keep happening. I've been stuggling and fighting with these things in my mind, like you were saying about body sensations, emotions etc. and I just dont get how I could not remember something like that. Its just bringing up a lot of things that I'm not sure I'm ready to deal with or its coming on too fast. Ive pretty much been doing stabilization work for the last 2 years, with different therapists but nonetheless I am much more stable now than I was before. I also have a pretty strong trust with my current T which is doubly helpful. He wants me to give into the memories basically and not judge them which I do horrendously. I cannot help it. I am very afraid and also sense that if I did not judge the memories that's giving them permission to be seen and I'm not prepared for the hurt or reality of it all I suppose. I can now understand why I've been missing from my own life the last 20 or more years even though I'm only 26. I think my parts may need to feel a little safer before I can go on. I don't know what I'd do without the support of this site. In between sessions sometimes feels like an eternity which I'm sure most people here can agree with so I'm happy we can all be here for eachothers support where it doesn't always feel like we get it anywhere else. At least thats true for me, I don't want to speak for others. I really think the key to the overwhelming fear might be to make my younger part feel safer.

You are very welcome! I, too, had no memory of what happened. In fact, I bought into the family story of having a "perfect family" hook, line, and sinker. Now, having a lot more perspective than I did 20 years ago, I recognize that my nuclear family was terribly dysfunctional if you scratched the surface and both of my parents' families were outright abusive. Years ago, I talked with one of my cousins and discovered that some things also happened to her with our grandfather and she was also abused by her father. Now I recognize that there was a reason that I did not date at all until my senior year of high school and even then, I chose a long distance relationship. I also better understand why I froze during my first adult sexual encounter and it was non-consensual on my part. The list goes on and on of things in my family and my personal life that were confusing from the perspective of a "perfect family," but when you factor in the abuse start to make perfect sense.

It's just that what happened was absolutely overwhelming and it simply was not possible to integrate it in a family where denial (and possibly dissociation) were the preferred methods of dealing. My mind did a very, very good job of walling away the memories of the abuse until they started to leak through, once I was in a relationship where I felt safe.

I wish you all the best!