*TW* confused about positive feelings

***TRIGGER WARNING***

I'm confused.
See, I was sexually abused. But I don't get it. Why feel so positive about it? WHAT THE H3LL???? I DON'T WANT IT. I DON'T WANT IT. I don't want to feel good about it. It's horrible. Is the pain hidden then? Did I separate the pain from the positive feelings? Is that why I feel this way right now? I don't understand. I seriously don't understand. Why do I keep wanting to get back to it? It's the worst thing that ever happened to me.

And I'm about to deny it again. *sigh*

--- edit:
I'd have deleted this if I could. *sigh*

When my therapist first started working with me she would ask me questions over and over again that basically made assumptions that SOMEONE in my life was still abusing me. After chronic abuse, you can automatically want to stay with what you know, because humans in general hate the unknown. The amount of people I know who were abused through childhood and then walked into a very very abusive relationship is frightening. I think its a mixture of things really including a belief that that is all they are worth. I have had times when I have literally begged my therapist to physically harm me. It makes me so uneasy to be in a close r'ship and not be hurt, somehow. Sometimes I get the desire and NEED to go back to what I know. It is easier than passing through muddy waters that I haven't navigated before. Just my thoughts really on what you said. I would hazard a guess though that you are not alone in your feelings. For sure.

-B

bourbon wrote:When my therapist first started working with me she would ask me questions over and over again that basically made assumptions that SOMEONE in my life was still abusing me.

Maybe because that happens quite often.

I can relate to what you say of wanting to get in the same situation.

Hi Oaktree,

I spent all of yesterday reading "The Gift of Fear" by Gavin de Becker, which I can recommend to anyone who has even been abused in any way. One thing that really stuck with me was:

Like the battered child, the battered woman gets a powerful feeling of overwhelming relief when an incident ends. She becomes addicted to that feeling. The abuser is the only person who can deliver moments of peace, by being his better self for a while. Thus, the abuser holds the key to the abused person’s feeling of well-being. The abuser delivers the high highs that bookend the low lows, and the worse the bad times get, the better the good times are in contrast.

(p 167)

What he's saying there is basically: our brains are conditioned to release happy hormones (Dopamine, specifically, the reward chemical) in connection with abuse. Whether that is caused by the abusive act itself or the end of it (immediately afterwards) is secondary - we have learned the powerful lesson that abuse = immediately followed by happy feelings. It is basically our Crack cocaine.

Like with any drug, just thinking alone doesn't solve the problem. We need to recondition our brains to release happy chemicals in connection with things that are actually good. That takes time. Beating ourselves up over it is just going to make it worse (self-loathing and all that). It's not our fault we're conditioned to feel this way, but we can be aware of it and act differently.

I relate to what Bourbon says as well. Abuse of any sort just makes me feel at home, while non-abusive situations make me feel weird. I just have to ignore myself on that level.

Would this be comparable in some way to things like bungee jumping, roller coasters and the like?

tribeofone wrote:We need to recondition our brains to release happy chemicals in connection with things that are actually good. That takes time. Beating ourselves up over it is just going to make it worse (self-loathing and all that). It's not our fault we're conditioned to feel this way, but we can be aware of it and act differently.

This is actually something I have to keep in mind, for addictions. Just wanting to change does not seem to help.

Just wanted to say you have helped but feeling too fuzzy right now to answer properly