Just came here to talk about a recent personal victory.
I CAN NOW WATCH GAME OF THRONES WITH MY BOYFRIEND!A few weeks ago I started to get so tired of living as I have been. I became so frustrated with being unable to watch anything much, with lots of things restricted, massive jealousy over slightest thing, and having been like this for so long that I feel like it's actually changed who I am as a person. I saw some Game of Thrones merchandise in a store at Christmas and instantly thought, "The teenage me would have loved all of this..." It made me feel so sad and miserable. I've become a hardcore feminist - nothing inherently wrong with that - but one who has managed to justify / validate her extreme emotional responses by throwing it all under the bracket of the patriarchy (or whatever else).
I got so sick of not being myself, of feeling like I've lost touch with my own personality, (I'm 100% sure I'd have loved Game of Thrones had I not been through the hell I have which has given me such intense jealousy issues), so I decided I would
force myself to watch it, alone at first.
It went disastrously wrong. To the point I almost broke off my relationship completely. My boyfriend told me at the start of our relationship that he used to masturbate to Game of Thrones scenes at the end of his last relationship. I forgot that the reason for this is because he was enormously sexually frustrated because his girlfriend at the time wasn't giving him any sex. I saw the sex / rape scenes and couldn't cope emotionally with how graphic they were and how frequent the nude / sex / rape scenes occurred. I was disgusted honestly. I went on a huge tirade about how messed up society has become that people watch rape casually with their spouses over dinner or whatever, and call it "entertainment". Like how far down have we become as a society that watching rape and scenes of softcore pornography is now classed as regular entertainment, like watching a sitcom or any other show.
But still, I felt like I needed to watch it, I needed to accept it, and I honestly felt like if I could watch Game of Thrones, then I could do pretty much
anything, so I continued watching it, but this time writing down my emotional responses to every single trigger. I put the focus on successfully integrating into the world and on reducing my emotional suffering; - so the intention became to be able to watch Game of Thrones, and possibly decide that I dislike it, but all the same not feel like I wanted to take my own life as a result of having watched it. I continued, and then, one very hungover morning decided to watch S1E1 with my boyfriend... Being as it took me 4 or 5 attempts to even just get through the first EPISODE, I was already so acquainted with each trigger that it had almost become normal to me. We ended up watching the entire season 1 in a day and I felt on top of the world.
Now I'm on season 5. It's had huge ups and downs and it hasn't all been easy. A part of this time I even watched some episodes without pre-watching them first, and ended up in a horrible place all over again. The amazing thing is... I love this show now so much that I feel like I want to press on in part because of how invested I've actually become in the characters, the plot development, the insane cliffhangers, and just enjoyment of what an amazing show it really is! This is the LEAST likely thing I ever felt I could enjoy, but has turned out to be the most, and now I'm using that enjoyment to fuel my use of this in my healing and recovery.
One of the most awesome things is that someone actually compared me to a Game of Thrones character, telling me that I'm "everything that a Game of Thrones character wishes they could be - strong and resilient." on account of the fact that I'm also a sexual trauma survivor myself. I even ended up relating to some of the characters (and sometimes THEY get jealous or insecure!) on account of my horrible past, and using their own strength to inspire me.
Sorry if this seems braggy (I guess it is), but I've bombarded this thread for so long with stories of my intense emotional pain, and I've seen Game of Thrones be mentioned more than a few times so I wanted to chip in with a positive experience here to hopefully lighten the atmosphere and show that things CAN change for the better.
Talking with my boyfriend when I get triggered, pausing the show, and discussing with him exactly what's going on with me really has helped. I've realized that he's a lot like me - if he's getting his sexual needs met, he doesn't watch TV shows and feel the need to get off to it. I myself am very sexual, so I'm happy with that. I remember being in a relationship with a man who wasn't meeting my own sexual needs, and I also watched porn and even had sexual fantasies about people I made up in my mind so I understand how he must have felt and he says he felt miserable. He told me that sex makes him feel "like a man"; masturbating to TV shows made him feel less like a man and he doesn't want to go back to that.
I'm also discovering more about my jealousy... I'm at a point now where it isn't even necessarily me comparing myself unfavorably to other women on the show (e.g. "She's prettier than me"), but simply the fact that my boyfriend is looking at naked women even if I wouldn't even want to look like the woman... Pure possessiveness. I think that stems from the fact that ALL of my exes were leery little perverts who made me feel side-lined for some other fantasy, and now I'm at a point in my life where I want to be with someone who is going to absolutely take it to the other extreme and freaking WORSHIP me (like I want to worship who I'm with). It's more about balance I guess than just a "she's hotter than me" thing.. So I'm working on that at the moment.
There's also an aspect that I'm
dependent as hell. - If I lost my boyfriend, I'd also lose my home, my job (we run a business together), my friendship group (all my "friends" are his own friends but I struggle to treat them like my friends), and the location I live in that I love. I've never lived alone in my life and I would have to go back to live with my abusive mother. I have WAY too much caught up in this man, so the fear of every little threat I think becomes magnified and enlarged. I've learned that I really need to work on my own independence. I'm going to be able to (hopefully) buy a house this year though, so at least I will have that.
I'll leave it here for now but I'm sure I'll have more to say, hopefully when I've finished the entire show and can report back.