Sexual Abuse Healing

This may be triggering for some, so please don't read if you are not in a good place right now. 

I have what may or may not seem like an odd question and need help trying to understand it.  My T has at different times throughout the course of our sessions asked me if at anytime I remember my abuse feeling good, as in my body reacting a certain way, she always makes it a point to make certain I understand that regardless of whether I felt this way or not it was not my fault!  She has said that sometimes if your body responded in a certain way, that can throw a whole new mix of emotions into it.  I understand that. 

I can honestly say that I have never remembered it feeling good or my body responding.  During all the years that the different abuses were going on, I would dissociate or just lay there and take it so to speak, so it would be over with faster, and even then in my mind I was always focusing on something else, not what was going on. 

So here is where I'm confused at, can your body respond to the SA and because you are trying so hard to not focus on what is happening, you seriously don't remember it, and if your body did respond would this be an signal to the abuser that you liked it, even tho you didn't if that makes sense.  I'm not even sure I am asking this the right way, but this is something that is really haunting me right now, and I just don't know.

Gevie 

(((Gevie)))

Here's my opinion of the things you asked about:

Absolutely you can forget all sorts of things about the abuse. Do you remember the clothes you were wearing that day or if the sun was shining? For me, it happened so often that the experiences all blur together and I'm not quite sure what happened when. I know what the general pattern was in what happened, but I don't remember specifics about it all. Everyone's brain works differently. I'm sure some survivors remember each instance, the smell, the color of the room, every word said. I just remember generalities. I also greatly dissociated so it's as if I've taken many many years of abuse and blurred them all into one big collage of a memory.

Sometimes I hear survivors say they're trying to remember certain details. Everyone needs to heal in their own way, but, for me personally, there's no way I want to try to remember anything more. The general blur of it all is more than enough information for me. If I were you (and we're all different so this may not work for you) I'd not try to work at remembering and tell my therapist to knock it off. I'd tell her that if I have a memory I want to discuss I'll bring it up but otherwise quit pushing the issue. But you have to do what works for you. Perhaps you want to remember this. I'd just as soon have that part of my memory erased forever.

As for what an abuser would have thought, abusers are such twisted people that even a victim screaming "no" seems to be twisted into such that they believe it means yes. They twisted it all to blame their victims so did they probably take it as a sign that someone wanted to be abused or raped? Probably yes. But that's their twisted thinking. Our bodies do what they were made to do and you can't help it if your body responded in such a way. So know that your abuser was twisted, but please don't use the abusers' perverted thinking to turn that into guilt. The doctor tests your reflexes, you kick your leg. Your body gets touched in certain ways, it reacts. Not your fault if it did.

Yet I feel I've not helped you out any. Sometimes when I read posts I feel as if I sense that the poster is really looking for something that isn't spelled out in the words. I sense that you're wanting the confirmation from other survivors that this wasn't your fault. It wasn't. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault. It wasn't your fault. I just feel that you need to hear that. Maybe it's because I need to hear it somedays as well.

Take care of yourself. You matter.

allie

Hi Gevie. I'm Jenny and the victim of all sorts of severe abuse and I've been in therapy for most of my life. I think I know what your therapist is talking about and I have experienced it.

A lot of the sexual abuse I went through was perpetrated by adults and teenagers who were just out to satisfy themselves and thought nothing of how it felt for me. But 1 abuser was careful to not inflict pain and did a lot of clitoral massage to give me some pleasure so I wouldn't fight him. The clitoris gives pleasure in children too, not just as adults. So yes, I liked what he did and was far more likely to allow him to abuse me than others.

And yes, this causes problems with how you look at it. It's still abuse whether it felt good or not. It was no different than the ones that just hurt me for their own pleasure. But yet I didn't consider him an abuser like the others because he took my feelings into consideration.....or so I thought. What was finally pointed out to me that this was a clever way for an abuser to get me to like and trust him even more than usual. I started to let him do it....I liked the feeling. It was a tough situation to get through emotionally since this was a close relative who I still see regularly. He is the only relative I confronted and he did apologize(a rarity). We now have a relationship that is okay but would I trust him with my kids...NEVER. But those mixed feelings are tough to deal with.

So I bet this is what your T is talking about. She needs to just bite the bullet and say the words rather than beating around the bush. Was there any pleasant stimulation, such as clitoral stimulation that made you feel like it was nice? It's important to face as you still need to deal with it...it was still abuse no matter how good it might have felt.

Is this what she is after?

gentle hugs............Jenny