Exploring affects of SA/RA on self

[Bermuda]

I wanted to start this thread to just gently explore something I am extremely uncomfortable with talking about. I don't want to post in my journal until I have maybe some kind of great discovery.

Also I say SA/RA because I can't separate them in my mind.

The first thing that I have observed right in this moment is that I feel uncomfortable with the topic of sex. I am a mature adult and yet it still feels dirty, wrong, and shameful. Rationally, I don't judge other people in this way, so it's strange that it's only how I relate it to myself. I am an open-minded person, but can't express that part of myself at all... or even admit it might exist... The sexual part.

Sometimes I have wondered if I am asexual. I don't enjoy it. I don't do it. Only for procreation, oddly as I was taught to. When I have, in the past, it was almost as if I was trying to fit the expectation or the role for the person I was supposed to be. I am woman. I am supposed to give pleasure. I am supposed to be sexy. Typing that made me feel repulsed. Sex is repulsive. Seeing myself as sexy feels repulsive.

I also see myself as dirty. I see that part of me as dirty. I don't like it. Even at my most "liberated"... It was never about me.

If it sounds like I am talking in code it's because I am completely ill-equipt to talk about these things. It's not intentional. I want to work on this, so bear with me.

[Bach]

I hear you, Bermuda.  I am listening and caring.

[Moondance]

 

[Armee]

I'm hearing, and relate to quite a bit of it.

I hope this isn't bothersome to read...I've tried a trick that I've read about. Geared toward people with dissociative disorders along the lines of DID. That when it is time for sexual relations that you sort of tell all the younger parts or parts who don't want any part of that to go do something else for awhile while the adult or s_____al part participates.

So I tried this recently. I took them to an imaginary place that was like my (safe) grandparent's house. I put on a movie I remember watching as a kid there (that darn cat) and let all those parts curl up in dog beds to watch the movies (that was my safe place. Watching movies at my grandma's curled up in her dog's bed). Proud of myself for setting that up even though I can't see images, I mentally returned to my husband but then quickly the adult me, the one who is supposed to be there in the body, left and went to the safe place too and started watching the movie too. I tried to recruit other parts but no part wanted anything to do with what was actually happening.

My only semi-saving grace is 1. I feel so committed to having a good close relationship that I force myself to (i know that's not really good) and 2. I have periods that last 2 weeks, so there's only 2 weeks a month I'm really able to. So I get long breaks from it. Yeah. It's sad.

I'm sorry those things happened to you, Bermuda. And that you still have to pay the consequences.

[Blueberry]

I hear you Bermuda.

Never even having had a boyfriend, I can avoid actually carrying any of it out and I do avoid it. The topic pertaining to myself fills me with shame and disgust. I don't feel that way for others engaged in sexual activities.

It's brave of you to address this on here and be trying to heal. 

[Moondance]

Bermuda - I wrote a longer response earlier however it didn't show up.

I really relate to your post - at the core of me there so much shame and disgust.  I'm really hard / hateful towards myself.

I have also wondered whether I'm asexual.

So brave of you Bermuda to bring this up. 

[blue_sky]

I hear you too Bermuda and can relate so much.

Sex was always painful with my husband so the doctors/therapists think it's vaginismus. I was sent for vaginal dilation sessions but I couldn't cope mentally and/or physically.

I have always enjoyed "self" time when I am all by myself. But as soon as it's over, I get this utter guilt/shame/fear (i dont even know what i feel) that makes me crawl into a fetal position and cry tearless cries. Watching pornography also reminds me of CSA and how I was introduced to it and what genres I was introduced to. 

I have also wondered if I am a lesbian, if it's a penis that triggers me but I don't know, it's just a thought 

I am in my 30s and I get a lot of pressure from FOO to have kids (is this just a South Asian culture?). They don't understand that I can't do THAT.

I enjoy the kissing, cuddling, foreplay bits with my husband but as soon as my brain knows he wants "more", I either freeze or panic and sometimes I cry hysterically.

Armee I might try your trick of sending the little ones to their safe space. Thank you for that idea. And I also have forced myself at times (sadly) so I can keep my husband happy.

[Armee]

I used to cry everytime after.

Thats cruel to send you to treatment for vaginally dilation given the trauma history.   that would make it worse with all those triggers.

[blue_sky]

Yes it was horrible, firstly it was in a hospital as an out-patient. It was quite a small room and they put me on one of those gyno chairs with the legs wide open.
Then they hooked me up on laughing gas and asked me to keep breathing. Did not help at all. I felt so vulnerable!

They also gave me a set to take home and I was supposed to use it daily as part of my homework. I gave up pretty quickly.

Me and H have been talking about seeing a sex therapist one day but my medical expenses already are so high every year, we are still thinking about it. 

[Armee]

Gentle hugs if they feel comforting.

I don't know how much trauma processing you've done. And obviously I still have problems but a lot of difficulty cleared up after properly processing some things (there are others i have not processed yet). Still more to do. I've thought about a sex therapist but I mean I just freak out at the thought of even the tiniest bit of something new, like even a micromovement. So that thought of going to a sex therapist is absolutely terrifying. 

[NarcKiddo]

It is a really difficult subject.

I was brought up to believe it was my job to provide good sex. A woman's value is based on the man she can attract, so of course she needs to be desirable to a suitable man. I pretended to enjoy it and was terribly enthusiastic. I made sure it was "fun". I have never had an orgasm with a partner but I have got awfully good at pretending. I only ever got in the mood if I had drunk plenty of alcohol first. This actually caused quite a few issues in my marriage. My husband was not particularly interested/could not really perform if we were drunk. So he would decline and I then felt rejected. The only times he wanted to were in the morning, when we were both sober, and I started avoiding these times until eventually the whole physical side fizzled out. Cuddles and hand holding are fine and I enjoy that. But for a while we did not really touch physically at all because I was still bound up in feeling rejected and undesirable.

I don't see it as dirty but nor do I see it as some wonderful physical union to bring me close to someone. Or maybe I am scared of getting close, so the play acting was what made it tolerable. Enjoyable, even, in some ways. I now realise I enjoy physical exertion, so it was much more natural for me to be an active participant rather than using the "lie back and think of England" approach.

I once had some raunchy role-play correspondence with a man but he became irritated because he wanted the story to get into the action and be romantic whereas I was forever inserting comic spanners into the works so our antics would be prevented or interrupted.

[Bermuda]

NarcKiddo, thanks. I just laughed at that last bit, and honestly I needed a laugh. If I ever have such a correspondence I will take note, or maybe I will just submit my own stories to  some website and make sure it is least ten pages in before revealing in the end no one gets off. Maybe that's just my genre?    I feel like absolute garbage since posting. It's a strange reaction, and I don't know why, and I don't know what I am feeling, but it doesn't feel good. I don't want to see anyone, or exist. I just want to fizzle away like a bathbomb.

Anywho, I relate to what you are talking about. I was also raised to be submissive as if it were my duty, but in the same breath it was also an act of sin and shame. When my brother acted out sexually, it was my sin, my shame. I felt shame for him. I'm supposed to be modest, to cover my knees and shoulders. It's my responsibility to make sure that men are not attracted to me, but it's also my duty to be attractive... To be marriageable, and to please even if I don't feel like it. If a man strays, it's my fault. I say this as if I believe it, I don't... but it explains some of my discomfort within myself.

Also, just a side note, my knees are not sexy, neither are my shoulders. Never have I ever seen a pair of sexy knees or shoulders in my life, and I'm not even sure such a thing exists at all.

NarcKiddo, I relate to what you are saying about drinking to perform. I have been in a similar place, although I was less aware of it maybe. Because of my lifestyle, a lot of the behavioiurs I had, other people did too but to much more of an extreme, so I never saw those things in myself. I was able to control my drinking, usually, or I mixed it with other things to increase the effectiveness because drinking irritated my nervous stomach. It was easier to take something relaxing instead, and no one knew. Sometimes it helped the pain, or my reaction to the pain rather. How sad.

I hope I don't delete this post in a panic like I did my last one.

Lie back and think of England, hah. That makes me think of when I was a teenager still at home I was talking to a boyfriend and he asked me about masturbation. I said I didn't, and he said I was lying. I asked him in all seriousness, "But what do you think about?" "How can you do that?" It's kind of funny to think about now, because I can imagine he thought I was playing daft or I wanted him to talk dirty, but I didn't at all. I was absolutely serious. When I thought about sex, I was repulsed. When I thought about masturbation, I thought about cleaning myself.