How to get unstuck from these feelings (trigger warning: CSA)

August 31, 2021 10:37 AM

I was a victim of sexual abuse as a child and have struggled with depression and relationships and sex as an adult. I haven't been able to engage in intimate relationships, and while I am in therapy I seem to be stuck in the same emotions (grief, anger, shame) that I feel around this incident and the impact it's had on my life. I would be grateful if anyone has suggestions on how to get unstuck, especially if they've been through this. I'm in a shitty place, so please be gentle.

I was sexually abused once in freak incident as a young child (I say freak incident because while I believe most children are abused by people they know and trust, I was attacked by a stranger who caught me in an opportunistic situation). It was quite terrifying and I blocked it out for several years. As I grew up and realised what happened, I kept it secret for a very very long time and am only now, a handful of years from middle age, working through it.

I have good social support and an excellent therapist. I am working hard in therapy and want to move forward.

However I seem to have gotten stuck in the same emotions and am wondering if anyone has gone through this and can share how they pushed forward.

Grief, at what I have lost. Decades of good mental health, and at the intimate relationships I expected to have and was never able to form. I know I may meet someone in the future and have one or more fulfilling relationships, but the loss of a few decades of possible relationships, intimacy, relationship skills, and meaningful connections is very painful to me. I see everyone I know having relationships, being married, having children, like it's all very natural to them and I feel like I've been locked out of a significant level of life and love: of deeper levels of connection, closeness and intimacy because this assault has made relationships a struggle for me. I know I should try to approach this with a "forward, not backwards" mentality but I can't seem to get out of the pain of what I've already lost.

Anger, at the fact that this happened, and that it happened at the hands of someone else - someone selfish who hurt me, because my life didn't matter to them.

Shame, at feeling like a social failure and a failure at adulthood as I haven't been able to engage in relationship and sex (I was never able to date "properly" because intimacy was too hard for me, and I didn't appreciate the connection between the assault and my struggles with sex and so couldn't work through this with a partner like I know I now need to). I know there should be no shame in this even if it wasn't due to abuse, and I know anybody who knew about this incident would totally understand, but I've very deeply internalised the social and cultural messaging around the important of relationships, sex and idiotic "loser" stigma around not having this and am having trouble not feeling these feelings.

posted by anonymous to Human Relations (8 answers total)

Have you considered working with a touch-focused therapist? That may help you find a way to process the trauma that is in your body, in support of the emotional work you’ve already done. Some terms to search for are somatic therapy, Hanna somatics (after the creator Thomas Hanna), Hakomi, and Feldenkrais (particularly one-on-one sessions). You could also look into working with a therapist and low-dose psychedelics, such as Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, which can be amazing for getting unstuck because it facilitates neuroplasticity.
posted by danceswithlight at 11:11 AM on August 31, 2021 [7 favorites]

Ditto what @danceswithlight said. I was going to suggest some sort of touch therapy, so you can reassociate touch with pleasure and kindness, rather than the unpleasant memories.
posted by kschang at 11:14 AM on August 31, 2021

Yes, somatic therapy! You can absolutely do this. Take it slow. I suggest a progressive program moving from platonic self-touch to erotic touch with other people:

1— Work on your platonic relationship with your own body. Gentle movement, breathing, sensory delights like drinking tea, skin-brushing, taking baths. Just small healthy things that give you pleasure. Yoga and tai chi are great for developing body confidence (some folks prefer hard exercise like boxing). Do what works for you.

2— Invite other people into your body space. A trauma-focused somatic therapist can guide you through exercises. What about massage, or joining a dance class, or hiring a professional cuddler? Think of safe, platonic ways to build friendships and experience touch with other people. Caring for pets is a nice way to practice!

3— Okay, you want to explore your erotic body. Do you masturbate or have fantasies? Pick up some books on self-intimacy and self-sex. What turns you on and off? Buy a couple toys and light some candles, turn on music, make a night of it.

4— Hire a professional! Not everyone is down for this step, but I think it's super helpful in working through that "I don't know enough about sex to be having it" feeling. Intimacy coaches, sexological bodyworkers and somatic sex educators are all great choices to help you learn more about your body. You can focus on things like pelvic floor work or mindful masturbation. The touch can be guided or one-way, from practitioner to you. It can truly be a profound and healing experience.

5— Go on low pressure dates. Sign up for dating apps and get to know people through your community. Meetups, volunteering, social clubs, join a gym or sports league... finding your people really is a numbers game, but if you put yourself out there you've got a great shot. If you're at all kinky, attend some local munches, maybe try a soft flogger or rope chest harness. It's nice to make friends who are used to talking openly about sex and sensory experiences.

Trauma is stored in the mind and body. It's normal to feel emotions well up as you unlock and process the experiences you've had. If it's too much, back off for a while or try something gentler. You're mapping new associations, and it takes time for your brain and nervous system to rewire. I believe in you!
posted by lloquat at 12:20 PM on August 31, 2021 [2 favorites]

Re: "stuck in emotions," what if you didn't have to change your emotions about it? I don't think "Feel differently about your abuse" or "Decide that the pain is no big deal" is a good goal for trauma therapy.

The stuff I'm working on in trauma therapy is, like, "I'm gonna be kind to myself even when I'm stuck, even when I'm not over it, even when I'm so hideously angry on the inside that I couldn't possibly deserve kindness. Fuck it, even though terrible things happened to me that will never be okay, I'm going to keep treating myself way better than I think I deserve." That doesn't change what happened and doesn't make me like it. But it makes the rest of my life a lot better, and it adds up, and now I've got this pretty okay life.

You're allowed to date when you're angry and grieving. (Think of all the widowed people in the world who meet someone new. I'm sure most of them didn't wait until they felt perfectly fine about their loss.) Maybe figuring out how to do that is a good goal. Making the anger and grief go away isn't.
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:31 PM on August 31, 2021 [15 favorites]

(On the other hand, if by "stuck in emotions" you mean not just "I'm still not forgiving anyone for what happened" but something like "Often the anger and grief consume me so much that I can't function at all," then yeah, no, okay, disregard my comment, getting over that is a great goal. One place you could start: look into the concept of emotional flashbacks and see if any of that resonates.)
posted by nebulawindphone at 12:35 PM on August 31, 2021 [6 favorites]

A book recommendation: The Body Keeps Score by Bessel van der Kolk, which I think is complementary to the suggestions of touch therapy above. It talks about the physiological impacts of trauma, including childhood abuse, and how to release these from the body.

Something else you might consider is radical acceptance of these feelings. Try to really feel them and then let them go, a process that has to be repeated over and over. So really feel the anger and grief over what happened to you, feel that you have shame from that, accept that these feeling are ok and a normal response to what you experienced. When I was processing a different kind of trauma, I initially had a lot of resistance to my feelings about it. I thought I 'should' be over it and I wanted to be over it, which left me stuck in the feelings which kept coming back up even though I pushed them away. Really accepting the feelings is not a pleasant process, and frustrating when you think you're doing better, and then everything comes back again, as healing is non-linear. But it was the only way I found to have lasting peace.
posted by orchidee at 2:47 AM on September 1, 2021 [1 favorite]

Typing on phone so apologies.
In your question, there are many "I" statements, which is usually a good thing, because a lot of adults do not know how to use "I" statements to take ownership of their feelings. However, for all of your "I" statements, I sensed a deeper piece of blaming yourself. You're blaming yourself (/being judgmental) for all of these ' wasted years, lack of intimate relationships, poor mental health' etc. But I think _this_ should be reframed. *You are not to blame for what happened to you* -- no amount of poor mental health, lack of relationships of any kind of decisions around this/that/the other are your fault, especially because so much of your experience has been in some way tangentially tied to at first suppressing what happened and then internalizing that experience in such a way that a narrative around your own agency in this has been built/established that you're somehow guilty or bad for what's happened to you. And it's impacted virtually every part of your life, especially due to the shame. But it's NOT your fault, and while this instance of childhood sexual abuse was- to use your words- a freak accident to YOU, the child, it was not in fact a freak accident to the perpetrator-- who likely committed the incident with great intent. It's not your fault. It's NOT your fault. Any difficult feelings you have are also likewise NOT your fault. And no "wasted" time is your fault at all. None of this is your fault, and here you are, now, taking responsibility. Which is Good. It's not your fault, and yet you've been handed the unfair task of dealing with it being your responsibility. This is true for many other parts of life, for most other people-- it not their fault, it is their responsibility anyway. So now you are attending stewardship of your inner child, since we're all matroyshkis with our past selves nesting inside of us, and your inner child needs you to be present for them. This is the process of integration. You can work on this in somatic therapy/imaging as others have said.
I was also sexually abused (for 5 years as a child) & in a way, it feels like a freak accident for me as well, bc anytime you encounter a predator like this it really is completely random, even children who know the person who preys on them are randomly encountering this person since none of us ask which family to be born in to, which neighborhood, etc. You have more control now though. I honestly, truly, fully believe that if I can heal -- and I've healed quite a bit, although I am not sure what the future holds -- that you can heal. What happened to us what horrendous, an abomination on our souls. It's Good to acknowledge this. With each passing day, and it may not feel like this, that you work on this issue, you free yourself a little tiny bit more and that takes such temerity & bravery. In the past, you were doing your best, every single day of the past, and it got you here, and there is nothing wrong with that. I love you. Keep going. You are worth fighting for.
posted by erattacorrige at 6:16 AM on September 1, 2021 [2 favorites]

Seconding "The Body Keeps The Score", recommended above, and also here to mention EMDR therapy, which is proven to be effective for trauma processing. I did it for PTSD, and it worked fantastically well.
posted by greenish at 3:48 AM on September 10, 2021