How do I begin to rebuild relationships?
November 22, 2019 7:56 AM Subscribe
TW: DOMESTIC VIOLENCE AND SEXUAL ABUSE
I have burned so many bridges because I cannot intimately trust people and frequently imagined hypersexualised and hyperviolent scenarios playing out where I am unable to stop the abuse I am experiencing. I am now in therapy and want to start the process of healing relationships I care about. Unfortunately, my counsellor does not have a lot of ideas on how to do this. Can you help?
My company finally began to take sexual harassment seriously after an employee made a disclosure to me that I was not prepared to receive and did not know what to do with. It has been a devastating series of events but I have reconciled with the employee and my staff and other managers. We learned how out of depth we all were but I was still captivated in my head and I needed to seek support, which unfortunately my health plan did not cover. Having done this, I went on my way. I was lucky to have the support of my spouse and I have been completely open with her about what I am moving through.
Last month, I attended a sexual harassment training day. The training was interesting because although it looked at workplace primarily, it also discussed grooming practices and how far from fleeing or fighting, most people, even men, freeze, flop or friend at the moment of abuse or violence.
I experienced domestic violence as a child and had thought I had been helped to move past it. My disability in creating long term relationships is seen as a sad fact because I am considered such an interesting person for my career success and my sense of humor. I am regularly invited to events and do go, but I cannot seem to form bonds that allow me to be alone with a man outside of a professional setting. Men never hurt me in my youth, only women. By the time I was 12 the sexual abuse began I was at a very low point in my life. I had lost all interest in school or personal activities outside of things that would move me away from the people who seemed to be attracted to hitting me. Honestly, adults don't care about adult violence against children if no one goes to hospital or jail. I was regularly offered trust by adults who promised they could work out why a bright person was falling behind and they would immediately report the situation to the offenders.
In middle school, I made a friend who over the course of a year, coerced me into a position where he could take advantage of everything that was going wrong in my life. He made me the victim of peer-on-peer sexual abuse, keeping me in a binding secret blackmail that his parents were oblivious to, even when I made attempts to call out the boy in front of them and other adults. I had nothing left to lose by calling him out because I did feel victimised but the level at which adults could not take time to see my desperation to be listened to most likely made me normalise and cope with the abuse because I had no way to escape it at the time. When I did escape, his and my parents openly wondered why we never spent time together anymore. I met a kid and a family who didn't think about sex or violence, never talked about it. I could be kid.
Sitting at the training and have this wave of shock roll over me was such a physical reaction that I left the room. I did not know that another person was in the room who followed me out and offered me support.
In the eyes of my employers, they see something has changed in me. I am still a very long way from finishing counselling. It is a very hard experience because I am dealing with DV and SA at the same time. Just changing is very hard in my community. I have realised I worked on a lot of meaningful things but left them because I did not inherently feel safe. I now know it was not my fault for feeling as I did. Wearing my heart on my sleeve about the value of safe places was a coping strategy about ensuring what happened to me would not befall someone else. However, it was incomplete. It was incomplete because I could not be there, because I could never feel safe enough to let down my guard.
Because my abuser was gay, I felt I had to be gay. Then when I was given the opportunity to finally have consensual sex with women and talked about my past experience, I would be told I am "just bisexual". Now I know that there are no red flags, people bring their own judgement to every situation. Now I know the arousal I experienced was natural and nothing could be done about it. I also see that this man is as haunted by the experience as I am. He is unable to form relationships with men and relies on his wealth to maintain his social position. I am not sure if he realises he abused me, but I am certain that he may have experienced abuse and feel a strong need to give him the tools to make a choice and seek support.
I am discovering just how much I have been affected by the duality of violence and abuse. My desire to not make friends or even industry colleagues on a face-to-face basis is focused on not getting into the position to be further victimised. It would be a mental health issue if I were disassociating reality. I am pleased to know I am not. It has made me a stranger in my own life, looking out at projects I announced with good intentions, even did well with, and then left often out of blue or on the back of self-destructive behavior I would work to keep completely to myself. It was this week I realised I had made the powerful personal choice of believing I only deserved my own company. It has been overwhelming and physically painful to go through the process but I am excited to move past my trauma after 25 years.
I have about 600 people I need to reach out to in due time. I am unsure I want to be a public survivor. I may not have the choice. I appreciate any and all advice.
My company finally began to take sexual harassment seriously after an employee made a disclosure to me that I was not prepared to receive and did not know what to do with. It has been a devastating series of events but I have reconciled with the employee and my staff and other managers. We learned how out of depth we all were but I was still captivated in my head and I needed to seek support, which unfortunately my health plan did not cover. Having done this, I went on my way. I was lucky to have the support of my spouse and I have been completely open with her about what I am moving through.
Last month, I attended a sexual harassment training day. The training was interesting because although it looked at workplace primarily, it also discussed grooming practices and how far from fleeing or fighting, most people, even men, freeze, flop or friend at the moment of abuse or violence.
I experienced domestic violence as a child and had thought I had been helped to move past it. My disability in creating long term relationships is seen as a sad fact because I am considered such an interesting person for my career success and my sense of humor. I am regularly invited to events and do go, but I cannot seem to form bonds that allow me to be alone with a man outside of a professional setting. Men never hurt me in my youth, only women. By the time I was 12 the sexual abuse began I was at a very low point in my life. I had lost all interest in school or personal activities outside of things that would move me away from the people who seemed to be attracted to hitting me. Honestly, adults don't care about adult violence against children if no one goes to hospital or jail. I was regularly offered trust by adults who promised they could work out why a bright person was falling behind and they would immediately report the situation to the offenders.
In middle school, I made a friend who over the course of a year, coerced me into a position where he could take advantage of everything that was going wrong in my life. He made me the victim of peer-on-peer sexual abuse, keeping me in a binding secret blackmail that his parents were oblivious to, even when I made attempts to call out the boy in front of them and other adults. I had nothing left to lose by calling him out because I did feel victimised but the level at which adults could not take time to see my desperation to be listened to most likely made me normalise and cope with the abuse because I had no way to escape it at the time. When I did escape, his and my parents openly wondered why we never spent time together anymore. I met a kid and a family who didn't think about sex or violence, never talked about it. I could be kid.
Sitting at the training and have this wave of shock roll over me was such a physical reaction that I left the room. I did not know that another person was in the room who followed me out and offered me support.
In the eyes of my employers, they see something has changed in me. I am still a very long way from finishing counselling. It is a very hard experience because I am dealing with DV and SA at the same time. Just changing is very hard in my community. I have realised I worked on a lot of meaningful things but left them because I did not inherently feel safe. I now know it was not my fault for feeling as I did. Wearing my heart on my sleeve about the value of safe places was a coping strategy about ensuring what happened to me would not befall someone else. However, it was incomplete. It was incomplete because I could not be there, because I could never feel safe enough to let down my guard.
Because my abuser was gay, I felt I had to be gay. Then when I was given the opportunity to finally have consensual sex with women and talked about my past experience, I would be told I am "just bisexual". Now I know that there are no red flags, people bring their own judgement to every situation. Now I know the arousal I experienced was natural and nothing could be done about it. I also see that this man is as haunted by the experience as I am. He is unable to form relationships with men and relies on his wealth to maintain his social position. I am not sure if he realises he abused me, but I am certain that he may have experienced abuse and feel a strong need to give him the tools to make a choice and seek support.
I am discovering just how much I have been affected by the duality of violence and abuse. My desire to not make friends or even industry colleagues on a face-to-face basis is focused on not getting into the position to be further victimised. It would be a mental health issue if I were disassociating reality. I am pleased to know I am not. It has made me a stranger in my own life, looking out at projects I announced with good intentions, even did well with, and then left often out of blue or on the back of self-destructive behavior I would work to keep completely to myself. It was this week I realised I had made the powerful personal choice of believing I only deserved my own company. It has been overwhelming and physically painful to go through the process but I am excited to move past my trauma after 25 years.
I have about 600 people I need to reach out to in due time. I am unsure I want to be a public survivor. I may not have the choice. I appreciate any and all advice.
The fact that there are 600 people you feel like you should be emotionally closer to confuses me a bit. I don't have a ton of advice, but since it sounds like this is still about getting you to feel comfortable with emotional and slight physical vulnerability--or even to improve your skills at accurately assessing vulnerability--I'd suggest picking a couple of people you'd like to improve your relationships with. Don't bring this anywhere near work contacts yet; pick people for whom you feel trust and talk to your therapist specifically about what you think closeness would feel like, how you think your current relationship doesn't match that, and see if the therapist has any advice on that more specific goal.
I would say that you want to have a support network of people you feel comfortable with on your team before you make any of your struggles "public." Then you can move at a pace that feels more right to you.
I'm sorry you've had these experiences, but I'm glad for you that you're working so hard on them and seeking help. Good luck.
posted by gideonfrog at 12:25 PM on November 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
I would say that you want to have a support network of people you feel comfortable with on your team before you make any of your struggles "public." Then you can move at a pace that feels more right to you.
I'm sorry you've had these experiences, but I'm glad for you that you're working so hard on them and seeking help. Good luck.
posted by gideonfrog at 12:25 PM on November 22, 2019 [1 favorite]
I have found that many abuse survivors who are actively working on healing go through a secrecy period of not wanting to tell anyone, followed by a reactive period of wanting to tell THE WHOLE WORLD RIGHT NOW, followed by a more integrated balanced period where they don't feel they have to keep it secret but they also recognize that not everyone has the right to that information, and so they can make more rational choices about what, if anything, to disclose to whom.
Especially if you're near the beginning of your therapy work, any impulse you might have to TELL THE WHOLE WORLD is likely coming from a healthy place of wanting to get out of the toxic secrecy that abuse can impose, but is also likely an unhealthy action if followed through. That is, the feeling of being "over" the secrecy is a good sign, and you don't have to take any irrevocable action right now based on that feeling; you can just sit with it for a while and decide what to do when you're further along in your healing process.
posted by lazuli at 2:04 PM on November 22, 2019 [10 favorites]
Especially if you're near the beginning of your therapy work, any impulse you might have to TELL THE WHOLE WORLD is likely coming from a healthy place of wanting to get out of the toxic secrecy that abuse can impose, but is also likely an unhealthy action if followed through. That is, the feeling of being "over" the secrecy is a good sign, and you don't have to take any irrevocable action right now based on that feeling; you can just sit with it for a while and decide what to do when you're further along in your healing process.
posted by lazuli at 2:04 PM on November 22, 2019 [10 favorites]
I'm sorry for everything you have been through. It was wrong, it was not your fault, and you deserved to be safe, respected, and raised with genuine love.
I want to ask: how have you burned these bridges? You say you would like to rebuild the relationships but your post does not say how you unbuilt them in the first place? Without knowing that, our responses cn only be vague.
Survivors of abuse often isolate them(our)selves and cut people out of their (our) lives to a rationally unnecessary but emotionally necessary degree. Is that what you're trying to get past? If so, pick one or two people whom you miss the most - PERSONAL connections, not professional - and reach out to them in a low-stakes way, such as an email or a facebook message. You might be surprised to find that they are receptive to you coming out of your shell. You'll need to work with your therapist about how specifically to approach each individual that you wish to reconnect with. No therapist can possibly give you a mass strategy to use on everyone at once.
Survivors also sometimes drive people away by hurting them - angry verbal attacks, hurtful comments, threatening behavior, or physical violence. We get triggered, and then lash out from a place of fear and anger. If this is the reason your bridges have been burned, then your journey will be very different: more about apologies and making amends than rebuilding the connection, at least at first.
Regardless of what the reason was for the burned bridges, you probably need to first accept that rebuilding the connections is contingent on the other person also responding to your overtures or apologies. It's harsh and unfair that the consequences of your abuse might still play out for the rest of your life in the form of relationships that are indeed lost forever. It's painful. Therapy can help you do some of this acceptance work now and throughout your process of multiple reconciliations.
posted by MiraK at 2:24 PM on November 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
I want to ask: how have you burned these bridges? You say you would like to rebuild the relationships but your post does not say how you unbuilt them in the first place? Without knowing that, our responses cn only be vague.
Survivors of abuse often isolate them(our)selves and cut people out of their (our) lives to a rationally unnecessary but emotionally necessary degree. Is that what you're trying to get past? If so, pick one or two people whom you miss the most - PERSONAL connections, not professional - and reach out to them in a low-stakes way, such as an email or a facebook message. You might be surprised to find that they are receptive to you coming out of your shell. You'll need to work with your therapist about how specifically to approach each individual that you wish to reconnect with. No therapist can possibly give you a mass strategy to use on everyone at once.
Survivors also sometimes drive people away by hurting them - angry verbal attacks, hurtful comments, threatening behavior, or physical violence. We get triggered, and then lash out from a place of fear and anger. If this is the reason your bridges have been burned, then your journey will be very different: more about apologies and making amends than rebuilding the connection, at least at first.
Regardless of what the reason was for the burned bridges, you probably need to first accept that rebuilding the connections is contingent on the other person also responding to your overtures or apologies. It's harsh and unfair that the consequences of your abuse might still play out for the rest of your life in the form of relationships that are indeed lost forever. It's painful. Therapy can help you do some of this acceptance work now and throughout your process of multiple reconciliations.
posted by MiraK at 2:24 PM on November 22, 2019 [2 favorites]
This thread is closed to new comments.
RAINN | The nation's largest anti-sexual violence organization https://www.rainn.org
posted by mareli at 11:01 AM on November 22, 2019 [1 favorite]