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traumabrained · 4 years

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Warning: This post may be triggering and potentially controversial. This message is to CSA survivors of any age, in any stage of recovery.

If you were sexually abused as a child, and you enjoyed the experience in the moment, it does not mean you consented and it does not mean it wasn’t abuse. It does not mean you deserved it or that you don’t deserve to feel hurt or upset about it, even years after the fact.

We cannot control what physical stimuli does to us. Just like it’s not unheard of for rape victims to orgasm during the act. It feels shameful, like our bodies are betraying us. But it does NOT mean we consented to what was being done to us. It does NOT mean that feeling traumatized afterwards isn’t valid. It does NOT mean your anger, your sadness, your shame(You have nothing to be ashamed of, but I understand that thats a common feeling among survivors, myself included) are all valid.

I hated myself for years because I thought my abuse was a fun game, one that I looked forward to sometimes. But I was only 5, I didn’t understand what was happening or what was going on.

If you didn’t realize what happened was abuse until you were 30, you’re still valid and you have just as much of a right to grieve as anyone younger. Same as if you were 40, or 50, or 85. We all come to grips with abuse and heal on our own time.

If you miss your abuser(s) because they were close to you, whether through grooming, or family ties, or any combination of reasons, it still doesnt mean you aren’t allowed to be hurt.

So many of us were brainwashed by our abusers that missing them or feeling shame or having memories of “enjoying” it are all experiences that so many of us share. You’re not alone. You’re not bad. You didn’t deserve it and you DO deserve to grieve, and you DO deserve to heal. Period.

#good post op #i still. really fucking hate myself about it but ! good post #csa

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traumabrained · 5 years

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are you okay? i jjst want to know you’re safe?

sorry, yes i’m alive, i’ve just been going thru some stuff recently that hasnt really left me in any shape to give advice/answer messages about trauma stuff. i will answer everything as soon as i can.

#thank you for asking <3 #been like. openly suicidal on main and my friends are just ignoring it #which obviously they are allowed to do #but that along with everything else has left me feeling overall not so good #so. yeah. thank you for asking. not okay but alive/safe mostly.#i did also manage to leave my boyfriend if anyone was wondering #he only threatened to kill me a Little so its chill ig #think he might be stalking me but theres no way 2 kno if its just the hallucinations n paranoia or not so.#anonyme

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traumabrained · 5 years

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this isn’t urgent at all, i just wanna know but. when i was 11 i was forced into a room and touched but the person didn’t like... actually rape me and i was wondering if that counted as csa

yes, it counts. being touched like that is a violation, especially when you’re a child. i’m sorry that happened to you.

#csa #Anonymous

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traumabrained · 5 years

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How do I explain to someone why I have a relationship with my abusive mom? She was physically and emotionally abusive in the past but isn't now. Trigger warning for parental abuse

I mean, it’s your choice to forgive her or not, and thus it’s your choice to be around her, especially since she changed her behavior. it’s pretty normal to want to have a good relationship with one’s parents, and if she is loving and kind now, then that’s a good thing to have.

i guess i’d say something along those lines ?

#Anonymous

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traumabrained · 5 years

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Every single victim of abuse fought back in the beginning. Every single person reacted with pain, anger, retaliation, called the abuser out, fought back, tried every single way of defending themselves, showing the abuser they’re hurt and upset, trying to stop the abusive behavior. The reason they can’t do it anymore is because the abuser has punished and traumatized them every single time they tried to fight back. Fighting back has become forbidden, terrifying. Anger has became forbidden to feel, and instead bottled up and turned into self hatred. Even saying something against abuser’s wishes can feel as terrifying and provoking as if they’re asking to get tortured. Abusers will go as far as make victims sure they’ll be killed in an act of revenge if they dare to fight back. And they do this over and over again, until the victim’s survival instincts don’t allow them to fight back, until it’s not worth being disobedient if it means torture and end of life.

Think about that next time you want to blame someone for not standing up to their abuser and not running away. This person has been looking in the face of death entire time, and you did nothing to help them, but sided with their abuser. You sided up with a monster so despicable they trapped a person and keep hurting them over and over, for their benefit, making their life miserable torture, and you found it easier to turn on the victim. That is cowardice. If you don’t know how being trapped in abuse feels, you should never make comments on it.

#ptsd #abuse

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traumabrained · 5 years

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to everyone who’s first experience being touched sexually was abuse or r*pe: that was not your virginity. your virginity is something you give consensually and something that is your choice. it is not something that can be stolen, only given by choice.

ok to reblog

#ptsd #csa #rape

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traumabrained · 5 years

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Advice please (asked by the mod) possible tw for abuse and csa

I know this is supposed to be a trauma advice kind of blog but I'm incapable of being objective about my own situation I guess, and I was wondering what this sounds like to y'all (all about my boyfriend, he knows I've been in abusive relationships before, and he knows some about what my parents did and some about the csa)

If he tries to touch me and I flinch away he gets mad and tries to touch me even more forcefully

If I ask him not to do something (like, out me to his friends) he agrees but then does it anyway and says he can't be blamed for doing it anyway because it was stupid of me to ask in the first place

If I tell him no to something (anything at all) he will just keep asking over and over and over and ignore what I say

If I try to get up for any reason (to have a cigarette or let the cat in for example) he will hold me in place, sometimes kind of tightly around the throat, until I agree to give him something for letting me leave (usually a kiss or a promise to go visit him on a day I already said I couldn't)

He won't stop telling me to grow out my hair so he can grab it, even after I hold him I shave it specifically because people have held me by my hair and r*ped me in the past

He broke up with me several months ago before he asked to get back together again and now wherever it comes up his story on why he dumped me changes a little more to being my fault every time he tells it

He texted me a week after we got back together asking if we could be poly, I said okay, he started dating this girl who broke up with him pretty quickly, then he told me later that he was surprised I agreed at all, and when I said why would he ask at all if he was so sure I wouldn't be okay with it, he said he was just curious, and he didn't even have anyone in mind to date (even though at the time he said he did ?)

He keeps playing little mind games like that, yesterday he texted saying he might move to Georgia to get a fresh start, and then when he wasn't happy how I answered (very noncommittal because I was confused and wasn't sure if he was actually considering this) he got really short and angry with me

I think he stole my phone to make me go back to his place much sooner than I actually had time to do, but I don't really have any proof

He takes my stuff a lot just in general but usually gives it back if I kiss him

Multiple times now when I talked about csa things happening to me (usually in an attempt to make him stop touching me because it was triggering as shit) he got visibly hard

He says a lot of things to me that are insulting and sometimes feel cruel, but I can't tell if he knows he's making me feel bad or not ?

When he gets mad he doesn't hurt me but he talks about how much he WANTS to, instead. We got in a fight about 2 months into our relationship, on the train, because he wanted me to meet his family in 20 minutes and he hadn't said anything about it earlier and it was Valentine's day and I'd had a really bad nightmare so I was pretty fucked up (I told him that when I first got on the train) and I said I couldn't handle meeting his family today, and he told me he wanted to slam my head into the train car wall until I died

I don't know there's more but I'm having a hard time typing

Does any of this sound actually, abusive. A couple people said it "raised red flags" but lots of things sound sketchy when they're not . We've been dating since very late November last year, plus I think 2-3 months in the middle when he broke up with me. And at first other than asking over and over for me to date him, he was nice ? Now I'm kind of terrified to be around him and I don't want to date him anymore but I'm scared what he'll do if I break up with him.

He's never actually hit me but I'm scared he will because he talks about hitting me and also many other people, all the time. And last time we broke up, when he dumped me, he said a lot of stuff about how nobody else was gonna love me, just him, and he wouldn't love me either unless I changed, and honestly I don't wanna hear that again . I did try changing but some things about me are due to severe social anxiety and ptsd and I can't really change them, I tried and it still wasn't good enough

Anyway my question is , do I feel this bad because the last abusive relationship I was in fucked me up or do I feel this bad because of him ??? Please help

#actuallyptsd #csa #abuse #ptsd

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traumabrained · 5 years

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SEMI URGENT? TW? Was this CSA? I remember someone coming in my room and standing next to me and moving their hand up. I think they placed their hand There(still on clothing) and then walked away when they saw I was awake. I have doubts but I’m sure this happened. I feel a connection to CSA survivors and I didn’t wanna falsely call myself one. Was this csa? What if they didn’t mean to hurt me? What if it was an accident? What if it didn’t happen? Ah repressed memories.

(little bit of a warning, im not the alter that usually answers these and i can be a little too frank and insensitive, i’ve been told. so, i’m not angry and i’m not trying to make you feel bad. just to put that out there)

this is going to be a subjective answer, but: i don’t think that instance was, by itself, csa. however, i strongly feel that it indicates other, more severe things were done to you by them.

i can’t imagine an adult who would do what you described, would only go that far and no further, especially since they only stopped when they realized you were awake (that in itself indicates that if you weren’t awake . they would have gone further. that they were planning on going further.).

as for your other questions:

1) it’s not possible for an adult to molest or rape a kid, on accident. it’s not possible for them to do that and not mean to cause harm. they hurt you and they meant to hurt you, and that’s incredibly hard to process sometimes

2) this is a little bit of an anecdote, but. for a long time i only had this one memory of something bad. and it wasn’t outright csa, but it hinted at a larger, more traumatic series of events. and i would grasp on to that memory, and switch between feeling like “this happened i just know it happened i can feel that it happened” and “i must have made it up, having this one isolated memory and nothing else must mean that i made the whole thing up”.

eventually, more bad things happened to me, and those kind of triggered this outpour of old memories. in the grand scheme of my childhood trauma, that memory that i clung to was exactly what i thought it was--not nearly as severe as most other things that happened, but a situation that wouldn’t have occurred if i wasn’t living with a pedophile.

what i mean by all of this is, what you’ve said is something i strongly relate to as a csa victim, and i believe you when you say that it happened and i believe you when you say you feel like you have repressed memories surrounding it. i know its terrifying and frustrating to only have that one memory. i’m sorry it happened to you. you didn’t deserve it.

#csa #tw #anonyme

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traumabrained · 5 years

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I really wish there were those "are you in an abusive relationship" checklists for people who have been abused before because questions like "do you feel unsafe around them?", "do you feel constantly criticized by them?", "do they talk over you on important issues and ignore your wishes?" are utterly useless to me right now. I feel unsafe around everyone, all the time, as a side effect of previous abuse. I read into everything way too much as an attempt to predict my abuser's bad moods, so now when someone says something even slightly thoughtless to me I have a very quiet breakdown because I'm terrified and certain that im about to be abused. and I never vocalize my needs or wants because they were considered utterly trivial by past abusers, so I refuse to tell my current partner what I need for fear of being mocked.

#actuallyptsd #ptsd #abusive relationship #honestly I can't tell if he's abusing me or working up to abusing me or what. I FEEL like I'm being abused.#but that could be a false alarm. like how I FEEL like I'm in danger all the time. I feel that way cause I have ptsd #but sometimes I am actually in danger #it's the same thing here.#I wouldn't leave him even if I was sure he was abusing me because. what's the point honestly. but I need to fucking know.

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traumabrained · 5 years

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#ptsd #cptsd #info #i tend to use ptsd to talk about both but they are of course not the exact same thing

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traumabrained · 5 years

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How do you know if you were in an emotional and verbal abusive relationship ?

here’s a good article that may be helpful for you: https://www.healthline.com/health/signs-of-mental-abuse#control-and-shame

but in general

if they make you feel bad/stupid/wrong/crazy

if you feel like you have to justify normal things to them

if you dread seeing them

if you stayed with them/put off ending the relationship because you believed no-one else would be able to love you because you’re such a burden

if they constantly make you feel like YOU’RE the one who did something wrong, like you’re defective, like you’re lesser, like you’re constantly fucking everything up

if they try to control your life (either secretly, by breaking into your phone/laptop/etc, or openly, by always demanding to know where you are, who you’re with, or telling you that you’re not allowed to see those people/do that thing/go that place anymore)

if they make you feel like a child, or someone incapable of making decisions for yourself

if they threaten you (to hurt you, or to hurt themselves, or to leave you) to get what they want

if they make their jealousy your problem (demanding that you spend all your time with them, telling you that they feel like you dont love them because you have friendships with people other than them)

if they ignore your concerns, or refuse to listen to you on subjects that are important to you or your wellbeing

if they act like you have nothing important to say, like your job is less important, like your time is worth less than theirs, like you’re less of a person than they are

then they are probably emotionally abusing you.

#emotional abuse #info #ptsd #anonyme

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traumabrained · 5 years

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(URGENT) Sibling abuse survivor here. My abusive older ex-brother (whom I've gone No Contact with for two years for abusing and trying to murder (and even rape) me) came over for what seemed like the holidays last month and then last week, he lost his job, so he's staying for another month or so. I'm really terrified for my safety and now I might have to cut him out again as soon as he finds another job. What do I do? Any advice or suggestions? Thank you in advance!

are you living with your parents right now, or did he show up at your place? because if you live alone, i would kick him out immediately and change the locks if he got access to a key.

if you’re living with your parents... just try to stay away from him as much as possible, maybe ask a friend if you can stay over pretty frequently until he leaves, so that you can have somewhere safe to sleep.

either way, you don’t owe him a single thing. if you do anything for him, it should be in the interest of your own safety. you dont owe him shelter, or help, or money, or politeness. he abused you. you’re no longer obligated to do a single thing for him.

i hope he goes away quickly for your sake. i wish i had better advice.

#thedepressedweasel

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traumabrained · 5 years

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TW: abuse, spanking, csa. I'm not the anon who asked the question about being naked, but I was wondering if that applied to spanking? Like I was spanked a lot as a child and in order to do it, my dad would make me take off my pants and my underwear and my shirt and would make me pick out a wooden spoon and he would spank me naked, but only with just the two of us in the room. He sexually abused me in other ways, but I have always wondered if that's normal for spanking.

no, “normal” spanking is always fully clothed. its pretty impossible to claim you’re “doing normal discipline” when you’re making them strip first.

the fact that he made sure you were alone when this happened is unsurprising, as is the fact that was a sexual abuser.

#csa #child abuse #anonyme

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traumabrained · 5 years

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Is it possible to have CSA symptoms from being beaten while naked when you’re younger?

i would imagine so, yes. i’d also like to put forth that any adult capable of beating a naked child is probably a pedophile, and not just a child abuser. so while you may have csa symptoms from the physical abuse, it could also be that whoever did that to you, did other things as well. im so sorry you were beaten like that, it sounds awful. you didn’t deserve it.

#physical abuse #child abuse #csa #anonyme

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traumabrained · 5 years

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(semi urgent) hi, im worried abt some things. that i did and dont know if they mean theres a possibility of former csa. in 6th grade when my sister left for college i convinced myself she was going to teach me to suck off my dad (for no reason). in 3rd grade i used to imagine myself in humiliating sexual scenes, in 5th grade or so i watched porn most days. ik most of these arent normal but i dont know how abnormal they are. thank you so much for this and your blog.

(sorry an addition to the semi urgent csa thing) i absolutely cant stand or think about penetration, even now that im older. other things are fine just not that. i cant even make myself use tampons.

this definitely all points to csa. i couldn’t tell you if exposure to porn is the cause (you said you watched it in 5th grade but is it possible you saw some before that, in 3rd grade?) or if you were assaulted prior to the porn. they’re very abnormal things for children that aren’t victims of csa to do, but pretty normal for children who are.

your addition is very likely related as well, and i’d say it probably points to assault more than it points to porn.

im sorry you had to go through any of this.

#csa #anonyme

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traumabrained · 5 years

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*Kind of Urgent* I have therapy soon and I have been thinking of telling my therapist about the cocsa I experienced when I was younger, but I'm scared they will tell my parent. I also don't want to talk about all of it because it makes me feel very gross. I'm not sure what to do. (I was scared to put urgent, but my therapy appointment is soon)

to preface, i am not a therapist, though i have been to many therapists and been in a similar situation to yours, and have also extensively researched this. however, this is still just advice from someone with similar experience.

if you’re an adult, they legally cant and wont tell your parents anything, though they can bring certain information to the authorities (ONLY if they believe you are going to hurt yourself OR others, OR if you tell them about assault which occurred at the hands of someone who is frequently in contact with children, such as a pediatrician or a teacher. legally, they have to report that for the safety of the children who are still around the predator.)

if you’re a minor, however, things can be more complicated. as a minor, you cant actually consent to receiving therapy, so your parents have consented for you. therefor, according to the law, your parents have the right to know what exactly your therapist is treating you for. if they’re a good therapist, they will be vague enough to allow you your privacy while still answering your parents questions--for example, if they are treating you for ptsd, they may tell your parents they are treating you for stress, and refuse to specify further.

what im saying is, it depends on how good your therapist is, and whether or not you are a minor.

unfortunately, therapists are also mandated reporters, so if you are being actively abused by your parent, and you are a minor, they are obligated to inform child protective services. if you were abused by a parent, but aren’t any more, its more of a gray area, but they will likely still inform child protective services. if you were abused by someone who is not your parents (and in this case, it sounds like it was another child), then they are NOT obligated to inform child protective services, simply because CPS doesnt give a damn in that situation.

if you want to try to test the waters, you can present your therapist with a hypothetical situation that is very similar to your own, to see how they react. example:

patient: if your patient told you that they were abused by another child, how would you react?

then, if the therapist starts getting cagey, or says something like “i’d have to tell your parents” or, god forbid, “children can’t be abused by another child”, then you would know its not safe to tell them.

if your therapist says something like “well, were you?” then respond that you want to know the answer to the question you just asked.

since a therapist wont inform authorities or your parents over things that they have no way of confirming as true, this is generally a safe play, so long as you clearly say that its a hypothetical situation.

im sorry theres so many hoops you may have to jump through, its a very unfortunate aspect of therapy, and it frequently hinders or prevents the treatment of abused kids, simply because the kids are afraid (for good reason) of their parents finding out.

as for whether or not you should tell your therapist (because you don’t want to because it makes you feel gross), i cant really answer that. all i can say is, the fact that you’re asking at all means some part of you probably does want to tell someone, despite knowing how it will make you feel.

i hope your session goes well, whether you decide to tell them or not.

also, this is a perfectly fine use of the “urgent” tag, dont worry

#cocsa #therapy #anonyme

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traumabrained · 5 years

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Why is this even a question? How is your child meant to learn to apologize when you don’t do it yourself as a parent?

#my parents have never given me a real apology in my life.#consequently my own apologies up until I was like 17 was saying sorry over and over and trying to act as submissive and small as possible #because that's what placated them when I fucked up #but obviously that's just gonna make non abusive people upset and is not in fact a real apology #I'm working on them and trying to learn to give sincere apologies like the ones above #but like. yikes lmao #if you've wronged someone you need to apologize to them. there aren't very many exceptions to that rule at all

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