Posted by Racer on March 14, 2006, at 12:26:49
In reply to This was soooo wierd ***pos trigger****, posted by milly on March 14, 2006, at 10:35:26
That's something I can relate to: feeling as though the other person's feelings are more important than mine; not wanting to appear rude; and, in my case, not wanting to be embarrassed.
When I was a kid, on the bus I took to school, there was a man who used to come over to where I was standing, grasp the overhead bar on either side of me, and press up against me from behind. I knew what he was doing, I hated him doing it to me, it happened more than once, and I knew that I could yell out for the bus driver. You know why I didn't? I thought, if I did, the guy would totally deny it, he'd say that I was imagining things, the bus driver would believe him instead of me, and I'd be humiliated. (Looking back, wonder where I learned that reporting something like that wouldn't do me any good?) So, instead, I put up with it.
And that sort of thing escalates. Putting up with that man, I didn't learn to set physical boundaries enough to stop another man who followed me off another bus and assaulted me. (That time, I was on the way to a therapy appointment. The T told me, once I got there, that I must have been wrong. "You're 13 years old, you're just a child -- no one would sexually assault you. You only believe it because you're wicked." Very helpful.) And then, years later, was raped by an acquaintance, again because I couldn't stop things when I first became uncomfortable.
Milly, what you're describing is not all that uncommon. I read somewhere, don't remember where, that a study had shown more than half of all women over 25 had experienced unwanted sexual activity. Not necessarily rape, but sexual activity that they wanted to say no to, but didn't feel able to. More on the date rape scale, but still pretty damaging. You're not stupid, or wrong, or messed up -- you're a woman, and you've been socialized to "get along" with others. That does put you at risk -- but only because there are people out there who take advantage of that quality in you.
Remember: you didn't "get" raped. Someone raped you. Someone else did something bad to you. The more you can phrase it to yourself and others as something that someone else did, the less you call it something you did, the easier it will be for you. Yes, it's still nothing like easy -- especially because there's that feeling of helplessness, that someone did something to you. But it will be easier than blaming yourself.
Tell me, can you be angry at the man who raped you? Or are you turning much of that anger on yourself, for not protecting yourself? I ask that, no at all critically. I'm middle aged, and I still feel shame that I couldn't, at 11, fight off the man who molested me. And I still have a great deal of difficulty directing anger directly at the people responsible: him, for what he did, and my mother, for not protecting me. (In my case, I learned not to stop things earlier, because my mother saw problems, and didn't stop him. Even when I asked for her help, she just told me, 'Try not to react, and he'll give up.')
And I'm very sorry you're running towards the end with this T. What's the situation? Is it something that he can extend, maybe? Or can you get a good referral?
Good luck.
poster:Racer
thread:620167
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060312/msgs/620198.html