Sexual abuse
The following are quotes from people (‘journeyers') telling me their wound stories - they have been modified if needed to protect the identities of the journeyers. Please have a care, as these can be triggering - especially if you have similar or related inner wounds.
I was nine or ten when he would drag me into the outhouse. It was dark, and he would push me on the ground and get up on top of me and be fumbling in my pants. I kind of had an out-of-body situation in which I would just freeze. I would know it was over by his body movements, and the sounds he would make that he was finished. This happened on numerous occasions. He grabbed me and shook me and said, “If you tell anybody, I’ll fuckin’ kill you.” These incidents were so traumatic that I just put up a wall — “that didn’t happen.” When I was a seventeen, I had no memories of the abuse, but I never enjoyed sex. I felt pressure to have sex, with me just doing it to suit them. Memories of thinking, “just let it be over.” I never orgasmed with a man ever.
He looked at me in a way that is not appropriate for a father. I felt so ashamed. Once he touched me between my legs in a way that was not okay. I couldn’t protect myself against it. My whole body was frozen. I couldn’t say no. Embarrassed, uncomfortable, helpless.
There was this man who was interested in me. I was so needy, needing love. He wanted to have sex with me, and I was not able to say no. I felt so misused. I was asking for love, and there was just this being used. A few weeks later he went away, and I never saw him again.
In college, I woke up with my clothes on backward and inside out, very distraught. I knew I was raped; my body felt the rape. I went to tell my college counselor, but I was treated like I was a dirty whore and was told that I was asking for it. This crushed me. The school authorities completely destroyed my reputation; they violated me more than the rapist did. The cops treated me like this too. They blamed me for being in the bar and getting drunk, but perhaps in my naivety, I did not see this as an invitation to drug and rape me.
A frequent consequence of sexual abuse is a relatively permanent association of sex as something dirty and shameful. This can be exacerbated if there was involuntary sexual pleasure, as in the following examples.
Around age eleven, I was asleep, and I began to have this wonderful feeling all over my body. It was a dream, but then it wasn’t. I woke up and found that my father was giving me oral sex. I was horrified. This continued for years. He told me to never tell anybody. I thought it was my fault because I liked how it felt. Later in life, I could not enjoy making love, because I thought it was dirty and wrong.
I just remember lying in bed with my stepfather, with my mother sleeping on the other side. He’s touching me. Sometimes I was pretending I was sleeping as he touched me. He would touch me, and it would feel good. I knew something wrong was happening, and I knew it was my fault. I really don’t know how long it was going on for. I was scared, embarrassed, and ashamed. I remember asking him not to push further, because he was going to have intercourse with me, but he did anyway. I was ten years old. I didn’t get what was happening at first. I found out when I had severe bleeding that wouldn’t stop, and I was hospitalized. The doctor said that I had a miscarriage, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. I stayed in the hospital for two weeks. I had a diary where I was writing down my experiences; my mom found it and began to call me names like cunt, whore, prostitute, bitch. When my mom started calling me names, I knew there was something wrong with me. At thirteen, I started drinking and smoking weed and being promiscuous.
Sometimes, if the wounding is sufficiently egregious, we block the whole experience out and don’t remember being abused, as the consequent wound stories enter our subconscious; however, we act them out whether or not we are aware of their existence. Probably the most common example of this is having been sexually abused and concluding in the subconscious that sex is dirty and shameful, blocking out the originating experience so that it is not present in the conscious mind; but, whenever we attempt to make love or have some other sexual experience, it is tainted by dirty and shameful feelings.
I was nine or ten when he would drag me into the outhouse. It was dark, and he would push me on the ground and get up on top of me and be fumbling in my pants. I kind of had an out-of-body situation in which I would just freeze. I would know it was over by his body movements, and the sounds he would make that he was finished. This happened on numerous occasions. He grabbed me and shook me and said, “If you tell anybody, I’ll fuckin’ kill you.” These incidents were so traumatic that I just put up a wall — “that didn’t happen.” When I was a seventeen, I had no memories of the abuse, but I never enjoyed sex. I felt pressure to have sex, with me just doing it to suit them. Memories of thinking, “just let it be over.” I never orgasmed with a man ever.
He looked at me in a way that is not appropriate for a father. I felt so ashamed. Once he touched me between my legs in a way that was not okay. I couldn’t protect myself against it. My whole body was frozen. I couldn’t say no. Embarrassed, uncomfortable, helpless.
There was this man who was interested in me. I was so needy, needing love. He wanted to have sex with me, and I was not able to say no. I felt so misused. I was asking for love, and there was just this being used. A few weeks later he went away, and I never saw him again.
In college, I woke up with my clothes on backward and inside out, very distraught. I knew I was raped; my body felt the rape. I went to tell my college counselor, but I was treated like I was a dirty whore and was told that I was asking for it. This crushed me. The school authorities completely destroyed my reputation; they violated me more than the rapist did. The cops treated me like this too. They blamed me for being in the bar and getting drunk, but perhaps in my naivety, I did not see this as an invitation to drug and rape me.
A frequent consequence of sexual abuse is a relatively permanent association of sex as something dirty and shameful. This can be exacerbated if there was involuntary sexual pleasure, as in the following examples.
Around age eleven, I was asleep, and I began to have this wonderful feeling all over my body. It was a dream, but then it wasn’t. I woke up and found that my father was giving me oral sex. I was horrified. This continued for years. He told me to never tell anybody. I thought it was my fault because I liked how it felt. Later in life, I could not enjoy making love, because I thought it was dirty and wrong.
I just remember lying in bed with my stepfather, with my mother sleeping on the other side. He’s touching me. Sometimes I was pretending I was sleeping as he touched me. He would touch me, and it would feel good. I knew something wrong was happening, and I knew it was my fault. I really don’t know how long it was going on for. I was scared, embarrassed, and ashamed. I remember asking him not to push further, because he was going to have intercourse with me, but he did anyway. I was ten years old. I didn’t get what was happening at first. I found out when I had severe bleeding that wouldn’t stop, and I was hospitalized. The doctor said that I had a miscarriage, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. I stayed in the hospital for two weeks. I had a diary where I was writing down my experiences; my mom found it and began to call me names like cunt, whore, prostitute, bitch. When my mom started calling me names, I knew there was something wrong with me. At thirteen, I started drinking and smoking weed and being promiscuous.
Sometimes, if the wounding is sufficiently egregious, we block the whole experience out and don’t remember being abused, as the consequent wound stories enter our subconscious; however, we act them out whether or not we are aware of their existence. Probably the most common example of this is having been sexually abused and concluding in the subconscious that sex is dirty and shameful, blocking out the originating experience so that it is not present in the conscious mind; but, whenever we attempt to make love or have some other sexual experience, it is tainted by dirty and shameful feelings.
