Was I abused & if so should I bring that up?

I'm not sure where to place this post.

So, this week in therapy I was really triggered whilst me and my T were discussing how I feel about myself. The majority of the time I'm disgusted by myself. After a tiring night of rituals yesterday (I have OCD), I've decided to post on here to see ifI can gain some clarity.

In short, I think I may have been abused as a young child. I am however not sure of this and just wanted to know whether the things I've experience/feeling are consistent with this and if so whether I should mention it to my T. I'm only a month into therapy with her and am not sure whether it's directly relevant, as she's treating me for ptsd related to bullying.

These are the reason I think I may have been abused:
* Lots of comments from close family members hinting that whilst my parents were away others may have done things.
*When I reached puberty I realised that my hymen was not intact.
*I find penetration really painful because I can't stop myself tensing up.
*After I orgasm I feel disgusted with myself.
*In order to even get to orgasm I have to do the most horrible things to myself in my head.
*All of me feels disgusting. I feel tainted and dirty and gross.
*Surely if I was abused (penetrated) as a child I'd remember that???

Could there be another reason for me to feel this way about myself?

I can never prove the abuse so should I stop obsessing? Is it even worth exploring?

I don't want to mislead my T and complicate things by bringing this issue to the table if it's not relevant.

I almost feel a fraud for feeling the way that I do, because the fact that I THINK that I may have been abused is not the issue, the issue is I FEEL as if I have been. I feel sick and disgusted and dizzy at the fact that people I trusted may have violated and controlled my little body in such a way. Words can not do this feeling justice. I feel like a part of me has been tarnished and tainted and I don't no how to fix it and make myself perfect.

I'm terrified about bringing it up at therapy because then she'll want to explore it, or assume that I want to. I don't no if I do. Can you heal from this without memories, or explicit exploration? I suppose regardless of abuse or not, I have a very unhealthy relationship with my sense of self and at the very least I should try and address that.

Any advice, guidance, anything would be really really appreciated. Thank you for reading.

MindfulMoment, it's very tough to offer advice on such a case and obviously the choice is yours. If it's on the back of your mind, you might want to explore it but it's best to explore it when you feel stable and safe and otherwise ready for it. Not that you would necessarily find sexual abuse in your past, you may not. And there may be other explanations for your hymen not being intact or your sense of disgust with yourself or difficulty of sexual nature. Btw, have you consulted a gyno about those issues?

Anyhow, but since there may indeed be sexual abuse in your past, it is important that you approach it carefully and step by step and not overwhelm yourself. Because the possibility exists and it will be quite tough emotionally, as is the case with most serious abuses from childhood. Most good therapist are aware of this so I doubt your T will force you to explore it (they are not allowed!) or push you too much. You can be clear about this with your T, that you may want to explore it but it's very sensitive and require great care. Most good Ts will respect that and work with when you're ready and at your own pace.

Good luck

no, you dont have to remember it for it to have taken place. our mind blocks out traumatic memories to protect us. but the feelings you describe are certainly important to talk about. there isa reason you are feeling them. i offer you a warning though. make sure your therapist understands abuse and can handle it or she may just brush it off as unimportant. that does not mean it isnt, it just means she cant handle it. t's have their own baggage. i spent 3 years with a t who kept brushing off my trauma everytime i brought up thoughts or feelings about my past. i felt very discounted. i started with a t that specializes in trauma this year. it has made a world of difference. i have been so validated. my old t didnt even have me diagnosed correctly. i was suffering so much anxiety and he would just say i was an anxious responder and had no coping skills for me. now that my trauma is being addressed i am nearly off meds for my anxiety. the right provider makes all the difference.

I think it is also important to be cautious if you decide to explore the topic with your therapist, simply because there is such a thing as False memory syndrome that can come with untangling ambiguous symptoms (the hymen, tensing up, etc can all be attributed to other gynecological issues) and not having any concrete memories associated with them (and I'm aware of repression, lest anyone feel spurred by my input). Sometimes therapists that aren't quite qualified to handle this kind of work accidentally "implant" imagery or otherwise in patient's heads and in doing that cause more problems than they solve.

Which I don't intend to say to invalidate you. Just something to be aware of.

Yes, I do think you can heal from it without having all the pieces. I wish you the best.

I agree with the above statement . I have c s a in my past and it's how I feel, and then some. Just as you described . I battle ptsd nightmares frequently.

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i found out, by my abuser no less, i was raped for 12 years as a child. i knew i was molested but i only remember 3 incidents. of course he uses the term "in a relationship for 12 years". i too used to feel disgusted after sex. i used to feel like a dirty piece of **** and that is what i deserved to feel like. and all kinds of negative emotions tied to sex. hey, some people need to know the truth to clear their mind. i was confused for years because of this abuse. i mean, years, possibly decades. i am barely getting a grip on who i am, i'm 27. because i didn't know what happened to me, it kept me ****ed up for a long time. i did drugs and all kinds of stupid **** because of it and put myself in horrible situations. so maybe for you, it is worth finding out. i know for me, it was. it helped me heal. idk.

Thank you for all of the responses guys. I think that maybe for now I'm going to stop obsessing about the possibility and instead focus on working on the way I feel about myself and how to better handle my emotions. I've decided that I'm not going to explain things to my T, but instead express to her how I'm feeling emotionally and hope that we can work on coping with those feeling, rather than exploring the past.

I'm glad that you were able to get closure. I wish I could have that sort of certainty, but I doubt the people I feel may have abused me would admit to it and I think if they did it would upturn many peoples lives, not just my own. I'm not much younger than you and have also tried to numb myself with drugs in the past. I think in many ways I am a lot happier now than I was in the past, but I have had a rough year, people I love have passed away, my ocd has deteriorated to the point where I've blinked and found it has insidiously robbed me of a life, people I love have moved away and left me and I suppose my all of my coping skills have gone out of the window and I'm just left with all of these horrible feelings from the past. Perhaps if I'd never entered therapy I would be none the wiser. last year I was so confident and happy and this year I'm just a broken mess, reliving the emotions from my past. Perhaps if I could get closure I could stop obsessing, who knows :/ Thank you for your reply.

I "upturned" everyone's life when I finally said something about what was going on. I don't give a fuxk, they all ruined my life up to that point. My story is foul. My abuser paid for me. And my parents were on drugs somewhere else. I was in custody with my delusional grandmother. She exchanged me for money to her husband and just played stupid for years. Then when I told her what was going on, I was called a liar and got thrown out. Then went through the foster system, which destroyed my life again. .....so fuxk it if you have to "upturn" people's life. This is YOUR sanity. Not theirs. I am not 100%, but I am totally over all that sexual abuse and am no longer triggered during or after sex. Anyway.... hope you are able to work through the healing process. Mine was rough, hang in there.

ps. My abuser still thinks we had a consentional relationship. I don't see his logic as I was 2 years old when it began.... but that's his issue now. Not mine anymore. Anyway, he never admitted anything to me really, or anyone else. He never did time in jail for his crimes and is currently living off a large lottery winning while I sit around collecting goverment checks, eating ramen noodles and renting an apartment. It's funny how life works out....

From what I read here, most T's deal with the everyday stuff first, and clear the junk out a bit, so to speak, before giving you skills to cope with things, and then they can dig a bit further. This made me realise why my T said the timing was a bit screwed up to start now, but I was relieved to put it on hold. I'm doing some constructive homework at the moment and it is helping. The anxiety that I'm going to feel later on is way bigger than the anxiety I cope with at the moment, so if I can manage small anxieties, then I can manage bigger ones later on. I hope that made sense. I didn't want to trigger anyone by saying that T's don't dive into trauma work straight away, it's a slow process.

You can feel all of these things and it is possible that it isn't abuse either.

I struggle with not exactly knowing what happened to me, I was so young. I may never have closure on this, but I'm learning to be ok with it.

Thank you for your response. I suppose there's a part of me who just wants to get over this now and feel better. The thought that this may haunt me my whole life terrifies me. I don't want to stay in therapy forever. I never even intended on coming back after the second round of therapy, now here I am again. I've decided that this will be the last round of therapy for me and I don't want it to last longer than 6 months. Wish there was a quick way to get over these feelings .

I'm sorry that you also don't know what happened. How are you going about learning to be okay with it? I really need some prescriptive guidance. x

Funny...or sad...but anyhow, reminds me of my own struggle, therapy has lasted much longer than I wanted or anticipated.

Which is my advice to everybody, don't go for therapy if you don't have to. It can be very painful, costly, and very involved. Dare I say it can also be "addictive"?

For me therapy was the last resort. Sometimes other methods don't work so we go for therapy. But if you have to, then you go and do the best you can to get your problem fixed or learn how to manage it. Because what is the alternative, living with a constant nagging pain that disrupts your life constantly? That stops you from moving on?

So I fought it but in my case my pain would not improve in other methods so I went for therapy and several attempts and it took several years and several therapists, some incompetent, some competent. And it was painful, and sometimes quite nice and enjoyable...and then painful again...and so on. But the alternative was worse.

Thank you Partless. I think therapy has been pretty much my last resort. I literally tried everything I could on my own. Still haven't tried medication because I feel that will become yet another revolving door. I'm honestly going to try and make this it for therapy though. Need to learn enough coping skills to manage my life and use my support network effectively, without the use of a therapist. I'm determined.

It's like my first therapist told me over 21 years ago ...

The only way around it is through it!

Don't distress that so much for now though.

It will always be there waiting for you to address it.

And, when you're ready you will know.

Slow and steady definitely wins the race on this one!

For Sure!

With main T, I have explored the possibilities of what it could mean. Symptoms can be eradicated without fully understanding the actual cause. Sometimes I think it can be the meaning you assign to something that brings it importance.
And I don't mean to minimize any CSA experiences.

It is hard for me to explain, but if you have ever seen HBO's In Treatment, the T Paul on the show counsels a young girl who seems to have all the red flags of abuse. Yet not all is as it seems. Your experience is no less valid if you did NOT experience abuse--lots of other situations can bring you to a similar place.

I wish I had a better illustration.

OK for example---*trigger warning




My main T thinks that a medical procedure that I had as a kid was poorly handled and left me traumatized. He thinks it is possible that the event felt like an actual rape due to my young age.

So I have other fuzzy memories that worry me, but it could be this medical debacle that recorded "rape" in my brain, and I am having a crossed-wires issue.

Thanks growlycat. I'm sorry to hear about your experience, but it does give me some comfort to know that not all may be what it seems. I think I just have trouble letting the thoughts go, firstly because there are so many red flag and secondly because my ocd demands that I have certainty about the issue and because I can't find it I'm just repeating myself hoping to get it.

TRIGGER WARNING......

I just wanted to point out one thing, for people who might not know, but you can lose your hymen in ways other than sex/penetration. Just incase someone finds that out about themselves and suddenly jumps to a conclusion. I'm not saying that's what is happening here or anything - I just wanted to point it out for people who might not know.

Sorry I should have mentioned that I am aware that you can. They say that you can lose it horse riding, or even playing sports and things. It's just that for me it was another red flag.

I think my problem is that I am seeking reassurance and certainty which cannot be found. I want to be certain that exploring this, or not exploring this is the right thing. I want to be certain that it did, or did not happen. These things are unanswerable really. Perhaps my emotional problems are the result of being bullied. Perhaps my problems with intimacy are the result of my poor body image due to being bullied. Maybe my nightmares and my need for control are all the result of that. Maybe nothing happened and this is all just ocd masquerading in a different outfit. The problem is I cannot be certain and that uncertainty makes me feel so uncomfortable that I feel that I need to do something about it. Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. Maybe I should explore it, maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I just need to accept that something i'll just never know and dealing with the present is what matters.

Sorry, I didn't mean to ramble on.

I also deal with invasive obsessive thought processes. This may not help in the least, but am going to throw this out there. It is possible you have been abused. It is also possiible you were not abused. Try to move on and explore other things. It is likely that if you were abused it will surface later. When you least expect it. I find that when I am dealing with invasive obsessive thought processes I am avoiding something else.

Ugh, this is a bad example because, it could also be data erasing on the therapist's part. idfk. I dont exactly know what happened most of my childhood, I only know what has been repeated back to me and what is in the pictures. Which could possibly be data implanting. I know my abuse was not imginated as it was cleverly suggested. I also know no one has the same life story and every case is different.

You don't have to prove anything to bring it up in therapy. Anything that concerns you is relevant and important to talk about in therapy.

My issue was I didn't want to mislead my T by bringing up something which is quite unrelated to our work together.

I have since this first post spoken to family members and had some experiences which confirm my suspicions, but still a part of me thinks that I'm making a big deal out of nothing. Some of the things took place when I was a baby, so really too young to comprehend and the other things I think are probably not a big deal.

We've talked around it in therapy because some sessions trigger things related to it, but I think that to admit that something may have happened would make it a bit to real and important, which really it isn't. Even if some of my problems today are as the result of it that doesn't really help me. I don't know what value I would get from exploring it, other than feeling incredibly rubbish about myself. She'd need a good argument to convince me that it would be helpful.

Still though, it plays on my mind so maybe, I suppose maybe a part of me does feel it is important; I posted this thread after all.

Thank you for responding.