Need to talk.

I normally post on the dissociative board. I am upset about something regarding sexual abuse of toddlers. Many of the women that post on that board say that they were sexually molested while they were toddlers. Some make claims of the sexual abuse starting at the age of four. They claim that it was sadistic and horribly abusive. (This seems to be the norm for the people posting on that board.)

The reason that this upsets me is that it makes it sound that a patient has to be horribly abused as a toddler in order to have a dissociative disorder. I know that to be not true by reading Dr. Colin Ross's book on Multiple Personality Disorder.

I was not sexually molested by adults as a child and I have a dissociative disorder. I had other little boys playing doctor with me from the age of five until I found out that this was not normal. These other little boys usually turned out to be gay after puberty. Some did not but they usually had been molested by an older male child, sometimes the older brother. My parents had no parenting skills and never talked to me about anything.

The other thing that upsets me about people who claim to have been molested as toddlers is that I am a heterosexual male, albeit socially dysfunctional, and I pretty much know the percentages of the number of men that would be sick enough to molest a toddler. That percentage would be way less than one percent.

Dr. Ross produced a video where he got some of his patients to discuss their sexual molestation. In one case it was a young man. He describes his relationship with his mother's brother, his uncle. For some reason the parents allowed the uncle to take the child and be a surrogate parent. I believe that the uncle lived in the same house with the family. During early childhood the uncle was very loving, took the child to movies, parks, etc. The uncle seemed like a loving and doting parent. Only later in life after the child was older did the petting and touching become sexual and eventually led to homosexual sex. The young man did not know this was not normal until middle or high school when his friends told him. He then tried to commit suicide and eventually got to Dr. Ross or some one who could help him.

This same scenario was discussed by a woman whose father sexually molested her. The father programmed the child over a period of years before the sexual molestation started. The father was very loving and doting. This was their little secret. Again until older the girl did not know that this was incest.

What I am trying to get at is the number of humans that would be sexually sadistic to a toddler is extremely rare and not common place like it seems on the dissociative board.

Okay, I am open now for the ridicule.

Im very curious as to who told you playing doctor can cause dissociative disorder and is not normal? As far as being a toddler and having dissociative disorder I dont see why that cant happen. Its probably not heard of because people often dont remember pre verbal trauma as they have no words to express it.

Many children "play doctor" with one another.
I agree with dnester's post.


WC

Unless there was a age gap. Say they were 10 and you were five. I am only saying this because I have had lots of sexual play in my childhood and was told most of it was normal by therapists. With exception of one or two things.

I tried to answer this last night but somehow our internet went down just when I was going to save my response. I did not mean to imply that my dissociative disorder came from being fondled by other children. I did mean to imply that for most of us, any sexual touching prior to puberty comes from other children. I did mean to imply that I was lucky! Because my parents never talked to me about anything, any adult could have take advantage of me just like the other/older children did. I pretty much was a dumb-***.

I would like to point out that the pornography that they call "child porn" is actually post-pubescent teenagers and not toddlers. The alter boys that Catholic Priests target are mostly post-pubescent or very close to puberty children and not toddlers. I find it extremely hard to believe that a large percentage of dissociative patients were sexually molested as toddlers.

So you are essentially saying that I am lying?
That my father didn't sexually abuse me when I was very young?
That I don't have DID???

The thing is Michael, I 100% agree with you that DID isn't only caused by extreme sexual abuse. I think most experts in the area agree that there are many different kinds of traumas that can cause the failure of the integration of the self in toddlerhood. Relational traumas. Abusive traumas. And medical traumas. I am pretty sure the school of thought that it is only caused by extreme abuse has been debunked, although a few people, including at least one or two posters on psych central, maintain that it is only caused by extreme abuse. I am pretty certain that is no longer the mainstream view though. DID is caused by any trauma that overwhelms the child's coping ability, especially when they have little or no relational support to deal with the trauma.

So, I totally believe you that your trauma was significant enough to cause a dissociative disorder. I have never questioned that in you, and neither have several other posters on the dissociative board. Me saying what caused me to develop DID bears carries no impact upon the reality of your own experiences. They have nothing to do with each other. Your experience is yours. My experience is mine. My experience being true does not mean that your experience is false. And vice versa.

But there's a line and that line is drawn where you tell me, or the forum, that my experiences are not true because you don't believe they could be.

Just.... don't do that. That is incredibly disrespectful.

NO! I do not know any one else's personal experience. I am only talking percentages here.

I did not post this on the dissociative board because I did not want to get into other people's personal experience there.

I know how sick people can be: In the Orlando area a fifteen year old male sexually molested, non-violent, a younger female child. The younger female child told him that she was going to tell. He strangled her and stuffed her under his bed. The next day he helped in the search of the woods for her. People can be sick. I know. There have been too many cases in the newspapers.

My sister is a lesbian. I have posted her story without saying she was a lesbian on the dissociative board. She gets mad a me when I tell her that I have a borderline diagnosis and a dissociative disorder and tell me that only females who are sexually molested as toddlers can develop those mental illnesses. It is a personal thing.