Abused

[bug]

You know i have read this somewhere before and maybe that's what stemmed my interest in BDSM to begin with. i, too, had flashbacks years after my abuse and rape and thought i was a perv for thinking things like that because i had no recollection of them happening to me. i lost chunks of my life by just going away in my head when i wanted to (dissociative identity disorder) or whenever i saw something that might pose as a threat. i have never 'went away' when a r/t scene is happening and maybe it's because i have never been scared enough of my own Master/Dom, because that trust was always established in my heart before hand. *smiles*

after reading material i see that the helplessness that i, personally enjoy is a means of feeling more control for myself, in so many words. i am not sure what other girls think about this connection and it's additions but i know now that it is my own personal vendetta with myself.

but another question is that if W/we consider that rape is a 'psychological disturbance' of some sort than what do W/we consider other forms of BDSM abuse? how is being humilated, degraded, whipped, chained, beaten and bitten any different then such rape scenes W/we play out?

i often wondered where my need for a dominant partner comes in to play in my own life. what is the fascination in being kept for One to have as a pet? what kind of life does O/one have to live in order to crave these ritualistic thoughts and drives?

although it has always been strange to me that men do not have such fantasies *nodnod* the idea of being sodomized 'against my will' doesn't appeal to me either but if these thoughts of rape were a 'psychological disturbance' in normal ways of thinking how would that stop a man from thinking these thoughts yet not a woman?

i am encouraging male opinions *smiles*

thanks for hearing me again One and A/all *s*

[Donatien]

i am encouraging male opinions *smiles*
thanks for hearing me again One and A/all *s*

I have read what you ladies have posted, and intend to give it serious thought and add a bit of research, before i post my " male opinion" as bug has requested. I have spent far to long today writing on this forum already anyway, and must get some tidying up done , before the cleaner comes!

One clue to psychopathology , underlying a behaviour is its degree of compulsiveness. If you enjoy doing something, even very much, but can leave it alone when other matters need your attention, then it may just be how you are. If you have to do it, seem addicted to it , then it probably is serving some psychological function, even though it may actually be a redundant one now.
e.g for years I had to listen to music all the time, or be absorbing information, but it was only when I attended different types of psychological training courses, that I realised that although i had a natural facility for , and enjoyed music and academic study, the compulsive element was due to the fact that I was using the constant input of data as a way censoring negative thoughts and more importantly feelings from surfacing. Another clue that this was the case is that nearly all my memories are silent, as though the sound track has been erased. I have only an internal precis of my own as to what was said.
I am not complainig having no knowledge of any alternatives, just giving one example of how the brain works.

Another type of defence against trauma is disassociation where one steps outside oneself. A graphic example of which was the little girl subjected to severe sexual abuse by a family member when 5yrs old, who in her mind unscrewed her head and so watched the abuse of her body from the other end of the room!

I must go, but I will be back.

[Darkgirl]

Your very right!!! It is the means to survive and to dis-associate yourself from the trauma at the time. Each person deals with trauma in different ways and apparently this dis-association is very common.
I suppose in my case I fantisise out my trauma which I can control in a safe environment. My power (representing anger and frustration) is taken away and replaced with powerlessness causing or forcing me to bring out emotions that have been hidden and locked away for so long and bring me a release of peacefullness. And now that my husband is helping I now feel agreater sense of love afterwards. I hope that what I'm trying to say here is understud correctly as I do find it hard sometimes to explain myself.

[bug]

well put, indeed *nodnod* this all makes very good sense to me and i should do well to ponder it before responding *smiles*

she still encourages more opinions, these have given me plenty to think about *giggles*

bug

[learningtopleez]

Bug and Darkgirl...I am sorry you have had these past experiences of rape. It seems though that the dis-association that Donatien speaks of is true. I too can be added to the now growing list of those that have been raped. It happened to me during my sophomore year of high school. A girlfriend and I had been invited to a party by one of the cutest guys in our class. I had just recently gotten my license so we were very excited to be going somewhere without the aid of a parent. Of course there was alcohol at the party and I had never drank before, so after just three beers, I was rather tipsy but able to converse and walk on my own. We eventually ended up in the back of the house with a group that was smoking pot. I didn't do that! So I just sat and talked with a guy I had a crush on. Some people were lying around, some were sitting and others were in another part of the house dancing. I leaned over a guy who was a senoir (who on several attempts at school had tried to get me to go on a date with him; I always declined because he had a girlfriend) to tell my girlfriend something and the next thing I knew he was kissing me. I stopped the kiss and turned to find the guy I had been talking to. He was gone. I turned back to speak to my girlfriend again and the other guy was right in my face. I remember him kissing me again. The next thing I can remember is lying on the floor naked with him on top of me. I was crying and begging him to stop. I'm not sure if anything actually happened or not as my memories are so blocked. I do remember him getting angry and telling me to put my clothes on. I did, and my friend and I left. (She was not present during the rape or so she told me later; she had gone riding with some guy) That was on a Friday night and on Monday morning at school I was a whore. I had had sex once before that fateful night. But suddenly I was a whore. There were even posters up about what happened to me. I never told my parents. I suffered through it alone for the most part. The only regret I have is not pressing charges. At the time, I felt I was at fault as well because I had been drinking. I have learned since then that it was not my fault. I have grown beyond it and above it. It will always be a dark memory, but it rarely surfaces anymore. Btw, I did see the guy years later at my job. I held my head high and stared him down. He recognized me and quickly hung his head and passed without a word.
As far as having rape fantasies...I have them too. Go figure! But I do agree that having the control to stop it makes a huge difference. I would have to trust someone completely to allow such a fantasy to take place in r/l. Also Donatien...I do have an additive personality. Anything I do has to be to the extreme...so maybe that is why the memory never surfaces very often anymore. I look forward to your opinions Sir!

[Donatien]

I will be back.

My favourite wit, Sydney Smith once said “I like him and his wife; he is so ladylike; and she's such a perfect gentleman”, which is only funny because of its inversion of the perceived differences between our two sexes ( hurrah for them!!), which observation of our great ape cousins confirms as not just a socially engineered construct; but in fact genetically engineered instinct.

Gary, has I think correctly said that our ( male) fantasies should be for another thread, especially since several of you ladies have had the courage to speak of serious sexual abuse in your pasts, including this threads initiator. And it is this topic that I wish to address.

R/L rape and abuse, outside consensual bdsm, is assault and among its potential, although not invariable consequences are a range of symptoms, best regarded as a type of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), which is distinguished by:-

1) The existence of a “psychologically distressing event” that would evoke significant disturbance in almost anyone.

2) Later re-experiencing of the trauma in one's mind for example, through recurring dreams of the stressor, or “flashbacks” ( intrusive sensory memories e.g smells , sounds,etc) to the original traumatic situation.

3) “Numbing of general responsiveness” to avoid the external world, for example, dissociation, withdrawal, restricted affect, or loss of interest in daily events.

4) A wide variety of other reactions or symptoms, such as sleep disturbance, difficulty concentrating, memory problems, irrational guilt, extreme alertness to danger in the environment, and an intensification of symptoms upon exposure to situations that resemble the original event.

Now all of you who have had the misfortune to have experienced abuse, can no doubt recognize how your symptoms fit into these categories, and I shall therefore attempt to explain the mental processes that we use to defend ourselves, and how they work with varying success at the time, but may later, become the barrier to optimal recovery.

Even in the womb, we may experience negative events, in the form of negative emotions picked up from our mothers, and so by birth, we like the ugly duckling may have already come to some
“limiting decision' about the nature of who we are. Once born we are progressively exposed to more and more complex challenges, and the major job of parenting is to provide an ambiance of unconditional love, and guidance that encourages the development of sufficient resources to successfully surmount them all, growing into well grounded adults.

In the real world, many times we find ourselves out of our depth and have to improvise, using those resources we have to deal with what is occurring. Like the hermit crab, we cobble together defenses into a protective shell, which in most of us affords sufficient self confidence to learn the skills we need to pursue our lives.

These defenses, defensive tricks really, the ones that worked successfully at any rate, become so automatic that we are no longer aware of them. Like a hidden piece of software they continue to work “protecting” us as they have always done, only now as ( relatively!) successful adults, they are actually limiting our choices unnecessarily , since although those defenses that we developed when children were the best we could come up with at the time,they are far more primitive, rigid and limiting than responses that we now use regularly in specific aspects of our lives. Indeed they may stick out like a sore thumb, to others if not to ourselves. As the psychiatrist R.D, Laing put it ( get you brain in gear folks):-

-” The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice; and because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little that we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice is shaping our thoughts and deeds”.

Have you noticed that you are feeling great (six foot tall), when the telephone rings. You hear one syllable and suddenly you feel yourself shrinking down to what size? The size you were when you first learned to respond in this possibly submissive or appeasing way (or stroppy ;whatever was you favourite defence then). Notice how our physiology actually remembers time travels us back. Think of the Babushkas the Russian dolls. Is that not how we are, one inside the other, one for each new learning, but all continuing always available, when the appropriate button is pressed.
Now think about these buttons. Who is in charge of them? In respect of most of the earliest and most primitive ones , and especially those developed in response to trauma events, the buttons are pressed by external events automatically.

So I hope you can now understand that many of the defenses we use to get by, are :-
a) past their sell by date, already superseded by other more mature responses that we use in other specific parts of our psyche, and
b) potentially a prison hemming us in and limiting our ability to fulfill our potential

I have deliberately cast my net wide to demonstrate that , not only are the long term effects of abuse best understood as a type of post traumatic stress disorder, but also part of a process of defense building that we all engage in. The problem with primitive defenses against extreme events, is that depending on the resources available to the victim at the time, they may a) only be partially effective at reducing the psychic trauma, and b) the defenses themselves may set up recurring patterns of behaviour that over time become THE problem, being damaging to the quality of life of their practitioner, especially when they have alternative strategies to hand. It is like having loads of problems with a piece of software before discovering you already have on your computer another bit of software that is far better, but you have only been using that one for one specific task.

If what I have written is of some value to you, and you would like me to continue, I shall focus more on solutions, and resolutions, in a Part2 . Meantime I shall just say that in my own view part of the shift to recovery mode is discovering the art of being upset confidently. By which I mean that all these defenses served the purpose of protecting against hurt, at a time when it SEEMED that one would be over whelmed. Later as we have continued to learn, that may well no longer be the case, but the traumatized part of us ( the little one) doesn't know that YET. All effective counselling or psychotherapy or some times life itself, helps the client revisit the past, but WITH THE ADDED RESOURCES of today, the counsellor acting as a travel guide , assisting you to journey around your mind discovering buried treasure, and talents over contextualized.

[slavelucy]

i'm fascinated by what you have said, Donatien. Most notably the following bits:

In the real world, many times we find ourselves out of our depth and have to improvise, using those resources we have to deal with what is occurring. Like the hermit crab, we cobble together defenses into a protective shell, which in most of us affords sufficient self confidence to learn the skills we need to pursue our lives.

These defenses, defensive tricks really, the ones that worked successfully at any rate, become so automatic that we are no longer aware of them. Like a hidden piece of software they continue to work “protecting” us as they have always done, only now as ( relatively!) successful adults, they are actually limiting our choices unnecessarily , since although those defenses that we developed when children were the best we could come up with at the time,they are far more primitive, rigid and limiting than responses that we now use regularly in specific aspects of our lives. Indeed they may stick out like a sore thumb, to others if not to ourselves. As the psychiatrist R.D, Laing put it ( get you brain in gear folks):-

-” The range of what we think and do is limited by what we fail to notice; and because we fail to notice that we fail to notice, there is little that we can do to change; until we notice how failing to notice is shaping our thoughts and deeds”.

i think this limited thought and action often causes us to mess up relationships and opportunities and only then do we notice our own behaviour. i don't necessarily think this is always "submissive or appeasing" though, speaking personally my own insecurities and...past issues often manifested in anger, it was a pure defense mechanism, but it prevented anyone from getting really close to me..and, in the mean time, pushed people away because they were hurt by it.

i don't much wanna go into it any more than that, but i just wanted to say i liked what you had written very much.

sl

[Donatien]

i think this limited thought and action often causes us to mess up relationships and opportunities and only then do we notice our own behaviour. i don't necessarily think this is always "submissive or appeasing" though, speaking personally my own insecurities and...past issues often manifested in anger, it was a pure defense mechanism, but it prevented anyone from getting really close to me..and, in the mean time, pushed people away because they were hurt by it.sl

eggwetter gree!
We all have our preferred "childhood " defence, whether it is to hide, runaway, appease, pretend it isn't/hasn't happened ( turning it into a complete no go area), get stroppy etc.
I am sure my list is by no means comprehensive.
Why not let us know of yours?

[Darkgirl]

i'm fascinated by what you have said, Donatien. Most notably the following bits:



i think this limited thought and action often causes us to mess up relationships and opportunities and only then do we notice our own behaviour. i don't necessarily think this is always "submissive or appeasing" though, speaking personally my own insecurities and...past issues often manifested in anger, it was a pure defense mechanism, but it prevented anyone from getting really close to me..and, in the mean time, pushed people away because they were hurt by it.

i don't much wanna go into it any more than that, but i just wanted to say i liked what you had written very much.

sl

I can totally relate to that!!
Just so that you know where I'm comming from, I have Dyslexia and I only found out at the age of 21. Before that I was labeled as a RETARD or LEARNING DISABILITY which I never really could say why. I went to special schools the lot. Now from when I was VERY young (from about 2 years old)
I couldn't talk very well and communicated by drawing. I would draw everything and my mother knew full well that my drawings did not resemble your typical 2 year old. No two year old can draw a three dimentional (scruffy and not too straight) picture of the inside of a telephone box from a birds eye view. Work that one out!!!
I would draw all the time but from the age of 4 I started drawing monsters and people but thepeople would be 'getting hurt' and my mother threw them away as she said they were disturbing. But if it wasn't drawing it was my dolls and teddies getting torchered. I didn't understand why but I know I knew then that I was getting a 'feeling' from this.
Growing up, well I am physically a very strong woman. One of my jobs was pallettising and a lot of 'mens' physical work. And my anger can be such violence but only when I've been pushed right to the edge. And yes I pushed everyone away who came too near.

I hope this can help you Donatien!!!

[Donatien]

I can totally relate to that!!
Growing up, well I am physically a very strong woman. One of my jobs was pallettising and a lot of 'mens' physical work. And my anger can be such violence but only when I've been pushed right to the edge. And yes I pushed everyone away who came too near.
I hope this can help you Donatien!!!

Thanks for that Darkgirl, I am glad you like my post on abuse.
( I sent this as a pm, but she gratiously suggested that I post it)

I just hope that my rather old fashioned style is not to complicated for one who suffers from dyslexia ( my son has the same problem and also was only diagnosed late).

My intuition is that you are actually quite a strong personaility, with possibly a bsdm potential from the word go,who when faced with a big stress at a very young age, used what was there in your personality, to protect and defend yourself.
Now that you have a relationship, that thanks to your discoveries in this forum (and your husbands discovery of you in this forum!) is helping you understand and feel more confident about yourself; so new insights will come and it will become possible for you to begin to tease out what is an integral part of the you that you want to be, and what is a residue of your past, and your past defences against that past, which you can now begin shed, or adapt so that instead of them ruling you, you rule them, retaining them as just a small part of the total you.

does that make sense to you or I am I talking gobbledy gook!!?

It was quite a lot of work putting that post together, so I shall wait and see whether the response warrants a further article. If not, it is the sort of thing I bought a computer to write anyway, and so will possibly incorporate it into material for a website later.

[redEva]

For last two posts please refer to Previous abuse old thread being bumped up, because I believe it fits better in there (and thanks to my clumsiness - the old thread title got changed )

As for the rest of this thread ... I am so happy and proud to have very meaningful and significantly serious discussion in "my" little world, at least!

Please, do continue