Has Childhood Sexual Abuse done more damage than I thought?

[Papa Coco]

I'm quick to talk openly about my Complex-PTSD as having been caused by a lifetime of betrayal by narcissistic elders, sociopathic peers, abusive religion, and the gaslighting via a million lies and gossips that took away my sense of who I really am. It isn't until later that I sometimes tack on "Oh yeah, it's no big deal, but I was molested at 7 years of age also." I still minimize my CSA. I treat my Childhood Sexual Abuse (CSA) as a secondary afterthought that barely scratches the surface of relevance to my lifetime of neurotic emotional triggers and struggles.

Well, today I'm waking up and reversing the order. It has been called to my attention, by following many of the posts on this forum, that I need to stop treating my CSA as if it were a non-event. I need to really grasp the severity of the damage it did to me.

While the rest of the abuse was a million small betrayals over 50 years, the CSA was a short-lived but catastrophic betrayal that has, most likely, done 90% of the damage I continue to try and repair today.

I think about why SA has the deep impact it has on us humans, and I keep coming back to my theory that sex, food, and safety are the three most deeply ingrained attributes of our survival wiring. They are wired into us to guarantee that we survive as individuals AND that we are compelled to procreate for survival of the species. My T calls this "the Lizard Brain." It's the core, root, base wiring that makes it so that we do not need to be taught how to breathe, eat, or procreate. To betray one of the higher attributes, like trusting a friend to tell the truth, is bad. But to betray one of the CORE attributes of our very existence, i.e., sex and sexuality...well that's not bad, it's catastrophic.

I talk very easily about how my parents and siblings turned me into their servant who had no rights of my own, but when I even try to think about the SA that I endured at 6 and 7 years of age, my body goes into craziness. Within seconds of trying to focus on my past with SA, I begin to get sick to my stomach, I get dizzy, I start to shake and if I don't stop at the shaking, I hyperventilate.  I'd say that's cause for alarm, and that this old man needs to stop discounting CSA as just a bad day at school.

All my other problems get full attention, but they are not at the root of my "crazy."  I am starting to suspect that CSA is not bad, it's horrific. It's not a setback, it's catastrophic damage.  CSA is all too often the cause of eating disorders, armoring pain, employment difficulties, and so much more. Somehow, maybe because it's one of the three root wirings in our survival programming, that it hits a different part of the brain? Maybe it hits us at the very center of our brain, where all other abuse hits us in more peripheral areas of the brain?  I don't know. Don't quote me on that, it's just a theory that I have. I took family abuse for 50 years and I can talk about it. I took CSA for a year or 2 max, and it's still so terrifying that I still can't think about it without going to my crazy place.

If I'm going to find self-love and a pure heart, then I need to fully embrace the real damage in my emotions, and I need to go back to my healing plan and really think about how to move CSA from the bottom of my list of issues to the top, #1 position.  It's been over 50 years since it all happened, and it's about dang time I address it seriously.

[Armee]

Sending you tons of support from here as you think about moving healing from horrific CSA up in the priority. I can only imagine it must take such a low place right now because it is so very very difficult to process. Slow and gentle and kind to yourself, Papa C.

[Bach]

Papa Coco, I know how much it hurts to realise that something you never thought was that big a thing is actually a towering huge giant thing, and how scary it is to contemplate doing the work that will have to be done to make it something you can live with.  There are so many things I’ve done that with.  I’m so sorry you have to deal with this.

I don’t think I was ever physically sexually abused, but I’ve become aware that I was exposed to far too much sex and sexuality at far too early an age.  Obviously that doesn’t create the same kind of traumatic damage as physical CSA and I’ve always wanted to gaslight myself into believing that it didn’t harm me, but the more I understand about my life and about trauma, the more I’m realising that the psychological implications of it have caused me GIGANTIC problems in my life.  I haven’t dealt with it AT ALL.  Even now writing this I want to erase it and forget I ever put it into words.  But I’m not going to because the very force of the yelling in my head saying “Don’t do it, you can still shove this back under the psychic rug” tells me it’s important and I mustn’t turn away from it. 

I feel like I might be insulting you and other sufferers for CSA, or me-tooing for attention by participating in this thread but honestly, when I think about things that I was exposed to when I was a child I feel exactly how you describe feeling when you think about your CSA.  I hope you understand. 

[paul72]

hi Papa Coco

I have to agree with your thought process here.
I often wonder the same. Not with the sex attribute of survival, but with what you'd call the safety.
Like Bach, I don't want to insult you or CSA sufferers, or me-too for attention either .. but I can relate as well and I suspect you're right about survival instinct.
I was {safety} traumatized before I could speak or walk.... I don't know how that played into the rest. But I suspect it's the 90% too.
I am sorry for your CSA... and I hope you can process gently.
Sending lots of positive wishes and support to you.

[paul72]

I'm so sorry for sounding and being insensitive. I speak before thinking and was meaning to be approving of you wanting to put more work there.
I'll share sometime (I've taken up enough of your thread) how it broke me completely when I realized what I thought was just a little thing was anything but. It was what shaped my whole life. Heart breaking and I'm sorry for missing that. I'm sorry for how you're feeling right now. We all are here with you.
Sending love.

[dollyvee]

All my other problems get full attention, but they are not at the root of my "crazy."  I am starting to suspect that CSA is not bad, it's horrific. It's not a setback, it's catastrophic damage.  CSA is all too often the cause of eating disorders, armoring pain, employment difficulties, and so much more. Somehow, maybe because it's one of the three root wirings in our survival programming, that it hits a different part of the brain? Maybe it hits us at the very center of our brain, where all other abuse hits us in more peripheral areas of the brain?  I don't know. Don't quote me on that, it's just a theory that I have. I took family abuse for 50 years and I can talk about it. I took CSA for a year or 2 max, and it's still so terrifying that I still can't think about it without going to my crazy place.

Hi PC,

I think perhaps the reason that CSA causes so much damage to children - dissociation, taking you to your crazy place - is that it is because there is no reason in their brains for it. As a child, we're not meant to understand sex and the differences between sex and love. They see it that if I don't do these things it is a very real threat to my very existence (annihilation). Kids aren't developed enough to understand things like that, which is why there are traditionally a lot of coming of age ceremonies throughout the world. This marks the right of passage/transition into another phase of life where you become a man or a woman. Underneath it is the sense of individuation, that you are developed and no longer dependant on an adult.

Perhaps this was compounded by your family where you tried to seek safety and understanding from them and the opposite happened, that they denied your experience and the thought of it made you feel more unsafe, but as a child you were still dependant on them for safety so you had to "wipe" it from your memory. A betrayal trauma.

I think these things are like layers and we get to them when we're ready to face it. I don't know if you've tried it but I found IFS a really good way to get in touch with the emotions below the surface. After years of talk therapy and theorizing about what was going on, it was the first time I had direct contact with the emotions that were going on under the surface. It was really powerful. You can also ask those parts to not overwhelm you and step back a bit so that you can work with the parts you need to. It might make it a little bit easier to face.

Sending you support,
dolly

[Papa Coco]

Wow. I'm touched and overwhelmed by the support this post brought. Thank you everyone for responding so quickly. It brings me a lot of peace. I often worry that my posts aren't appropriate. So I feel a lot of fear after posting. Sometimes I immediately go back in and delete the post before anyone reads it. This time, I left it active. Thank goodness I did. Your responses make me feel loved and less alone with something I've been alone with for far too long.

Armee, slow and gentle is good advice. After I posted this last night, my emotions took an interesting turn to sadness. Not depression, just sadness. Sadness is a good emotion when it's appropriately placed. It felt like my current self really feels sad for my child self. That's a good feeling. Less about feeling responsible to "walk off" the CSA so the world can keep turning, and more about really sitting down and feeling the betrayal with my younger self. I need to grasp the slow and gentle approach so I don't escalate into anxiety and self-protection again.

Bach, I personally respect the impact that any kind of sexual abuse has on us. From the worst kind of being tied down, to the disgusting practice of flirtations and grooming of children who are too small to understand why the talk and flirting sounds so icky.  SA is SA. And I respect the impact yours had on you as much as the impact mine had on me.

Phil, you have said nothing offensive, or insensitive on any level as far as I'm concerned. When I say something about myself, and you are able to relate to it, and that drives you to respond with a similar story about your own life, well...mission accomplished. I was validated by the fact that my story matches up with one of your stories. It's proof that we are on a similar wavelength, and that, my friend, is what I was looking for when I joined this forum. I have a therapist whose job is to take my money and give me all his attention. But here, on the forum, it's like an AA style of survivors sharing space with other survivors. Knowing I'm not alone with my weird personality is all it takes to feel accepted and validated as a fellow human being. As long as we continue to relate to each other, then I'm receiving the healing I came for.

Dolly, your thoughts about why SA is so much more impactful than other traumas makes a ton of sense. You're right, when we are too young to understand something, we have no way of filing it properly in our brain's filing system. Add to the physical confusion, sex itself is one of our most intimate physical boundaries. When others tromp over our boundaries, and try to get into our pants, especially when were' just children, the confusion is worsened by the icky feeling of someone tromping my most personal physical boundaries. For anyone who was taken too far as kids, that equates to a huge sense of loss of my personal space. If I can't protect my own boundaries, I can't be safe. Ever. It's why excessive tickling can also be a huge trauma-inducing experience. Tickling a child to the point of torture is another example of being unable to protect personal boundaries from a bully who won't stop. Excessive tickling is probably just as damaging to a person's trauma brain as SA.

When I think about how CSA is boundary-tromping, it makes me wonder if my need to isolate so much (I spend about 40% of my life alone. My wife and I both need private space, so we spend a lot of time together, AND a lot of time apart. For me, if I don't get my isolation time, I become an agitated nut case). If physical boundaries were never established for me, it makes sense that I ONLY feel completely safe and comfortable when I'm in isolation.

As the sadness increases in me, I hope I'm moving toward some great release from some of the sadness and shame of CSA.

I FEEL like I'm not completely with it in my brain today, so I hope my posts don't start looking like the rantings of a crazy person. I feel a bit disconnected from reality today. Dissociated. Like I'm about to go into dizziness and forgetting my own name. I already have to keep looking at my watch to be sure I remember what day it is today. Friday. I've had to check about 3 times so far. but it appears to be Friday right now in Seattle.

A final note: I confess that up until this morning, I did not know what IFS was. Today, I read a few articles on it, and find it interesting enough I'm going to talk to my therapist about it when I see him on Tuesday.  It sounds intriguing. It frightens me a bit, but that's not always a bad thing. Some of the most frightening things I've ever done have given me the most benefit.

One last comment about Love. To me, love is synonymous with connection. My litmus test, for when I wonder if I love someone, is I imagine them leaving me or dying. If my heart hurts when I imagine that, then I know I've developed a connection with them. When my loved ones leave or pass on, I tend to feel massive amount of heat in my chest, that I describe as feeling as if someone has just pulled a large tube out of my heart and it's now gushing my energy out onto the floor. The first time that ever happened to me was when I first realized that love is not just a word, it's a real connection to my heart. That being said, I really love the people on this forum. You all have become people I care about, and I trust that you care about me.  Even though we're only pen pals, most likely never to meet in person, I still feel connection. Therefore, I feel safe to say I love you guys!  Thanks so much for caring about each other and about me.

[Armee]

I'm glad you posted it and kept it up. True sadness is appropriate and necessary. I know those rare moments are ones where healing is happening. Not completely but a piece.

Boundaries are a big piece, safety too, and also the sheer physical trauma is also a part of it. I went through something physically similar as a college kid and it is excruciating. I can't imagine enduring that with a child's body and mind.  You went thru * many times over. It deserves adequate respect and grief and anger and sadness.

[Bach]

Papa Coco, I'm familiar with the quick delete.  It's so scary to even write it out, much less to share it. 

I deeply appreciate that you made this post.  I've been trying for years to figure out how to approach allowing myself to admit and understand that what happened to me when I was a child constituted sexual abuse even though as far as I know it didn't involve violating my body, and that even if it wasn't "the worst kind" it was bad enough to leave wounds that still need healing.  I was scared to write the response I did yesterday, and it's scary to say this now, but I feel acknowledged.  Almost like I have been given permission to speak.  I don't feel safe speaking yet, but I think I will.  I hope I will.  It's really big.  So, thank you (insert appropriate emoji here?  Exclamation point? Question mark?  It's so strange when the fear is so strong that even punctuation feels fraught with hazard.).

[Papa Coco]

Bach,

FYI: I very much like your posts. Your posts that you do let us read are heartfelt and genuine. I can somehow feel you in your words. I always like your posts.

I hope you know that there is probably nothing wrong with any of the posts you've written and deleted. And that the reason you stress over them is TRAUMA!!!! And trust me, I know TRAUMA. I do so many things that I really don't need to, but I do them because of TRAUMA. I isolate because of TRAUMA. I delete my own posts, not because anyone will be hurt by them, but because THAT'S TRAUMA!  So, I offer up to you that when you are afraid your posts aren't appropriate, the reality is that THAT'S TRAUMA talking to you. Trying to protect you today from people from your past. I'll bet your family taught you that you didn't have the right to complain about how you were treated. If so, that's probably what your trauma brain is trying to protect you from now. But those people are gone now. Here, we like it when each of us shares with the rest of us. I know that you have the same rights to tell your story as anyone else on this forum does. And I believe that your fear of posting is TRAUMA.

One of the attributes of Complex PTSD that separates it from mainstream PTSD is that we minimized our traumas, and that's why they affected us so badly. The bad news about minimizing our own traumas is that it blocks our healing path. I think there's a standard breakthrough moment for many CPTSD survivors, when they suddenly realize...Hey. It really was that bad for me too.

Another attribute of Complex PTSD over generic PTSD is that we've never known a life without it.  When a person is living a "normal" life and then get's traumatized in a car accident, or plane crash, or war, or housefire, or flood, or...whatever, they end up knowing that the trauma is trauma. They remember being normal. They remember the trauma. They even know the date and time it happened. They know how they are different now. They can map their current day idiosyncrasies either to their trauma or to who they were before the accident.

Those of us raised in Narcissistic, or abusive, or neglectful homes, have no such reference points. We didn't know we were being traumatized. We were never not traumatized, so we don't know how we're different now because of the trauma. We have to discover that we're trauma victims during the process of trying to figure out why we're so miserable all the time.

SOME trauma survivors never find the answer, but here on this forum, we've all discovered that we have it. Now we each have the daunting task of pulling apart the mess and trying to figure out what parts of our lives are our nature, and what parts are TRAUMA responses. Since we didn't know we were in traumatic situations, we minimized our pain so we could get on with our lives.   

The first hurdle is realizing we're traumatized. I think the second hurdle that almost all of us face is recognizing how bad the pain really was/is. We have to make ourselves stop minimizing our own pain. It's noble that people like you and I put others ahead of ourselves, but that's TRAUMA that makes us do it. Grapes don't grow on apple trees. And traumatized people don't come from easy childhoods. In my opinion, if we show the symptoms, that means we've endured the trauma. And if we have the trauma, we have the right to talk about it to whomever we choose.

I still do a few of the quick deletes. I still occasionally wake up from a sound sleep, suddenly worried that I wrote something in a post that I didn't have the right to write. But I'm getting better. I tell myself that every single person on this forum has the right to be here. We each found this forum because we were each in pain. We were in pain. We were in pain. We were in pain. It doesn't matter whose pain was caused by what. It matters that we all listen to and support each other.

If what happened to you brought you to the same place that my problems brought me, then your problems were as damaging to you as mine were to me.

What you endured as a child brought you to living the life of a person with full-blown CPTSD. Hang nails and puppy dog bites don't do that to people. REAL abuse, done over LONG periods of time does that to people.

But I know how it feels to believe I'm not worthy of complaining here about my easy life. For me, it stemmed from too many people teaching me I wasn't worthy of the same attention everyone else is worthy of. Well, they LIED. And now, the only person really telling me I need to not post too much, is my TRAUMA voice. It still thinks I'm 7 and it's still protecting me from ther liars who taught me how to interact with others without tattling on them.

[Bach]

l
One of the attributes of Complex PTSD that separates it from mainstream PTSD is that we minimized our traumas, and that's why they affected us so badly. The bad news about minimizing our own traumas is that it blocks our healing path. I think there's a standard breakthrough moment for many CPTSD survivors, when they suddenly realize...Hey. It really was that bad for me too.

Another attribute of Complex PTSD over generic PTSD is that we've never known a life without it.  When a person is living a "normal" life and then get's traumatized in a car accident, or plane crash, or war, or housefire, or flood, or...whatever, they end up knowing that the trauma is trauma. They remember being normal. They remember the trauma. They even know the date and time it happened. They know how they are different now. They can map their current day idiosyncrasies either to their trauma or to who they were before the accident.

Those of us raised in Narcissistic, or abusive, or neglectful homes, have no such reference points. We didn't know we were being traumatized. We were never not traumatized, so we don't know how we're different now because of the trauma. We have to discover that we're trauma victims during the process of trying to figure out why we're so miserable all the time.

...[W]e each have the daunting task of pulling apart the mess and trying to figure out what parts of our lives are our nature, and what parts are TRAUMA responses. Since we didn't know we were in traumatic situations, we minimized our pain so we could get on with our lives.   

The first hurdle is realizing we're traumatized. I think the second hurdle that almost all of us face is recognizing how bad the pain really was/is. We have to make ourselves stop minimizing our own pain.

Papa Coco, the portion of your post that I quoted above is a brilliant summary of the core dilemma faced by those who suffer with CPTSD resulting from growing up in narcissistic/neglectful/abusive homes vs PTSD acquired later in life from more overt causes. Hardly anyone understands this, and I've never been able to come up with a concise and eloquent an explanation.

Writing takes so much energy these days but things in me need to be written. Time to stand up to TRAUMA the bully and face it down when it bristles and looms and growls as I seek to loosen up the pen...

[Blueberry]

PapaCoco, I haven't read your post or the thread - I just can't atm, everything's a bit too much. But I wanted to say I'm standing with you. CSA does do a whole lot of damage ime and imho, even if one thinks whatever one thinks - wasn't much, wasn't often, wasn't as bad as

[dollyvee]

Hi PC,

I was reading a bit in Psychedelics & Psychotherapy and it was discussing the link between how memories surface in trauma and psychedelic experiences. What stood out (I think for a lot of people here) is that the mind can't comprehend the dissolution of the personality.

"Kalsched defines trauma as any experience that causes "unbearable psychic pain or anxiety" (1996, 1). Even though trauma can occur under a wide variety of experiences, from physical injury and sexual abuse to the destructive psychological effects of unmet childhood needs, the distinguishing feature of trauma for Kalsched is what Heinz Kohut calls "disintegration anxiety," which stems from an event that threatens to dissolve the personality's coherence and is "the deepest anxiety [one] can experience"

When such trauma occurs in early childhood, before strong ego defenses have developed, the psyche relies on more primitive and dissociative unconscious defenses to protect itself.

Psychedelics and Psychotherapy (pp. 84-85). Inner Traditions/Bear & Company. Kindle Edition.

He is talking of dissociative events from childhood rising in the psyche as demonic figures during psychedelic experiences, and trying to explain how/why they appear as "other." I don't know if I wholly agree with the association, but I do think the fact that the mind can't accept the dissolution of the personality during traumatic events is very pertinent.

Sending you support,
dolly

[Papa Coco]

Dolly

I need to learn more about "Disintegration Anxiety." I have been aware, for some time, that the greatest fear known to humans is the "Fear of Annihilation." I assume the two terms are synonyms. The book you're referencing gives a much more scientific approach to how it happens, and that is what has me so intrigued to learn more about it.

20 years ago, as I was learning what PTSD was, and how I seemed to have a case of it, I used to tell my T that I felt like I was not only on the verge of being cast out of society altogether, but that gravity was going to let go of me and I was going to come apart and all my molecules were going to fly out into space, and scatter so completely that even God couldn't put me back together. A death beyond death. I called it disintegration. He then taught me about the fear of annihilation, which is far more severe than the fear of just dying. I have no fear of dying (I only have a fear of dying painfully) but the idea of being annihilated, or disintegrated, brings on the most aggressive sense of anxiety that I know of. I'm not a believer in Heaven and *, or of the sociopathic god who demands we love him or he'll punish us for eternity if we don't, but I would say that my fear of annihilation is what I would expect * to be like if it was real. Perhaps the people who invented the concept of * knew this same sensation and modeled their place of punishment after it. Because when I get close to my disintegration anxiety, it's not fear, it's soul-level terror that goes beyond physical death.

Thank you very much for sharing this with us. This information is timely and relevant as I move myself toward addressing the most terrifying levels of anxiety I know of. When I think about addressing with my T the CSA I endured, I feel like I'm putting myself in danger of the earth letting go of me, and that the glue that holds all my zillions of molecules together is going to let go also, and I'm about to disintegrate and fly out into the Universe as a zillion particles that cannot ever be put back together. It's a fear worse than the fear of just dying.

[dollyvee]

I hear you PC