As the title says, at my last psychiatrist appointment I talked to him about how I suspected I was a victim of CSA, and just had completely pushed it out of memory. I told him a LONG list of behaviours I displayed when I was young (8 or 9) that I believed to be highly concerning. I won’t get into them now, though. One thing he said was that the idea of repressing memories has been “almost entirely disproven”. And he went on to talk about another patient of his which I’m pretty sure you’re not supposed to do. Long story short, a mother came in talking about how her son (6) would hide and watch her undress, often pleasuring himself. He said that I probably just developed a sex drive really early on, like that kid. After he said this I left the topic alone. But I’ve done more thinking about it and I want more opinions on it. I think a lot of what he said is horse shit. I think that something happened to that kid he mentioned because even if you somehow develop a sex drive at 6 you’re not gonna creep on your own mother. I honestly doubt it even possible for a kid that age to HAVE a sex drive. I genuinely think he was keeping something from me and I just need some extra opinions. Am I just paranoid and is my doctor right? I honestly don’t know. Thanks for listening
Came out to my psychiatrist about my CSA suspicions and his response was… interesting
Trigger Warning: CSA (Child Sexual Assualt)I am not a scientist. But I was subjected to many years of CSA. To the extent that I became pregnant and had a child. And the abuse didn't end there.
I blocked it almost all out. Even when I was a teen, suicidal, and in and out of hospitals, I couldn't explain why I felt the way I did. I suspected abuse, but I didn't remember and certainly not the extent of it. I completely blocked any memory of my pregnancy or my son. I thought I was a virgin.
I did not begin to remember until my abusers died. I have met my son. There are medical records and police reports backing up some of my memories.
Dissociative amnesia is a real thing. Repressed memories are a real thing. I strongly suggest you see if you can find another therapist, maybe even one who specializes in trauma.
Did you have odd body memories you could not place or find yourself freaking out in random seemingly unrelated incidents?
I personally have questions and speculations as to being a victim of CSA as well. There are very strange and broken memories connected to a memory of me having what I can only describe as an orgasm at age 3 or 4 and I had a name of a perp come to me randomly out of no where while doing lest hand writing. That same name came again this time with my brain screaming “he did it, he did it to his daughter too”. It never happened again and I only think a bout this person in the context of this incident.
A similar thing happened while I was trying to do EMDR but this time my brain screamed at me about my ex assaulting me while I was heavily intoxicated and possibly other times. I did some trauma informed meditation around this incident with my ex, started violently shaking and feeling so nauseous I almost puked. Since then the profound anger towards him has subsided, but the shaking still kinda continues. I again have no feelings towards the suspected perp of CSA.
A few other things to consider. I have STRONG body reactions to EMDR meaning that I will have significant all over body pain after a session. I also had an intense dissociative episode while just casually mentioning childhood trauma during a therapy intake and my brain will sometimes shut down and I will be unable to speak for 30 minutes when a trauma memory is triggered. My therapist and coach think that I disassociate far more than I am aware of and that the “going non verbal” is a combination of level 2 autism and PTSD.
The thing that is weird is that I have minimal strong feelings about incidents where I KNOW I was assaulted. This is except when there was a period of time several months ago when my father stated he never knew I told him these assaults happened (a lie) and provided an extremely invalidating and selfish response to hearing this. My fathers gaslighting (and my pos therapist’s response to this) essentially made me deeply suicidal and led to a hospitalization and abuse at the hands of another therapist because they misdiagnosed me with BPD and didn’t believe me. So gaslighting about sexual abuse happening/reported leading to 2 abusive therapy experiences one of which the licensing board is reviewing for an ethics violation.
Sorry this post went in a different direction
The violent shaking is a trauma release response natural to mammals. I’m going to start TRE therapy to purposefully shake the bodily trauma out purposefully. Pay attention to those tremors - your body is telling you something.
Yeah they happen before bed usually and that’s where the suspected assaults with my ex occurred. They also sometime happen when I meditate around others but didn’t start till after the ex was out of my life
Holy shit so many people have failed you. I’m so sorry you’ve gone through things that no one should even have to imagine. The fact that you’re still here to share your story means a lot. Thank you for sharing. I have a feeling that I’ve repressed some things and I’m worried to explore them due to the potential of having a break down. I have two toddlers to raise, so I can’t afford that right now. My husband abuses me and I have no self esteem or confidence, and I think being so confused about my past, not knowing why I feel the way I do, PLUS my husband grooming me since I was 16 (he was my teacher), it’s just too much sometimes.
Also many of the dv resource websites have a quick release button to exit quickly and remover to clear your browser history and record of phone calls if necessary. Not sure if you husband controls your phone calls/internet use
Jesus!!! You are fighting through hell too. You deserve to find peace and get to a safe place where you can let others take care of you so you can have the space to heal. When you find that space or that person it is game changing in terms of recovery. Are you able to take some steps to even brainstorm some solutions for finding a way to find that space or person? Do you feel safe reaching out to a DV helpline to talk to an advocate? I don’t think many outside of the trauma community knows what it feels like to not have any self confidence and live in fear every damn day of our lives. And while I know this feeling I can only imagine how difficult to live in this abject fear for so long and try to parent. You deserve to be safe and to take steps to heal. Even if the step today is dialing the number to a DV hotline and hanging up immediately. You have power in your situation even if it does not seem like it or feel like it. Even a tiny action (and even talking here on Reddit) will likely help. Be safe and smart though and only you know what that looks like in your personal situation.
During the time I did not remember exactly what happened I would have strong reactions to some things I really couldn't explain. One of my abusers was my adopted father, and every time he looked at me I felt naked, scared, and ashamed. I couldn't explain why, and suspected CSA, but I had no clear memory.
Another abuser was someone who I didn't see around in daily life or communicate with anymore, but I had the image of him in my head as someone who was watching me and trying to communicate with me. I thought maybe it was a "spirit guide" or someone from a past life or something. But no, it turned out this was a guy who with my adopted father's permission was trying to turn me into a prostitute. He would stalk me, and grab me off the street or come to the home and my father would throw me out in the hallway and then ring him in to come grab me.
I also had body memories of people touching me in intimate ways. I avoided going to a gyn for years and years because of the sensation of being molested when I would just sit there in the stirrups even with no one touching me.
I also had intrusive thoughts, of just me repeating "no, no, no." or a sensation like I needed to be struggling physically against someone.
This all sounds like repressed memory stuff. What happened that allowed you to get the answers if you mind me asking? Was it EMDR
The only weird things I had like this was being terrified to work around children in a childcare or one on one setting for fear that I would be accused of or accidentally assault them. I know this is a common type of OCD. I also had this odd, yet intense, intrusive thought that every time I would get into a car with a man, regardless of who it was, that they would kiss me or I would have to kiss them. The other weird behavior was that I felt deeply uncomfortable about my father hugging me or doing the father daughter dance. I honestly think this is because I got no physical affection from my family as a child/teen moreso than my father physically assaulting me. Unrelated, but kinda so, when I first met my boyfriend I would physically cling to him constantly throughout the first 6 months of us dating and it’s still a struggle to physically be away from him since he is the first person I feel safe with, but still very much struggle with healthy attachment/intimacy.
Anyway, the pedophillia OCD went away after I went to residential treatment in 2015 and did my own exposure therapy by teaching little kids in China with no issues and the kiss in car intrusive thought and issue with my Dad went away after I developed a safe therapeutic relationship with a man and my father became more physically affectionate (appropriately so).
Thank you for talking about this and reminding me of how I’ve made progress on this. I’ve not even thought about this stuff for a long time. While my trauma history is intense I don’t always remember how intense it was since I’m constantly trying to just get through the day with PTSD and all the “wonderful” challenges that come along with living with autism that was unrecognized and untreated for nearly 40 years.
The body always keeps the score and while our brain may forget, our bodies don’t.
I've not done EMDR. It was after my abusers died that I guess my mind felt the world was safe enough to remember. When my adoptive father died, I felt such a tremendous sense of relief. A force for evil was gone from this world and it was a weight lifted off me.
A few weeks after that was when things started coming back to me. Not all at once like a gush, but fragments of things. And not like I remembered it once and then had it firmly in my head. I would remember some fragments of stuff and then forget again. Slowly things started to piece together. It was a very difficult time, those months when I was starting to remember and piece everything together. A lot of dissociation, feeling afraid and unsafe.
I looked up some therapists that I had back when these things would have happened. That's when I got confirmation that I had a been pregnant and had a son and some of the other stuff. When I felt more stable, I started establishing the paper trail with things like medical records.
That’s so difficult but also kinda amazing that your brain did that to “protect you”.