posted August 20, 2008 11:22 AM              

nevermind, PA.

May you find all the answers to the questions you have.

posted August 20, 2008 03:31 PM              

quote:

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And I wonder, sometimes, if it were a man instead of a woman being 'highly sexed' if previous abuse as a child would even come into question?

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I wonder this all the time myself.

quote:

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That's because it's something that she has to constantly live with. Every second of every minute of every day she is a rape victim. She has been stained. Eternally. You don't know what that's like. To feel dirty even though you're skin is clean. To feel like a chunk of yourself has been stolen from you without your ******* permission. She does resent people who haven't gone through what she has, because no one will ever understand what life is like for her. You can have compassion and empathize, but you don't really understand. You wouldn't want to understand. If you had the opportunity to do so, if you had the chance to get a glimpse of what an individual feels before, during, and after you wouldn't take it. And if you wanted to to take it you're completely obscene.

People who have been abused offer comfort to fellow victims. At least in most cases. Why? Because they provide an unspoken acceptance between one another. Those who have never tasted such a sin can only imagine. But in truth, take what you imagine and square it to the 5485183752347509th power, and that's what it's like. All. The. Time.

I'm not saying that it's all they think about day and night, or that everyone is depressed... but it is now apart of who they are. Half. When someone violates you, and in such an intimate way... you're controlled by that person for the rest of your life. For example, if you take a dog's ball from him, you now have complete control over him. You have taken something precious away, and he doesn't understand what the reasoning behind your thievery is. Maybe you were getting annoyed and decided to put it on top of the counter for a while. Say you even give it back to him a few hours later. The next time you go to take the ball away, he won't let go of it. He might even growl. He remembers what happened last time that he didn't protect himself, and his ball, and he doesn't want that to happen again. He'll fight you for it. He'll warn you that if you touch his toy, he'll bite.

That's another thing. I can guarantee you that if you ask your friend about those incidents, or about her attackers, she'll remember them more vividly than you remember your wedding day. He, or she, controls them. That explains her need for power. She is controlled, therefore, to balance it out she feels she MUST control something. She must. If she doesn't, life falls apart. If she doesn't, she's a victim.

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You totally nailed it here. We DO get jealous of people who are "normal." I did a ll the time. To only have "normal people problems" I would think....how easy. Someone cheated on you, dumped you, etc... I wish that was my only concern. I wish I didn't have to worry about someone not harming me and only had to worry that they'd cheat on me or leave me. I'm not saying these things are easy, but they are things that can be healed in totality. They are easier than rape or any kind of violation that stems from violence.

posted August 20, 2008 03:40 PM            

quote:

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And I wonder, sometimes, if it were a man instead of a woman being 'highly sexed' if previous abuse as a child would even come into question?

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posted August 20, 2008 04:31 PM              

it is so interesting to read this topic and see so many variables.

Some people just have a higher sex drive than others, some poeple withdraw, how much of it is experiences, genetic makeup, or due to the abuse...so interesting, and I think we will really never know. pidgeonhole answers never really work for every one. promiscuius girls get a name, oh, was she abused, when maybe in fact she just gets horny and wants sex and looks at it differently than the next person who sees it as a sacred act between two people. It can be both. We have to label everything and compartmentalize everything to fit in our nice little worlds in a place we can understand it and call it "something".

I have always wondered how some people can go on and have produtive well rounded lives after abuse (sexual or other) , and how some are disabled by it, are mean and crotchety and do not let others get close. I have seen it both ways and have always wondered what makes one person be able to "get past it" when others never do in a lifetime.

case in point: There is a lady I work with who was abused by many family members (uncles) growing up, she never had anyone show her love and her mother sold her to a man for marriage so he could get his green card and stay in the states. She is a mean, crotchety, abrasive person now in her late 60's.. Lets call her the troll. I try to be nice to the troll and makes sure she has chocolate, and make jokes the best I can when she is acting up..as she is prone to do... She lives alone. She only is close to one person, who is like a daughter to her..and she is just mean and keeps people at bay. Had I not been nio=ce to her, she would not sit in my office 15 minutes before we leave every day ande talk...which is how I found out about her horrid abusive past. My secretary..lets call her claw, is a very very nice woman, who always is kind and generous, except for one thing ...claw has no tolerance for the troll...well yesterday my friend stopped in my office and sat down and was talking...well something happened at the main office that upset the troll. she barged in my office, dropping the f-bomb and high blood pressure everywhere...and I straighned out the problem, then here comes claw, saying, that was not neseccary, she should never have come into your office acting up when you had a visitor, and claw was very upset about the troll dropping the f-bomb...so i asy to claw, you know what we talked about, the troll can't help it how she is, she never knew love and doesn't know what is appropriate and claw said bullsh*& We have all been through hard things in our lives, but we can't let it excuse bad inappropriate behaviour. In other words, why can't she just get over it and be " Normal". I don't have an answer for that. but I do know why she is the way that she is. It saddens me and I love the little girl inside her even though she is a tough mean old troll on the outside. I always wondered why some can go on and some can never ever accept love...and how I am able to look at it objectively knowing what I have been through myself..

I do know this, I prayed, forgave, tried to get over, let it go, counselled and thought it was so far in my past that it wasnt even part of who i am anymore, until this summer. after 30 some years I was at a outdoor party and some cane proping old wreck of a man was there and someone said you remember this guy, right, (oh I remember) and introduced me face to face with the man who molested me as a child for 2 years. do you know the old broke down son of a such had the nerve to say...oh yes...she was always such a pretty girl. I wanted to kick that cane out from under him and watch him fall to the ground as i kicked his face in. I do not mind seeing him suffer in the least. As a matter of fact, i hope he suffers on for a long long time. So I guess even when you move on, try to forgive, go on and have a life, it is still there. and yes, it makes me happy that he suffers now. like i said, i just wanted to push him down and kick his face in. the one time I didn't feel sorry for a broke down old man that beat the hell out of my little brother and did bad things to me.

but to say..does it lead to promiscuity..hhhmmmm...I guess it can lead to a lot of things, and yet there is always the genetic makeup of people that may have higher sex drives and so you really can't say. I think all expereinces affect each individual so differently.

posted August 20, 2008 09:55 PM            

quote:

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I have always wondered how some people can go on and have produtive well rounded lives after abuse (sexual or other) , and how some are disabled by it, are mean and crotchety and do not let others get close. I have seen it both ways and have always wondered what makes one person be able to "get past it" when others never do in a lifetime.

case in point: There is a lady I work with who was abused by many family members (uncles) growing up, she never had anyone show her love and her mother sold her to a man for marriage so he could get his green card and stay in the states. She is a mean, crotchety, abrasive person now in her late 60's.. Lets call her the troll. I try to be nice to the troll and makes sure she has chocolate, and make jokes the best I can when she is acting up..as she is prone to do... She lives alone. She only is close to one person, who is like a daughter to her..and she is just mean and keeps people at bay. Had I not been nio=ce to her, she would not sit in my office 15 minutes before we leave every day ande talk...which is how I found out about her horrid abusive past. My secretary..lets call her claw, is a very very nice woman, who always is kind and generous, except for one thing ...claw has no tolerance for the troll...well yesterday my friend stopped in my office and sat down and was talking...well something happened at the main office that upset the troll. she barged in my office, dropping the f-bomb and high blood pressure everywhere...and I straighned out the problem, then here comes claw, saying, that was not neseccary, she should never have come into your office acting up when you had a visitor, and claw was very upset about the troll dropping the f-bomb...so i asy to claw, you know what we talked about, the troll can't help it how she is, she never knew love and doesn't know what is appropriate and claw said bullsh*& We have all been through hard things in our lives, but we can't let it excuse bad inappropriate behaviour. In other words, why can't she just get over it and be " Normal". I don't have an answer for that. but I do know why she is the way that she is. It saddens me and I love the little girl inside her even though she is a tough mean old troll on the outside. I always wondered why some can go on and some can never ever accept love...and how I am able to look at it objectively knowing what I have been through myself..

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I'm almost at a loss for words. Almost, not quite, which will be a shame for you.

I'm not going to attack you, but i am going to voice my opinion very, very clearly: You don't understand how some people can be restrained and resentful and have difficulty with being intimate with others? Are you kidding? How could you not understand that? When someone is VIOLATED, especially at a young age, their life is forever altered. They are automatically someone else. Someone different than the person they were before the incident. He or she will carry that with them for the rest of their life. Most every decision that they make will somehow all come back to being abused. Whether it's that they don't get a decent job because they didn't go to college because they didn't get good grades in high school because Johnny Boy shoved it in under the bleachers at a football game freshman year. Yes, it all connects. So the idea that it isn't comprehendable that someone would be emotionally strained after something so F***ing horrible just doesn't click. The formula doesn't equate.

posted August 21, 2008 10:20 AM            

It's sitting around thinking too much.

meta- you're so right about everything being connected. I'm actually speechless about sunshine_lion's post. I don't want to be like the troll. I think that's my biggest fear.

LEXX. I get so much strength from you. You were able to find love, real love despite it all. My friend, my dear LEXX, you are blessed. I still wonder, when I find someone attractive if I'm attracted to their inner abuser or whether I'm feeling something real. A psychologist told me that I attract abusers. Apparently they can literally smell me from a mile away.

Sexual abuse messes with your mind. I don't consciously think about it all the time but there are days when I just let go and throw myself a pity party but these days are rare the more I grow.

I refuse to let my experiences define me. I put my foot down about that. It does make a person strange because I can't for dear life convince myself that my other problems are big enough. I mean, for example, I'm just happy to be safe. Although material problems do come about, they never seem big enough because I always find myself saying that I've been through worse. While my peers are looking for talk dark and handsome, all I really look at seriously is how safe I am. One gets a little paranoid so much so that one gets touchy about any behavior that seems to point at abuse. It's like a state of being constantly alert to prevent history from being repeated. And worst of all, it is so easy for one incidence to just open up the gates of all the pain you've ever experienced that one has to consciously remind the self that the person you're dealing with now is not the one that once hurt you. And, instinct and fear get really muddled up at one's worst.

posted August 21, 2008 10:34 AM              

You wouldn't reach out to talk about things.

I am sorry.

I apparently can't say the right thing to save my life.

posted August 21, 2008 10:45 AM            

Don't leave. Your story paints a picture for how abuse can break us, but as you said, it is possible to break the vicious cycle.

posted August 21, 2008 10:45 AM            

the way i read it from unmoved was that she's afraid of becoming like the troll, sweetie. i didn't think she was knocking you. she's highly compassionate.

posted August 21, 2008 11:11 AM            

I have no illusions about how evil I can be. It is because I know evil very well and any good about me is a choice not a predisposition. If I were to meet one of my abusers, I would end up in jail because I would skin them alive. If I'm capable of murder it just tells me that I'm capable of evil. I'm both good and bad so the road which could end me up as the troll is not too far. I can be her as soon as I choose.

This also makes me unable to watch abuse. I'd rather have people mad at me than allow such to go on.

Unfortunately, I have to see one of my abusers often but I'm trying my best to forgive. But it does make a person a little crazy.

added. that was twisted. I just doubt that abusers feel evil when they do what they do. They are wonderful people other than the fact that they have this demon in them. I can't even grasp how a person meditates upon hurting a little child, or how a person forces themselves on another. I suspect there's some temporary insanity involved. Hence I don't get holier than these people because I could be just like them and not know it. Did they know that someday they would hurt their flesh and blood? Rapists make more sense to me than family members hurting their own.

posted August 21, 2008 11:57 AM              

Meta 4 - I re read and re-read your posts and you are right...it is all connected...