Adoption Under One Roof - Comments for "Trauma Tuesday: Orgasms During Rape and Sexual Abuse"

contradictions in emotions

it's very traumatic experience and we can see a lot contradictory reactions. a lot of women working in escort service went through this and their attitude to sex is sometimes very confused...

I am glad that you have

I am glad that you have found our website and I am confident that Faith's blogs will be incredibly helpful to you. If you would like to post a blog of your own, don't hesitate, we would welcome your willingness to share as ultimately, you will reach someone else who is suffering the same daily challenges as you are.

Best,

Lisa S.

Welcome to our site!

Because you are a child abuse survivor, you might find my personal blog to be very helpful:

http://faithallen.wordpress.com/

I write that blog for adult survivors of child abuse. I cover all of these topics and more, with the focus directed toward the child abuse survivor rather than toward the person parenting an abused child.

Yes, the hoarding is quite the family joke in my family, too. Every year, my sister puts a bunch of pens in my Christmas stocking. I love getting them. LOL

Take care,

Faith

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We must BE the change we wish to see in the world. - Ghandi

Relief

Thank you for all this information. I just stumbled upon this website yesterday and already I am feeling a whole new level of self awareness. There are so many things that I have done as long as I can remember that I cannot control. From very sexual thoughts to needing to have notebooks within reach no matter where I am, to not being about to go downtown without my "bag", with notebook, handful of pens, pencils, crayons, book to read, activity to do, food and drink... I have tried very hard over the years to control my obsession with these things. Even after I recently recovered memories of abuse I didn't correlate some of these as hoarding and certainly not with abuse. It has just always been almost a family joke, it is such a relief to see these things as a logical result of abuse. When I was abused I had no control over anything, so perhaps as a child and as an adult, these have been ways to find control in my life. Also, the linking sexual response to fear triggers makes so much sense and helps allay fears of "what kind of person would think that" type of thoughts. Gives me a place to back up and look for a potential trigger and rewire my brain to see that this is the present and I am in fact safe. I wish people who abused kids would realize the amount of damage they are inflicting. That it lasts longer than the tears.

GREAT information!!

Thank you for such wonderful insight, KT!! I would love to reprint your comment as a guest blog!!

Take care,

- Faith
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We must BE the change we wish to see in the world. - Ghandi

Body memories

Our bodies hold memories of the trauma, just like our brains do. It is possible that you have repressed the memories of traumas you experienced involving the parts of your body that have spasms. If this is your truth, you will remember as you are ready to heal. For me, it helped to invite the memories in. I would tell myself that I was ready to know my truths, whatever they were. Once I recovered the memories, so much about my life that had baffled me made perfect sense.

Take care,

- Faith

++++++++++

We must BE the change we wish to see in the world. - Ghandi

Orgasms from childhood abuse

Here I am 61 and I still shake, have anal spasms and feel severe emotional pain when I think about my abuser. Is this possible? He never penetrated me or even touched me that I can remember anyway but my body has this response How does this happen? He has remained in denial and got away with it.....at the time I had no idea what an orgasm was or that I could have one....why the anal spasms...is that another sort of orgasm?

Thanks for bringing this subject up.

Conditioned Responses May Create Confusion

Hi Faith!

Thanks for addressing this very important topic.
These conflicting emotions and conflicting bodily sensations experienced during childhood sexual abuse often do set up tremendous confusion for the child. As you have clearly pointed out,it can become an overwhelming burden for the child to attempt to sort out these confliciting emotions during the child's very healthy exploration of his/her own sexuality.

This combination of such strong emotions and an intense biological response may become "conditioned" to occur together whenever a strong emotion is triggered/elicited during everyday life activities.

The co-occurring strong emotions (intense fear and/or anxiety/panic), along with the "conditioned" biological response (sexual arousal) may also present significant confusion in many daily life scenarios of a non-sexual nature.

Within the same scenario of chronic childhood sexual abuse, the child is feeling a myriad of negative emotions and a sexual response, among other responses. This may also create the potential for a "conditioned response" of a primary fear and/or anxiety response in any "triggering" scenario, while also secondarily eliciting a sexual response. This can be extremely confusing to the child (and to any adults involved in trying to help the child). (For instance, the child may feel s/he is having a primarily sexual response to non-sexual stimuli, when the sexual response is merely a by-product of -- and secondary to-- an intense fear/anxiety response.)

After chronic abuse, any triggers eliciting intense fear/anxiety responses (also paired with hyperarousal and a sexual response, as a normal biological response, all co-occurring during childhood sexual abuse) may often continue to confuse survivors (and treating professionals) throughout adulthood.

The confusion, if it occurs and persists, may be due to the fact that the strong primary emotion (for example, fear) becomes tied in with hyperarousal and the eroticization of fear. In trying to understand the complex response, the focus may be placed upon the secondary ("conditioned") response, a "conditioned" sexual response, and not upon the primary emotional response of intense fear and its "trigger(s)."

Not only might such an "error" in focus lead to a great deal of misunderstanding and potential misdiagnosis (which may also lead to potential mistreatment), the focus placed upon the secondary response, rather than upon the primary emotional response (of the "triggering" of fear/anxiety) may often elicit more shame and guilt, further perpetuating negative self-esteem.

It is critical we, as a society, in any/all roles dedicated to the healing of children (and adult survivors alike), become as educated and as insightful as possible in an effort to assist these sweet innocent souls in their healing! Many thanks to Faith for her tireless dedication to helping to coach so many in how to best assist in healing the deep wounds of child abuse.

With Deep Gratitude,
KT

Absolutely one of the hardest issues

Their bodies reaction coupled with the fact that they often love their abuser (a parent, beloved uncle, friend, whomever) is part of why sexual abuse is so damaging!

Thanks for addressing a tough topic. I don't think a lot of people realize this happens and how incredibly confusing it is.

Romee