Inside I feel sexually abused. Is it true? Help!

[cece5]

This is my first time posting about this, and hopefully I can hear some opinions because currently I feel crazy! I've been suffering from treatment resistant depression, mood instability, an overdose, suicidal ideation, and anxiety for the last 3 years. I have been through a few therapists while I was in school, however since the fall I have been seeing a social worker who has been tremendously helpful and I'm now comfortable opening up to her....which has never happened with other therapists before.

 

I'm wondering if is possible to have been sexually abused as a toddler. Not anything severe, but mildly. I have no memory but I have this strong gut feeling. I physically and mentally feel like I have been sexually abused. Everyday I feel like I was touched inappropriately and since then it has become part of me. I want to tell my therapist but because I have no memory of it and it is only a feeling, I'm afraid she won't believe me or that she will think I'm seeking attention. I'm afraid that I am attention seeking if I tell her, and I'm trying convince myself that because I have no memory of it that I am just being crazy and an awful person for imagining such a thing. I beat myself up over feeling like being abused because it is such an awful thing to happen to someone, why would I say I have been abused myself. Am I crazy?? Am I just imaging the possibility that I was sexually abused as a toddler??? Or is my gut instinct right?

 

I'm a social 24 year old female and decent looking. Never had any boyfriend or relationship with a guy because I flee before physical contact and intimacy. I feel disgusted, panicked, afraid, and the biggest one of all is anger when physical intimacy is a potential and even when it happens. I feel as if I will never ever be able to overcome this because it is engrained in me. I tried to convince myself that it was anxiety and that if I exposed myself to these situations then the anxiety would start to fall. However, in the past that never happened...instead I felt even more disgusting, angry, like I had no choice in whether we had sex because I felt I deserved to be used, I felt it was my job to please the guy.

 

My dreams/nightmares always involve me being pursued or in danger & trying to escape from someone/something but I don't know who/what it was. In my nightmares I physically feel everything I feel during the day but to a greater extent. Growing up: very angry kid. Extreme anger towards mom (still have it) for no reason "on paper". I had a good upbringing although I don't feel like I did emotionally. I'm disgusted by my mom and feel that she never protect me. She never recognized how much I was hurting inside. I desperately wanted an adult to recognize I was in pain and help me pull apart the big jumble of emotions I couldn't untangle or understand. This never happened because I didn't know how to ask for such help. Instead it manifested in sudden bouts of anger, rages, and bad attitude. People around me never understood my anger because at the same time I was often nice, well behaved, and good student.

[Angel Irulan]

You should really tell your therapist all of this, she is not going to censure you for it. It's important because it's THE WAY YOU FEEL, whether it happened in reality or not. I think it's great you finally found a therapist you can talk to, open up the door a little bit more and let her in, that is what she's there for.

 

Angel

[Roxie84]

As I have opened myself up in my sexuality, I"ve found some very uncomfortable blockages. I will live out a fantasy that I expect to be mind blowing, and I'll feel physically sick afterwards.

 

Conveniently, as I was trying to do inner work to figure out why I act like this, my mother told me that when I was 4, my best friend's father was caught masterbating and watching porn while we were playing in the same room. He never touched any of us (apparently), but this seemed to make everything come together like a puzzle. The parents never put us in therpy because they figured we were young and we'd forget.

 

I don't mean to put an idea in your head, but if you have a feeling that something like this came to you, there are a few practices you can try to bring up old childhood memories that have been long forgotten in your immediate recollection. As AI said, it would be a good idea to discuss this with your social worker.

[OptomisticGirl]

I would tell your therapist. There's hoenstly no way to tell if you were or not but your therapist can work with you if these are real grounded feelings or feelings for you to explain your distance with intamcy and physical touch.