by Staci Haines
We become accustomed to interpreting certain sensations as certain emotions. For example, the sensations of fear may feel similar to the sensations of excitement or titillation. The sensations of being grounded can feel much like those of boredom or being stuck. Be curious about your sensations. Are you feeling fear? Or are you opening up? Once you learn to differentiate sensations and emotions, subtlety comes into play.
I was fantasizing about sex with this guy I’ve been attracted to for a long time.
I was masturbating, and I got to this edge I’ve reached before that feels like old
fear about the abuse. Instead of checking out or trying to get away from it, I
stayed with it. The most amazing thing happened. Upon closer examination,
what felt like fear was sexual excitement. The feeling kind of opened up then
and became very pleasant and alive.
Danielle
Be careful when interpreting your emotions. It will not help you just to “re-interpret” terror as excitement when it really is terror. Gently releasing and feeling the terror will heal it for you
Emotional Sourcing
Imagine that you had a deep internal well of emotional resources to dip into when the going gets tough. Facing your feelings might not seem so terrible if you knew the emotional support you needed was available right inside of you. Emotional sourcing helps you develop positive, pleasurable places in yourself from which to approach your healing.
To create emotional sourcing for yourself, bring your attention to any pleasant, peaceful, or settled sensation you can find in your body right now. Can you find a spot in your body where you feel warmth spreading? A sense of relaxation? If you can’t find a source of pleasure in your body, try imagining an object that gives you pleasure—the beautiful shirt you are wearing, a seashell or stone you found, or a special gift from a dear friend. Maybe your source will be a place in nature. If you find yourself smiling, you’ve got it! Now let yourself enter those sensations. Notice where the feelings of pleasure show up in your body. Get to know them.
When you reach a difficult piece of your healing, a moment you think you just will not survive, you can go back to your emotional source. Use that internal source of support to center yourself and help you gain perspective on your recovery. This will ease the process of working through difficult emotions and traumas.
Emotional Healing
I am afraid that if I let myself start crying I will never stop.
Sheila
As you heal, you will likely work with anger, grief, a sense of betrayal, blaming yourself, and placing accountability on the offender, shame, terror, a sense of your own internal resources and courage, longing, and compassion and forgiveness for yourself. I have found that survivors who are willing to face these emotions develop both courage and calmness.
Anger and Rage
I am scared to death of my anger. I am afraid that if I express it, really let it out, it will take over my life. I will be some mad, raging woman, screaming at the world.
Chris
My anger has saved my life. My anger has been the juice that let me know I was worth something.
Daren
When it comes to expressing your anger and rage about having been sexually abused as a girl, there is only one rule:
Do not hurt yourself or anyone else, or break any object that is important to you or to anyone else.
Otherwise, you have free reign to let out all of that anger until you have expressed all that is useful to express.
Most survivors I have worked with are so concerned about not raging that it takes them a long time to learn to express any anger at all. You may be able to say, “I am angry,” but really letting out the rage, expressing all the anger that you didn’t get to express as a child, may be something else altogether.
Anger is energy you can use to protect yourself and to stand up for your rights and dignity. Now you can have the opportunity to benefit from your anger in the ways that you could not as a kid.
I found this amazing therapist a couple of years into my healing. She taught me to wail on huge pillows with a plastic bat. I felt like I was living a delayed reaction. Now I was getting to respond physically in all of the ways that weren’t safe when I was a girl.
Stephanie
For many survivors, anger emerges during sex. You may be angry that a memory or trigger is invading your sex life or pissed off at your own emotions, sensations, turn-on, or body. You may also feel angry at your partner. Suddenly, nothing your lover does is right and you can barely tolerate a touch that previously you may have delighted in. There’s no mistaking this trigger. The past comes bubbling up and your hurt, fear, and anger get projected onto the closest target.
I find it much easier to get angry at my boyfriend, to harp on him about anything, than to direct my anger where it belongs. It is so much scarier to get angry at those who hurt me.
Debbie
Well, it’s time to get angry at those who hurt you. Go directly to the source. Get angry at the people who caused you this pain. Get mad at the people who failed to protect you. Express that anger in a way that works for you—scream at your pillow, lecture the wall, write a letter. Say everything you wanted to say long ago, but couldn’t. Allow yourself to express what you have wanted all these years to express.
Ways to Safely Express Your Anger
• Find a safe place where you can be loud and use your voice. Your bedroom, the shower, a secluded place in the woods, or your car are good choices. Make noise, growl, yell. Tell that abuser everything you have always wanted to say. Make noise as you…
• Physicalize your anger. Get a tennis racket or plastic bat and beat on pillows, your bed, or a couch. Breathe. Bend your knees so you don’t injure your back.
• Twist a large towel in your hands, wringing your anger into it.
• Rip up old phone books. Tear them apart with your anger.
• Lie on a mattress or futon. Beat your fists and kick your legs on the surface. Push against something.
• Pile up cushions along the base of a couch, or stack cushions along a wall. Turn onto one side and kick in the pillows. If using a wall, ensure that there is enough padding, that you are safe, and that you do not break your toes or kick the wall in. Being able to kick your legs can be an amazing relief. Our legs and butts are the sites of the most powerful muscles in our bodies. We can move them with great force.
When you feel angry during sex, pause, breathe, and acknowledge that anger in some way. You may find it works for you to do this internally, or you may need to acknowledge the anger out loud. You may decide to acknowledge the anger in the moment or save it for your therapy group, a phone call to your best friend, or some other supportive setting. Feeling anger is a healthy part of being alive. Feeling intense anger is a really healthy response to being sexually abused as a child.
When feeling and expressing your anger, remember to breathe and to stay in your body. How does your body want to express this anger? You may feel silly, but let your body do what it wants to do. Many survivors were held down, trapped by the weight of their abusers, and terrorized or shamed into silence. You may want to push or hit, yell, curse, or kick. Any of these are fine, provided you do them safely.
When you are ready, try expressing your anger with someone else present. This could be a close friend, another survivor, a support group, or your counselor or therapist. It can be difficult to learn to express your anger alone. Having someone witness your anger can be very powerful. When you are feeling small and vulnerable, it’s great to have someone who can remind you of how you stood up for yourself.
Anger helps you reclaim your worthiness, dignity, and self-respect. Anger says, “No, this was not right. This is not acceptable!” You may feel relieved and peaceful after having expressed rage at what happened to you. I have seen many survivors develop confidence and compassion for themselves by learning to fully express anger.
Grief and Loss
&nbs
p; The question isn’t have I ever cried during or after sex, but just how many times have I cried?
Stephanie
Under all that anger, you’ll find loss and grief. We are angry because we have been disrespected, betrayed, and wounded—and we grieve for these same pains. For survivors, there is the loss of your body, your childhood, your love, your safety, and your fundamental ability to trust yourself, other people, the world, and in many cases, your mother, father, siblings, and other family members. Childhood sexual abuse is responsible for some of the most devastating losses that humans experience.
Grief and loss also come up during sex—including masturbation. Many survivors also report crying when they orgasm.
For years I cried every time I had an orgasm. I thought it was strange and tried to stop it. Once I remembered being molested, it made sense.
Cheryl
I can sob after I come. It feels like a big release of the grief of being incested and the relief of having my body and my life back.
Sally
Other survivors speak about a more generalized sense of loss during sex.
Having sex has this strange way of reminding me that I am an adult. I then get in touch with the childhood I never had. Where did it go? I have lots of grief there.
Pamela
Feeling sadness and grief while being sexual is a normal part of the healing process and can come up periodically throughout your life. Sex is about opening to all emotions that are present in us. A healthy sexual relationship can make room for your sadness, loss, and tears. Remember, the intensity of these feelings won’t last forever. The more you allow yourself to feel and express an emotion, the sooner it will be done.
Grief can show up in many ways. You can shake, sweat, sob, moan, or laugh until you cry. Your chest may ache. You may want to curl up into a ball or crawl under the covers. Do what helps you feel deeply and release the loss from your insides. You may want to rock yourself, wrap yourself in a blanket and cry, or name aloud the things you have lost. You can make art about your loss and show it to others, or release it by burying it or burning it. Ritualizing loss can be powerful. You can make up a ritual that is meaningful to you to mark the official loss or grief and then let yourself mourn.
The Anger/Grief Interchange
Grief and anger can be mingled in a way that enables you to avoid one or the other. Most survivors I have worked with tend to favor either grief or anger. Those more comfortable with anger will go to anger automatically, even when they are feeling loss. Others, more comfortable with tears and sadness, will avoid feeling anger by crying. Or they will cry when they get mad.
Both anger and grief are vital to your health. Anger helps you learn to stand up for yourself, to draw the line as to what is acceptable and unacceptable to you. Anger vitalizes you. Loss and grief remind you that you are soft, human, and touchable. Loss demonstrates that you, too, have an effect on others. And to the extent that we can feel deep loss, we can also feel vast love and hold deep convictions. In this softness and vulnerability, we are also powerful.
Grief also allows us to move on. When we grieve, we feel deep sorrow and move through the process of letting go. It is in letting go that we can find change and completion. One day, you will remember the grief, loss, and abandonment of childhood sexual abuse and realize that those feelings have been completed for you. Grief no longer runs your heart, abandonment is no longer at the center of your fears, and loss no longer rules your life.
Do you lean toward anger or sadness? Which is the easier emotion for you? Try including the other emotion in your life. If you default to anger, ask yourself, What is underneath my anger? What loss am I angry about? We are usually angry about how we were hurt or what we have lost. If you default to tears and sadness, ask yourself, Where is my anger? How can I begin to stand up for myself? What would it be like to be angry?
Fear
Childhood sexual abuse is dangerous. When you were being abused, you may have felt like you were fighting to stay alive. Whether the struggle to survive was literal or metaphorical, fear, terror, and the real or perceived threat of death were visceral experiences for most survivors. This fear and terror can stay with you for years. Your body can get caught in a flight, fight, or freeze response, not knowing, on some level, that the abuse is long over.
This terror can show up during sex. You may find yourself feeling fear that doesn’t seem to have anything to do with what is currently happening. You may be afraid to masturbate or afraid of sex altogether. A wave of terror may come over you in the midst of being sexual.
Sometimes I just get scared. There is no memory or trigger that I can tell…I just feel terrified. Sometimes I wonder if I’m still letting out all of the terror I froze inside me.
Rosa
Fear is particularly tricky when you are being intimate with a lover. You can project past abuse and reactions onto your current sexual partner. This is all a natural part of healing, yet it can be challenging for your sexual relationships. During sex, your partner may remind you of one of your abusers. You may think he or she wants to betray you—just like your abusers did.
My boyfriend seems just like my dad sometimes when we are having sex. I become young and scared and he seems so big. I am convinced he wants to take something from me.
Jenifer
When feeling terror, you may shake or tremble, cough or sweat. You may freeze up and be unable to speak. These are normal responses to terror and probably similar to what you experienced as a child. See whether the fear is grounded in the present day or if it is a reaction to past abuse. What is happening in your life? Is there anything dangerous in your current situation you need to change?
If you are experiencing past fear emerging in your body, use your trigger plan to help you out. Stop, breathe, feel your body, get up and move around. Often, comforting yourself can be enough. Remind yourself that you are safe today, that the past was really scary, but that you are okay now. Call forth your internal sense of safety and access your emotional source. Physicalize your terror, allowing your body to move through the sensations.
I am absolutely committed to sitting in my own fear. I say, “I am afraid, I am so afraid, and I am going there anyway.” Every time I do, some profound healing happens.
Akaya
Longing
Usually tucked amid the fear and grief is longing. You can long for what you wish you had or long for those aspects of your relationship with your abuser that you miss. Like many survivors, you might long for your mother or someone else who can protect you. You may yearn for a childhood in which you felt loved and safe.
My dad took me out camping and on outdoor adventures. I felt strong and like
I could do anything. I also felt safe with him in these settings, protected. These
are the experiences I miss.
Carla
Acknowledge your longing. While grief and anger at what was missing often comes with this, longing tells you what you need and what is important to you. If you are longing for love, you can go about bringing more love into your life. If you long for a sense of belonging or being known, you can take steps to create these experiences.
Longing often includes contradictions which may make you reluctant to acknowledge your longing. “How can I long for the person who hurt me the most in my life?” You may love the person who sexually abused you. In addition to being a perpetrator, that person was your father, brother, aunt, grandfather, or teacher. As uncomfortable as it may be, let yourself feel your longing. Longing opens your heart, and opening your heart is good for you. It is what will serve your life now.
I love my father still after all he did to me. I realize that if I pretend that I don’t love him, I am closing off a piece of my heart. If I close off that place in my heart, nothing can get in there.
Danielle
Shame and Guilt
I have never met a survivor who did not believe, on some level, that the sexual abuse was her fault. I have never met a survivor
who did not carry the shame and guilt of this.
The sexual abuse was not your fault. I could say this five times or five hundred times, and I would not have said it enough. The sexual abuse was not your fault. Even if you literally asked your abuser to touch you, the abuse was not your fault. The older or more powerful person was responsible for your care and well-being. Sexual abuse does not accomplish this.
Really getting it that the abuse was not my fault took a very long time. I had to
be ready to feel how truly helpless and powerless I was at the time of the abuse.
That I was vulnerable and dependent, and that I couldn’t stop it.
Kassie
Shame lives very deeply for survivors. Somehow it is easier to believe that you are at fault than to feel the utter helplessness of having been abused. It may seem unimaginable that someone you love would hurt you on purpose. “It must be my fault,” you think, “or why else would they do that?”