Archive for the 'trauma' Category

Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

Published on May 10, 2010 in Uncategorized, anxiety, assault, blog, depression, emotions, mental illness, recovery and trauma. 7 Comments

I wrote the first draft of this on Saturday morning, when I was heavily in the midst of a post-traumatic stress disorder crisis. Sorry to say you don’t get any hot stories from the weekend as there pretty much weren’t any. This post is a bit meandering as it’s more about expressing my feelings than writing a well-written blog post.

Mental illness is something that you can’t just wish away. I’m as able to wish away bouts of post traumatic stress as much as I’m able to wish away a bout of diarrhea from ingesting dairy without lactaid. It’s frustrating. My rational brain can grasp the fact that I’m not in danger like I was during the trauma that gave me PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). It can grasp the fact that MasterDoc takes care of me now, and the same scenario wouldn’t happen again as he would never let it. But the primal brain, the part that was traumatized, can’t be reasoned with and so I go into a bout of panic, anxiety and helplessness as if I’m re-living the the trauma all over again. And again. And again.

Various things can trigger a bout of PTSD and it’s not always (or even often) possible to determine ahead of time what might set me off. I read stories about sexual violence regularly in feminist blogs; I think it’s vital to discuss it and that silence will only perpetuate the problem. But sometimes something hits me just the wrong way, or just on the wrong day, and I find myself struggling with the same feelings I had right after the assault.

What set me off this time was a combination of things: reading comments on a post about outing sexual predators was the big thing. People were telling the survivors that they should always go to the police and that if they didn’t report the incident then they were somehow responsible for the sexual predator attacking the next person (and yet they shouldn’t publicly name and shame the person). This of course is utter bullshit as the only person responsible for the inappropriate behavior of the attacker is the attacker. But it struck me deeply as I agonized for a long time over pursuing legal repercussions after I was sexually assaulted 5 years ago. I worried about the women who could be affected in future by this asshole who was incapable of empathy or taking responsibility for his actions. I ultimately decided not to file a report because in talking to the NYPD I found out that unless they were sure they could convict they wouldn’t even prosecute. At the time people who were there that night were making all sorts of excuses for the guy who traumatized me. (He hosted fun sex parties, no one wanted to be uninvited. From what I hear he still hosts parties. Yes, New York sluts, you may in fact attend the parties of someone who committed sexual assault without remorse.) I felt like I would be completely alone in my accusations, and considering I was barely keeping my head together at that point I knew that pursuing legal action would only serve to damage me more. I also worried about harassment from his friends if I spoke up. (I did receive a little harassment just from speaking up within the circle.) Now, it’s past the statute of limitations (I can’t tell you the agony I went through that year the statute was going to be up. Do I report? Do I not?) but in the past two years a few people have come forward from that night to tell me that, indeed, what that guy did was wrong and they have felt terrible about what I went through. It’s comforting, but I wish they could have spoken up when I could have gone to the police.

As for the guy who did it, well he’s still a part of the sex blogger community. He’s on twitter. He’s on Fetlife. Part of my trigger was thinking about how many of my blogger friends believe his facade of “nice guy” and don’t realize what he did to me. I feel like the world should know, but in this society we protect the perpetrators of sex crimes. Had he hit me, or mugged me, I wouldn’t hesitate to name him. But since it was sexual and I know that being at a sex party when it happened would be enough for the slut shaming to begin, I don’t feel safe hollering his name from the rooftops. Oh privately I have told many, but publicly I’ve been mostly circumspect. I’m sure if anyone questioned him about the incident, he would deftly turn things around and make me look like the bad one. (Just as he did after the assault. Nice guy, huh?)

I’ve heard from someone else that they heard the story of that incident from him and his telling is completely different. In his mind, I was a woman who decided to try to “destroy him online.” I find this rich considering I didn’t name who did it or hint at who did it in the aftermath (for at least 2 years). I merely blogged about the hell I was going through and from this dickhead I got things like emails telling me to stop using him as “blog fodder.” Most readers of the blog I had at that time didn’t know who had done it, so I don’t see how he was persecuted by my trying to process my feelings. (He sure didn’t like the comments people left about what an asshole he was. But these people didn’t know he, specifically, was the asshole.) He refused to take any sort of responsibility for his behavior, and one or two people close to him made excuses (“He was drunk.”) or one even went so far as to call me crazy. I’m not crazy. And this man who did this to me is clearly incapable of empathy. I’m not the only person to observe him and come to the conclusion that he likely has some sort of personality disorder. So while a part of me wants to hear an apology (5 years later and one still hasn’t appeared) I don’t really expect to ever get one, because he is so focused on how this incident affected him. (Isn’t that simply amazing? He traumatized and assaulted me and he feels that he’s the wronged party.) I’ve seen him concoct huge, involved, false stories about people I know because he imagines that they are persecuting him in some way. I’ve heard about others who have spoken out about him who have been incessantly harassed by his minions. Intellectually I know this man will never feel remorse for what he did to me. And this is supremely frustrating because his actions can still affect me deeply 5 years later. When will it stop? I don’t know that the flashbacks will ever stop. I don’t know that the self-blaming will ever stop. I don’t know that my fears of him hurting other women will ever stop. A few years back a woman I was dating turned out to go to his parties. I felt panicked for her because I was afraid if he knew I knew her then he’d do something to her too. That incident was a total trigger for me. I went home and cried.

I’ve spent the past three and a half days trying to distract myself from the feeling of being re-traumatized. But it’s not something that can be simply ignored. I keep going through endless cycles of panic coming on, followed by extreme frustration that I could be happy and having hot sex right about now, but instead I’m feeling violated and fearful. When I’m triggered, I live the trauma all over again. Over the weekend I was psychically in the space where I was during/after the assault: scared, helpless, panicked, angry. I find myself questioning if going to a sex party makes it somehow okay for someone to put a speculum inside you without having negotiated it (or ANY play) with you beforehand. I find myself angry that I didn’t stop him before he put it in my cunt and jabbed me with it. (I had a tender spot inside my vagina for about a year after the event.) But at the time I firmly believed that if I said stop he would stop. He didn’t. And you can’t just jump up and run out of a room with an open speculum inside you. I had to rely on this asshole taking it out of me. With enough panic coursing through me I decided to end things there and then by drawing all attention to what was going on. And while I’m proud of the strength it took for me to do that, I was already traumatized at that point.

It’s been a long trip back from there to where I am now (on most days). It’s taken a long time for me to trust my dark fantasies to MasterDoc. I often fear that someone will use these fantasies against me, like how after the assault someone commented on my blog and cited my talking about using a speculum to see my cervix as an indication that I consented to this guy, who I had never played with before, to use one with me sexually. (Keep in mind any discussion of speculums on my blog were related to viewing my cervix and not at all sexual fantasy-related.) I find myself often afraid to admit to things especially without putting in the caveat that I want to do them “with MasterDoc.” He’s the only person I feel safe enough with to indulge the dark, kinky fantasies I’ve always had.

Simply talking about something does not equal consenting to doing it.

I’d name this asshole right here, right now and link to his blog, only I fear the harassment that would ensue. I’ve dealt with enough hell from this person. Right now about the only thing I can do is hope he dies a slow, painful death. And I hope that I can move past this anger that plunges me into depression whenever I’m triggered.

I write this for me. I write this because I feel better having gotten it out. Douchebag, this ultimately has nothing to do with you. If I wanted to persecute you I’d be going about it in an entirely different way.

Rape Culture and Triggers

Published on December 20, 2009 in Feminism, Uncategorized, anxiety, assault, consensual non-consent, depression, emotions, rape, recovery and trauma. 16 Comments

*trigger warning*

Earlier today, MasterDoc showed me something on fetlife that he thought was sick and twisted, but sorta funny. I won’t put it here since that would require me looking for it, and that would not be good for me to do. I cannot read it again. To sum up: it was a sp0of on “Twas the Night Before Christmas,” a rhyming tale of a man who chloroforms his wife, invites his girlfriend in to help him fuck his wife while she’s unconscious, (the wife comes in the story while she’s unconscious), he slips her a roofie when she starts to come to, films the entire thing, and then when she gets up in the morning and relates to him the “dream” she had, he tells her that wow, that sounds hot, wish I could have been there. Now, granted, different people read things differently. I had to point out to MasterDoc the fact that nowhere in there was any indication at all that this was consensual. No indication to the reader that this was a D/s relationship where consent has already been given for activities like this. Call me a stuffy old feminist assault survivor, but I don’t find rape funny. He had assumed consent, but when I pointed this out he read it again and agreed, there was no clear, or even implied consent. (And the whole bit about her coming during the assault is typical “women enjoy being raped” bullshit.)

I wasn’t inclined to post a comment myself, as I’ve seen too often that women will be dismissed as lacking a sense of humor for calling this shit out. But as a survivor of non-consensual sex I was really upset after reading this. I burst into tears while talking to MasterDoc about it. It’s an indication of the rape culture we live in that this is seen as humorous and acceptable by otherwise reasonable people. (Someone else we know posted a positive comment on this thread. Women posted positive comments on this thread.) MasterDoc decided to post a comment pointing out the problems with the post but the thread owner opted to delete it. He did, however, write to MasterDoc essentially explaining that he thinks that people on fetlife are all adults and able to look at a poem like that and appreciate that it’s not non-consensual. I disagree.

I wondered aloud if the following poem would have gotten the same level of appreciation: a woman chloroforms her husband without his consent, ties him up, invites in some guys to peg his ass while he’s unconscious, and then she lets him think that the whole experience was a dream (but meanwhile she’s filmed it). Would people find that as amusing? But you know, I don’t think that would ever be put out there as humor. I also think that most people are so conditioned by the rape culture that only other survivors would “get” the problem with it. (I worry that the scenario I just related would trigger a man who’s experienced sexual violence.)

The triggering for me was the way that raping the woman was treated like a big joke. When I was assaulted and wrote on my old blog about it, while most people were appalled at what happened one or two told me that I was blowing it out of proportion. They basically told me that I didn’t have the right to feel traumatized. That it wasn’t assault. The guy who did it to me tried to convince me that it was just an “accident.” While I did get support, the few people who dismissed my trauma as inconsequential did a tremendous amount of damage to me.

In all fairness, I don’t think there was any malice in the posting on fetlife. Not true malice. And MasterDoc felt terrible for showing it to me and said that he should have known better. I’m not at all mad at him as he had no intent of harming me. (Had he thought for a second that this post would upset me so, he would have never showed it to me.) I don’t think the author meant to convey a true non-consensual experience. After all, I can understand the fantasy of intoxication play – where one partner is heavily intoxicated, consensually, and the other person then has their way with them. Done consensually, I could find that really hot. Some people would still be triggered by this.

Driving home today, I started thinking that perhaps I was too sensitive about this. After all, the guy tells the wife that her story is so hot when she relates it to him; one would hope that if she was anything but enthusiastic about her “dream” he wouldn’t say that. But I don’t know – am I thinking this only because I’ve been conditioned as a woman not to cause shit? I’m not naive enough to think that the world is safe and that I shouldn’t ever come across something thoughtless and triggering. Shit happens. And what triggers me won’t trigger the next person, and vice versa. (Over on Shakesville this week there was an open thread about bdsm. I enjoyed reading the discussion concerning bdsm and feminism. But the moderator had to shut down the thread because she was triggered. And I think if she was triggered she totally did the right thing – took care of herself. Just because it didn’t trigger me doesn’t mean it can’t trigger someone else who has had different experiences.) But I do think that times like this are valuable moments to raise the consciousness of others.

Emotional Scars

Published on September 19, 2009 in D/s, Uncategorized, anxiety, bdsm, depression, emotions, masochism, mental illness, mother, neurosis, submissive and trauma. 2 Comments

A few days ago, Always Aroused Girl tweeted this link. I starred the tweet, curious to read what had hit home for her when I had the opportunity at home. This article hit home for me too. I waver back and forth between thinking I was emotionally abused as a child – am I making a big deal out of nothing? Maybe I’m too sensitive. Ah, but am I just saying that because I’ve been beat down emotionally and I don’t have faith in myself? Too many questions.

Although I suppose the most glaring example I can remember does shed light on my mother’s behavior being emotionally abusive. I was suicidal from a young age (8 or so, probably very telling in and of itself) and when I was 13 I actually attempted it. It was a lame-ass attempt – I drank twice the maximum dosage of Act fluoride rinse that it said on the bottle. Something like 4 or 6 metered doses. I told my mother shortly after, and she dragged me to the car to drive me to the emergency room. And the thing she said on the way to the hospital, which I have never forgiven her for and probably never will, is: “Why are you doing this to me?” I had attempted to end my own life, and through it all she just thought about herself.  I had to go through drinking syrup of ipecac, vomiting up the entire contents of my stomach, and sleeping the night in the hospital with an IV stuck in the bend in my arm, feeling more and more foolish when I had to tell hospital staff that I drank the fluoride rinse as an attempt to kill myself. And yet this was something being done to her – not a desperate cry for attention and help from me.

So from a young age, I wrestled internally with a desire to be taken care of, and a defiant attitude of “I don’t need anybody. I can take care of myself. The world can go fuck itself.” This weekend, between the article linked above and spending a weekend alone with a sprained wrist, I find myself wanting to push people away. I’m feeling defiant and like I don’t need anyone, but underneath it all is a strong desire to be taken care of (but I don’t think I really know how to be taken care of anyway). I keep setting myself up to do things that show me how self-sufficient I am (I got the laundry downstairs by myself with barely using my sprained left arm) and I’m not going to sit at home feeling helpless, I’m getting out and about today. Not going to try driving until tomorrow, but today I’m reveling in the freedom my feet and public transportation afford me.

But at the same time I feel terribly lonely.

After reading that article, I also had to ask myself if my submission and masochism is partly rooted in the emotional abuse of my childhood. I crave the opportunity to work for the love and approval of an authority figure in my life (my Dom). I am hard hit when we’re spending time together and he ignores me. (Not every single time, but when we’re supposed to be focused on each other and his attention wanders, which granted, is probably more down to him having attention deficit disorder than him wanting to ignore me.)  I remain a people pleaser, trying to keep everyone happy and to withdraw when I feel like I can’t do that. I don’t want to need anyone. I don’t want to still crave my mother’s love, affection and attention. I want to push this need away and deny that it’s there. Why? Probably because in many ways I don’t think I’ll ever be worthy of the love and attention I so crave. It hurts too much to want it. So I wish I didn’t want it.

As a teen, I didn’t attempt suicide again although I hoarded old medication and razor blades so I’d be prepared if I ever “got up the courage” to do it. I began cutting myself at some point after the suicide attempt. When I was nearly 16 I ended up in a psychiatric hospital for three months because I declared to my father that I was going to kill myself that night. I never really wanted to die. I just didn’t know how to live. I was hospitalized and it got me to a semi-stable place, but I was never medicated or anything to truly help clear up the depression. My relationship with my mother continued to be complex and unsatisfactory. I could write a book about my relationship with my mother. My father was a source of stability always, but he could be a little distant emotionally as well. I put that down to his damn Germanic & WASP back ground. My family’s not particularly affectionate.

When I was a teen – 14 or so – I helped a friend with a science project and as part of it she had to take my pulse – and I remember my heart soaring to have someone, anyone, touch me. I was so starved for touch. I still have a mixed relationship with touch – I crave it, I push it away, I seek out painful touch like beatings.

I’m not entirely sure where I’m going with this entry, but I can see how I became this needy yet solitary adult. I don’t want to be needy, so I push everything away. But I still feel needy underneath it all. I want to be loved and I want to be able to open myself up to really and truly feel the love that there is in my life. But I think there’s always going to be a part of me that doesn’t believe I’m lovable.

I’ve been afraid to have children, because I’m afraid I’ll be like her and have them hate me as much as I’ve hated her off and on. (“Her” being my mother of course.) I want to be a mom, but I think deep down I don’t think I’ll ever be part of a family like I so want to. When I do find love and happiness I get so scared of it going away. And how would I cope if it went away? And isn’t it inevitable that it will go away and I’ll be alone?

After writing all this I have to laugh a little at my saying above that I’m not sure if I was emotionally abused as a child. I think all signs point to yes. And I have to wonder if my desire to be dominated comes from a desire to have someone intensely focused on me for a change. If I’d rather be controlled than ignored. I think the masochism comes from a place of both needing the endorphin rush that ensues and a need to just simply be able to feel anything. I’ve spent too long numbing myself emotionally, pushing things away. Physical pain is a way to feel for a change.

Book Review: Healing Sex

Published on September 7, 2009 in Feminism, anxiety, assault, bdsm, bisexuality, embarrassment, emotions, fantasy, kink, lesbian, libido, masturbation, rape, recovery, reviews, sex, sex toys, sexuality, trauma and trust. 0 Comments

When Babeland offered Staci Haines’ Healing Sex for review, I decided to snap it up. You see, after I was sexually assaulted in 2005, a friend at that time had Haines’ Healing Sex DVD and lent it to me sometime in the months following the assault. While Haines’ focus is on survivors of childhood sexual abuse, her techniques can definitely be applied to recovering from any sort of sexual trauma. I remembered the DVD as being insightful, so I was happy for the chance to read and own Haines’ book.

Staci Haines specializes in the somatic approach – “an educational and transformational approach that assumes that the body, mind and emotions are one interconnected biological system.” (p. 15) She discusses a great deal the concepts of being aware of what you’re feeling, or indeed being aware if you’ve dissociated and stopped feeling. Being present during your sexual experiences is a major first step towards healing. Being aware of your body and reactions helps get you away from dissociating – “checking out” – during sex.

Haines is realistic about the conflicting emotions that survivors may feel – they may feel guilt or shame when they feel sexual pleasure, they may love and hate their perpetrator at the same time. Being triggered during sex with a partner may cause a survivor to take their anger out on their partner. She doesn’t paint a picture of recovery as being all hearts and flowers – but she does point you towards the wonderful future you can have if you take the time to heal. As they say, nothing worth doing is ever easy.

The approach is entirely sex-positive. She explores different types of sexual expression, everything from oral sex to S/M and in between. There’s chapters on sexual anatomy, creating boundaries for yourself, partnered sex, navigating your way through triggers and how to work on healing them, and even the use of sex toys. Many of these chapters have interesting sex-positive information that would be useful for anyone. (The book is aimed at women survivors, of any sexual orientation.) While she discusses the problem of survivors sometimes becoming sexually compulsive in reaction to the abuse, she makes clear the point that being a fully realized sexual woman with a stronger sex drive than our society thinks you should have is NOT the same as being compulsive. She then goes on to discuss the real difficulties with actual compulsion. She also doesn’t glamorize sex as being the perfect image we see in porn or read about in books. Haines is clear that we bring our quirky human selves to our sex lives – there will be times when things go wrong and you and your partner end up laughing. Sometimes you may need to stop the action for a time and get back to it after dealing with difficult memories.  There’s even a chapter for partners of sexual abuse survivors.

The final chapter in the book is a phenomenal collection of resources – everything from healing sexual trauma, to dealing with any sort of trauma, to women-friendly sex-positive sex toy stores (Babeland is on the list).

One minor gripe: this book has more than an average number of typos that were not caught and fixed. If you’re a grammar nut like me this may irritate the heck out of you.

Calm, Serene

Published on July 19, 2009 in anxiety, assault, emotions, optimism, recovery and trauma. 0 Comments

I’m feeling much, much better today. After my post yesterday I talked to MasterDoc. It wasn’t easy for me to open up, but I am so very glad I did. I cried, he held me and listened. He promised me that he would never let anything like that happen to me again. And I know that having his protection has made a huge difference in my being able to swing again. Even when I get to go to a party without my collar, and choose my own partners, it really helps to have MasterDoc there because I know he watches out for me. (And it’s sad to say, but he does a better job looking out for me than I do.)

I am still bewildered to get an apology from someone who was there that night. I never expected such a thing to happen. I suffered so much pain the past four years thinking that no one from that night would ever say to me, “What happened to you was wrong,” that they would never express support. If there are others out there who feel the same way, I hope that they come across me again and don’t hesitate to tell me. It does make a difference knowing that that vile dickhead who assaulted me is not supported by everyone. (These days it looks like he’s supported by fewer and fewer people all the time. Huzzah.)

I like the word survivor for someone who’s come through sexual assault/abuse/rape. It is how I see myself, I am not a victim, I am someone who survived something I never should have gone through. But I am a happy, smart, sexy woman with a lot to bring to this world. While I get the feeling of being alone, in reality I am supported by such a huge circle of people. I am lucky. I will prevail.

Triggers

Published on November 17, 2007 in assault and trauma. 0 Comments

While most days I’m a happy-go-lucky slut, there are still times when memories/feelings of the assault and the rape come up unexpectedly. It’s sometimes quite unexpected what will trigger these feelings. I’ve had feelings come up when seeing something named Jefferson (and there’s a hell of a lot of stuff in this country named after Thomas Jefferson), I’ve had feelings come up earlier this year fooling around with Davey and having a hard time reaching orgasm (and feeling like I’m an irreparably broken human being from the assault. I’ve ended up in tears over this a few times in the past couple of years.) This week, I had an instance when it felt like someone wasn’t listening to me, and it flooded back feelings of not being listened to when I was raped and when I was assaulted. Now, the reaction I had (panic, feeling unsafe) had very little, if anything, to do with the person who happened to be involved with the trigger. I trust the person involved with the trigger. Just as I trust Davey but still triggers have come up with him.

Unfortunately the person involved with this instance of triggering took things personally and was rather hurt that I seemed to not trust him. I instantly felt terrible for hurting his feelings and spent quite a bit of time crying that night. But the fact is, I can’t control these trigger reactions any more than a soldier coming home from war can control feeling panicked at loud noises. The people who happen to be around when I’m triggered don’t generally have anything at all to do with how I end up feeling. Little stupid things can make me feel triggered. I recognize this as simply post traumatic stress and figure I’ll have to deal with it off and on throughout my life. This is why rape and sexual assault are so damaging – they change a person forever. I can never go back to having the level of trust in humanity I had before those two events in my life. And this affects everyone in my life in some small way, whether they know it or not. It’s not fair. It’s not fair to me, it’s not fair to the wonderful men who are in my life who wouldn’t ever hurt me or ignore my lack of consent. But this shit is abundant in our society and it pisses me off. We have legions of damaged women (and sometimes even men) who must try to dodge triggers right and left and get through their lives with some semblance of normalcy.

Thankfully, I spend most of my time not feeling triggered. It happens less and less as time goes on, and I’m better at identifying what’s going on and dealing with it than I was when the post traumatic stress first came on. (Right after the assault I couldn’t be out alone at night without feeling like something terrible was going to happen to me. And I wasn’t in a situation where I was out alone at night when the assault happened. I just felt unsafe all over.) I’d love to think that some day triggers won’t happen to me, but then I’m not naïve enough to think that’s the case.

Oh well, right now I’m post-trigger and I’m determined to have a wonderful time at my birthday gang bang this afternoon. Despite what’s happened to me I’m still a free-spirited sexual babe and I’m not going to let anything stop me from that (for long). Viva pleasure!

Post Post Post Traumatic Stress

Published on February 20, 2007 in anxiety, stress and trauma. 0 Comments

As recent as early Monday, I blogged here that “life is good.” Today I feel like life is shit.

No, that’s not entirely true, but I’m feeling free floating anxiety that threatens to keep me awake tonight despite medication to help me sleep. One degree of separation from the man who assaulted me was too close for comfort. And wondering where J. (the Irishman) has gone to as he hasn’t emailed me since Saturday even has me feeling dark.

I fucking hate drama. Maybe I’d be smart to not date. Just stick with Davey and have done with it. But then I don’t think that would make me happy either. I keep reminding myself that nothing ventured is nothing gained but it feels like I keep hitting a wall every time I try to venture out into the world. Home seems so safe and secure and the outside world threatens to intrude.

I’m sure I’ll get through this (thank the non-existent god I’m medicated). But I just want to be happy for once without anxiety intruding. It’s starting to feel like I’m hard-wired for anxiety and post traumatic symptoms. Little triggers are around every corner. It’s been nearly two years now, why the fuck aren’t I just over this?? One little thing sets off a chain reaction and I fall down. Boom.

I hope I manage to sleep tonight. Drowsiness is starting to set in, so maybe there’s medicated hope.