sadistic sexual abuse - careful this may be sensitive to some

[madmouse]

I've recently after a break of almost a year gone back into therapy, this time because my anxiety about ds's health got hard to handle. I'm seeing a very well trained and experienced psychologist and it didn't take us long to figure out that the anxiety is linked to the abuse in my childhood so we are working on that again...

She has worked a lot with offenders also and she has told me that it sounds like the abuse I suffered was sadistic, ie he didn't just get aroused by having sex with small people, he actively enjoyed causing physical pain while he was at it. It makes sense. It's yet another puzzle piece in its place.

So why does it knock me for six again? It doesn't change what he actually did.

And does it explain why I rarely feel physical pain, rarely notice I've injured myself until the bruise appears and have a tendency to hurt myself under stress?

Just wonder if anyone else has dealt with it.

Am ok by the way, upset but not massively distressed or anything.

[thunderboltsandlightning]

Not had to deal with it. Didn't want to leave your post go unanswered though.

It's probably knocked you for six because the reality of it is now out in the open. The thing about not noticing pain might be because you had to stop feeling what was happening to your body because it was so overwhelming.

Very sorry this was done to you. Very sorry you're having to deal with it now.

[Bohica]

Not had to deal with it but your memory probably blocks the feeling of pain because of what you had to go through as a child

[GRW]

I don't have personal experience either, but can appreciate that hearing that he got pleasure from causing you such severe trauma is upsetting. I am sorry that you have to deal with this, and I think you're very brave. I hope your DS's health improves.

[madmouse]

Thanks for the support - I appreciate the comments.

DS's health is fine, he is disabled but that's static. What gets me is relatively silly things like fevers and chest infections - I just lose the plot as I feel my safety bubble is threatened. Glad to say the therapy is starting to work and I was a lot calmer a few weeks ago when he had a chest infection.

[dottyspotty2]

madmouse Don't know about the sadistic part of it as he's denied it all anyway, but I now remember the physical pain of the abuse I suffered and I have an extremely high pain threshold to the degree I became seriously ill a few years back. Just recently since beginning counselling I have been trying to hurt myself as I thought it would take the emotional pain away don't know if its linked at all.

[madmouse]

Dotty I think it is linked. I had a rotational forceps delivery with ds with a large episiotomy and once the epidural wore off I only had 2 paracetamols, once, and two weeks later I was cycling again as it was the quickest way to get to ds in hospital.

There are still things I do not remember. some of the worst bits are incomplete because I used to split and so was not in my body when it happened.

[dottyspotty2]

Same here lots I don't remember like how old I really was when it started I have stopped doing some of the things that where a comfort as it brings back some awful memories had another flashback tonight.

[madmouse]

I just can't get it out of my mind. Not been so obsessed with it for a long time

[ThatVikRinA22]

i think, from my own experience, that if something "triggers" you to think about your abuse, its just stirs up all those feelings and emotions that you have learned to deal with by putting them in a box somewhere at the back of your mind.
sometimes, the box lid gets prized off.
therapy can either help you put the lid back on, or examine the contents and chuck it.
i am in counselling at the moment, dealing with the effects of my own childhood abuse.
my counsellor has said i have to find away to let it go, find inner peace and cut the emotional ties.
easier said than done though eh?
but i found recently something stirred up all those old memories for me, that i hadnt thought about for ages, and i could recall exact detail, exact words, i havent obsessed exactly, but it caused me to think about some horrible situations that i havent thought about for a long time, and i felt very sorry for myself indeed, for a while. thats why i have sought counselling.
if you are in therapy, then hopefully your therapist can help you deal with some of this.
i let myself feel sorry for me for a while, because i deserved some sympathy tbh. but the past is the past, so i made a conscious effort not to wallow, as just too unhealthy.
i feel totally ready for my counselling, and i want rid of the emotional baggage and the rubbish effects it caused.
hope you can find some peace.

[fridakahlo]

Theraphy can do that, keeping it at the forefront of your mind, because you are going back to it. And with the help of your therapist, you will reprocess it. It sucks that a lot of the time the only way to get resolution is by going back to things that you really would rather not. But repression does not help.
And yes, your high pain tolerence is probably related.