Hey everybody! Today's video is the second in a whole series I'm doing about sex.
Today's topic is how can surviving abuse feel and how can we heal from it.
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But let's jump into today's topic.
The first topic I want to jump into ... Is about how surviving abuse can feel.
Is using sex as a coping skill or as a way to self-harm.
..I have older videos about the self-harm component I'll link in description
but I want to get into that a little more today.
The truth is we can use a lot of different things to self-harm.
Sex is just another way that we can put ourselves down.
Or seek out positive affirmation or attention from someone else.
Or even as a way to completely numb out.
Many of my clients tell me that they've engaged in sexual activity as a way to
prove to themselves that they are in fact terrible or they are a whore or a slut or
something that was told to them when the abuse was happening.
Some claim they use sex life to prove they weren't actually worthy of true love
Not getting into relationships, having casual trysts with a bunch of different
people was their way of maybe even recreating a traumatizing situation.
As a way to either re-injure themselves, or self-injure
or clients have said they thought maybe it would turn out
differently this time.
So our brain is giving us 2nd chance to try to process happened to us.
I've had many of my clients who've had a sexual abuse past tell me they've tried
to lie to themselves over the years. Saying they enjoy rough sex.
They've done it as a way to take the control back or to say that they enjoy
it and it's on their terms. A lot of that is just us trying to cope.
So we're using the sex as a way to cope with what happened to us. I've even had
people tell me after the abuse/rape they tell themselves they love BDSM.
BDSM stands for Bondage, Discipline, Dominance, Submission, Sadism & Masochism
Know that all the different behaviors that I'm talking about are normal.
What they truly are is our brain's way to try process what happened to us
Or help us heal. Even with self-injury if we're using sex as a way to numb out
or as a way to prove that something's different or to give our brain more time
to process. What ever the reason is it's just us trying to survive.
So just know that nothing's wrong with you and you're not weird or terrible or dirty
for engaging in this it's very common when we've had abuse in our past and
truly what you're brain is trying to do is help you survive and process through it.
And lastly I just want to note one of the ways we can tell if the sex we're engaging
in is/not self-harm related is all about the thought process leading up to it.
Is there a certain ritual that we do ahead of time? Do we know we're going to
engage in the behavior and we're prepping ourselves? I've heard from
a lot of you when it comes to your self-injury as a whole there's a ritual
around it. How we clean, prep and clean afterwards. There's all sorts of things we
do so notice if there's any patterns that are very familiar to your self-injury.
And also, notice if you're doing it as a way to harm yourself emotionally.
Does the sex make you feel dirty like a whore, like you're a terrible person,
like you're just like the abuser told you you were? Notice if that's what you're
proving when engaging in that sexual behavior.
That will tell you whether it's self-harm related or not.
The next topic is hyper-sexuality as a result of sexual abuse.
I have another video about this I'll link in description.
But I want to get into this just a bit more.
Hyper-sexuality as a result of abuse means that we will
look to engage in sex frequently.
Almost impulsively. And we may even put ourselves in some seriously dangerous
situations in order to feed that urge and get the sex when we want it.
Like I talked about in my older video,
I still believe this is true
There are three main reasons we act out in this way.
The first is to regain control.
Since being abused, especially if it happened repeatedly, can make us feel like
we have no control over our body. We have no control over whether we engage
in sex or not. It can leave us feeling completely helpless.
Therefore, if we seek out sex ourselves and we decide on our terms when we want to
have it and who we to have it with
it can be our way of saying
"You know what! I get to choose! I get to decide who I want to have
sex with and when because it's my body and I'm regaining the control!"
Almost taking that control back from our abuser.
The second reason is validation.
If we were abused in our formative years and we never got to fully develop and
decide what sex meant for us and how sex could be enjoyable for us we may see sex
as a way to get love and support that we so desperately
needed as a child.
The abuse may have been one of the only times someone gave
us undivided attention, told us they loved us or held us when we wanted to be.
Therefore, we can believe that sex is the only way someone can truly show us that
they love us.
So we'll seek it out as away to show ourselves love and validate ourselves.
Being hyper-sexual really just means that you're seeking out support and love
which is something that we all need.
The third and final reason that we may engage in hyper-sexualized activity is
chemical.
I know this sounds crazy but our brain actually releases
dopamine and serotonin when we engage in sex
it triggers our reward system and makes us feel good.
Therefore, we could become "addicted"
to sex at a very young age.
And when we aren't engaging in it we miss it and therefore, seek it out
and become hyper-sexualized.
And that seeking it out and feeling those urges to engage in it again and get that
high again is why we may put ourselves in some unsafe situations just to get it
any time we can however we can because our brain and our body feel like
they're addicted to that behavior.
On the flip side many of you reported to me that you have a complete lack of sexual
interest...at all. Don't want anybody to touch us ever.
Hugs are even a little even when we really like the person. And this can be as
a result of sexual abuse too because in a way we're keeping ourselves as safe--
as possible--don't let--anybody--near--me if I keep people away something terrible
like that will never happen again.
So it's sort of a defense mechanism. And you can see why. I've even had a bunch of
my Eating Disorder clients tell me they've gained or lost weight as a
result of the abuse. Because the abuser may have said "oh I love how chubby your
thighs are" my clients have dropped weight dramatically. Or an abuser saying
they really liked how really bony and skinny they were "BOOM" my clients will
start to binge eat and so you can see how. In a way, we're just trying to get people
away from us don't touch us and we're trying to keep ourselves safe so that
it doesn't happen again.
The next topic I want to touch on briefly is pregnancy and or abortion.
Many of you told me you became pregnant and either aborted the baby, had a
miscarriage or decided to have it or put it up for adoption as a result of abuse.
And the truth about this scenario is obviously it's very common. If we're past
a certain age we can get pregnant. And the thing that I would encourage you to do
is to talk to a therapist.
If you've lost a child or decided to abort a child,
even if yo gave them up for adoption we need to talk about that with someone and
give ourselves the time that we need to fully grieve that loss. I truly believe
that a lot of the recovery process when it comes to recovering from abuse is grief
We need to take time to grieve the loss of our childhood and grieve the
loss of our ability to develop our sexual life at our own pace. Or even grieving the
loss of a child that we had to give up or we had to abort whatever it is I feel like
there's so much grief that needs to happen when we work on our recovery from abuse.
So make sure that you give yourself the time you need to grieve and also notice
how you talk to yourself about this. There was nothing you did to cause this.
This is not your fault. So notice what you say to yourself and do your best to
fight back and make it as positive as possible.
Because THAT is when the healing can begin.
The next topic is because I heard from lot of you this is something
that you struggle with is ,"why does sex feel dirty to me?" I was reading something
in the Courage to Heal Workbook and I want to read it to you now.
The person who wrote this book said, "When we are assaulted or abused in any way we
are not given the ability to develop our sexuality at our own pace. We may not know
if we like sex, what kind of sex we enjoy, or what healthy or happy pace we are
comfortable with."
Therefore, sex to us can seem very dirty, forceful we can be told nasty things about
ourselves afterwards or from those around us
who know it's happening
and aren't getting us help,
will think we caused it. Therefore we interpret sex and
it's whole act as really dirty and terrible.
I find the feelings to especially come out when my clients are in session with me
trying to work on it. And I think that happens because something we do in therapy
if we recognize it or not is we talk about how bad it was and how nasty and
terrible that person that did it to us was and so all of that in a way is kind of
telling us that the whole sexual...maybe any sexual experience we've ever had...
maybe those are the only ones we've had... we interpret that as that all being dirty.
Meaning we might blanket or umbrella the whole act of sex under that and call it
all dirty. And we can also just feel dirty ourselves because of what happened to us.
I've had a lot of my clients tell me that after their abuser was done they would
go into the shower and they'd scrub themselves almost raw.
And if you were raised in any kind of religious environment and you're taught to
think that sex is something to be saved for marriage or for a serious relationship
or whatever you believe. Therefore if it's happening outside of that or if it's
happening from someone who's maybe in a relationship with someone else we can
interpret that as being bad.
In order to overcome all of these thoughts that might be swirling we need to reclaim
our own sexuality.
That's what we're going to jump into next.
If you haven't seen another one of my videos where I've talked about this before
I'm a huge supporter of this book The Courage to Heal Workbook.
I honestly think just the original is good but I know there are a lot of
different versions out there now, but this is amazing.
And a lot of the tips I'm going to talk with you now about come from this book.
And the truth about childhood sexual abuse or any sexual abuse at a young age is that
we aren't given the time needed to develop our
own sense of our sexuality it can feel
really rushed, like it's at someone else's
pace because it truly is. And so the trouble when we're an adult and
we're trying to heal and trying to have a healthy happy sex life with someone that
we want to have sex with we can fall back into that same pattern.
A lot of my clients have told their boyfriend or husband or girlfriend or wife
has told them you know like lickety split like hurry up and get better
and it's not like they say directly but that's the message that my clients or my
patients that are struggling with this receive. And so we need to make sure that
our recovery and our healing is done at our own pace.
Anyone worth being with will be patient with you and understand and be loving and
supportive as you work through a horrific trauma that occurred to you.
And something that The Courage to Heal Workbook recommends is that we set some
ground rules for this whole healing process. That way we know that we're doing
it at our own pace on our own schedule in the way we want, and overall ensuring
that we're doing it for us not for someone else.
So take some time consider why you want to heal and why you want to have a healthy
happy sex life. And make sure that it's because you want it for reasons that are
important and mean something to you.
If we don't do that we can add another layer of trauma on top of the trauma we
already have without even realizing it so just take some time and make sure
it's being done because you want it to be done.
There are four steps to walk through today.
And the first is making sure you're at a place where you are ready to try to be
sexual again and have a healthy sexuality. If you feel like you're barely surviving
you're having a ton of flashbacks, any kind of embrace from your loved one sends
you into a dissociative state or possibly back into that traumatic memory. You feel
like you're just barely keeping your head above all of these symptoms
this might not be the right time to try to do this.
There's going to be a lot of healing we're going to have do before we
consider having a healthy sex life with someone that we love.
We're going to have to do all that work prior.
So just make sure you're at a place where it's healthy and okay for you to even
attempt having a healthy sex life.
If you find you are in a place where you're ready to start working on your
sexuality take that time that I just talked about and consider why.
Is it because you want your body, bed or you want your love life back?
What is it you're looking forward to?
Why is this something you want to work on?
This just ensures that we're doing it for ourselves and no one else.
The second step I want you work on is to then consider what sex is to you?
What is pleasurable? Are their certain sexual acts that you
enjoy more or less than others? What is it that pleasure actually
means to you? How would you define that?
Are there other ways you seek pleasure out other than sex? What are those things?
The reason we consider all the random questions and what sex means a a
whole and pleasure means to us all together is because it helps us better
engage in the whole sex and pleasure realm with more safety.
We can start with the things we know we like.The things we know give us
pleasure or arousal and we can find ways to do it maybe on our own in a more
safe environment.
They talk about this step in The Courage to Heal Workbook as a way to
broaden our thoughts overall about sex so that we can figure out what is pleasurable
to us and what feels good in our bodies that way we can try to slowly step
toward sex in a way that isn't actually sexual at all.
The third step is setting some ground rules.
If you're working on this on your own solo these are rules that work for you.
But if you're working with a partner I would encourage you to put these rules
together and then talk to them about it.
But these rules overall need to be created by you alone.
Making sure that these are rules are important to you and help you feel safe.
Before we really get into the ground rules I just wanted you to know that you can say
"NO" to sex at any time. I don't care if you're just getting
started. I don't care if you're fully engaged in sex. I don't care if you
think your partner is about to orgasm. You can stop the sex at any time.
And I would consider adding that to your ground rules so that you know if you feel
yourself slipping away and dissociating or you're in a freeze state.
Know that you can say "NO" then. And it can stop and you can have some
signals and some things that you can talk out with your partner
so that they know that we need to stop it right now.
What else goes on your list? The Courage to Heal Workbook lists these
as thought or rule starters. Under what conditions will I be sexual?
What are the boundaries and limits I will want to set? Can I commit
to taking care of myself in a sexual situation? And then consider how
it felt to create your rules.
Whether or not you feel you will be able to uphold them
and who you want to share your rules with.
I think these are all great starters for us as we start to put together our own
ground rules for our sexual activity.
And forth and finally I want you to create a list of sexual and physical things that
are okay or not okay to do. Listing them either in a hierarchy or just as a list of
behaviors and different sexual acts or physical touches that you can think of
and whether or not they are okay. And maybe when they're okay or not
Is it only in certain situations? I know this sounds like a lot of work
but it's important for you to take time to figure out
what is okay and not okay and why.
Let's say someone held our wrists in the abuse in our past that's a NO GO.
That's definitely go on the list of things that aren't okay.
And we're going to need to commit to being able to do that and tell whoever we're
engaging in sexual behavior with that that can't happen and that it's not okay.
And putting together this list just helps us better solidify what things are fine
and what things aren't.
And also when you create this list I would encourage you to share it with your
partner and have a conversation about it. So they can better understand where
you're at, what's okay and not okay and also know that you can come back to the
list and change it as certain things may become okay and safe for you and others
may be removed. Think of it like a
living document you can change as needed but make
sure you communicate with your partner.
I heard from so many of you that you that you have questions about how can we even
begin to communicate any of the abuse stuff with our partner.
A lot of you said you just go silent or you're afraid you're going to overwhelm
them and you're just really not sure how to approach it.
So, let's get into that a little bit.
Something that I really like from The Courage to Heal Workbook is that they
talked about your support system and who should be in it.
And they said this: "People in your support system believe you were abused
and the abuse hurt you. They believe in your capacity to heal yourself.
They like and respect you and see you as a good person who's
having a rough time right now. By challenging your old ideas about
yourself support people inspire you to grow. When you're around them
you feel reassured, cared about and listened to."
And I just want you to hear that because before you actually think someone's worthy
of being in your support system consider whether those things are true.
Whether they make you feel reassured, cared about and listened to. Do they
believe the abuse happened and that it hurt you? And it was horribly damaging?
We need to ensure that they understand. And that before anything else should be in
place before we even try to talk to them about this because
we need to ensure they are the right people.
The best way to begin a conversation with a partner or loved one about the abuse is
to take it at your own pace. And if you're in therapy I would encourage you to bring
them in for a few sessions. Prep with your therapist what you're going to say,
how you want to say it, things you want to get through so they can
guide you along and ensure that that's happens in those sessions and that
you're able to stay present and we're able to talk about things that are
important so you feel all the information you wanted your spouse
or loved one or partner to know is received.That you've said it and
they've received it. And so talking in therapy can be really
helpful and a supportive guide to get you through maybe something that's too
difficult to do on your own. And know you don't have to share
anything that you're not okay with right now. But in my experience and
what The Courage to Heal Workbook talks about is the more you share the better.
Because what we want them to be able to hear is that something horrific happened.
And if they know maybe how it happened they can understand why certain behaviors
and things they've done in the past are
so disruptive to you and so maybe triggering.
And having them know some of those details even though I know it's hard to talk about
it but that could just guide it a little bit more quickly and help them better.
Understand where you're at and hopefully become a supportive person that could
be caring and loving and understanding that
you're having a really hard time right now.
So take your time with it and know that it's even okay if we just start by saying
"Hey I was abused when I was younger". That's a great start. If that's all
we can get out now at least they know that. And we can move into the other
portions as we feel that we're able to.
It's important for them to understand it's not about them.
It's actually about us and our process we just need them to understand
what happened, what's going on with us now, so that they can work with us.
So that we can work together. To heal and hopefully grow into having that healthy,
happy, loving sex life. I would encourage you to start writing down how it feels for
you and how certain behaviors or situations have caused you to feel
triggered or dissociate and talk with them about it
then end with what you need from them. How can they
change those behaviors, or better support you in the moment so that you're
working together. And you're not doing own thing while they do their own thing.
Because then no one fully understands what the other is needing and the sex and your
sex ife and your sexuality can't really improve with that person.
Overall, in all of my experience working with couples and even families where we
talk about sexual abuse, I find that if you're able, it's best done
chronologically. I've had a lot of issues in the past where a wife was telling her
husband about past childhood sexual abuse. She'll jump around because we know that
sometimes it's hard to go in order, and maybe our memory's scattered about it.
If we can keep it as chronological as
possible they can actually follow along.
When she was jumping around her husband was confused
"wait was that when you were eight or was that the thing
when you were six? Wait, I'm confused and is this okay?"
So it left honestly more confusion than clarity. So if you're able, do your best
to try to keep it in chronological order.
And many of you asked me how do you even talk to a therapist about it?
That's what we're here for! We've spent so much time in school and gathering hours
and everything just to help people. And your relationship with your therapist
should be the first truly safe and supportive one you've had.
So in all honesty, just blurt it out. If you're able to say it right before you
leave knowing you aren't able to talk about it today
but you want them to know do it. If you gotta write it down
write it down. I honestly don't care how you get it out
but, however you can verbally express it
please just tell them.
Know that they're not going to judge you.
If they're a good therapist they're going to feel for you
They're going to want to help you better understand. Better
talk it through, process it, so that you start to feel better.
Overall that's our goal as therapists is just to help you feel better. The
sooner you can get it out and tell them what's going
on and what happened the sooner
you'll start
feeling better.
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I hope this video was helpful. I know it's super long. But there was so much content
to cover. And I hope that you feel that you at least got one extra tool, or a
little more clarity on how you can heal from your past sexual abuse.
Like I said this is a series. This is only the second out of the total of
four so make sure you're subscribed and have your notifications turned on so that
when those are released you could watch those too!
And I will see you next time! BYE!