Hello all,
This is my first post in this forum. Lately I have been reading a number of threads on this site and was overwhelmed by the care, insight and support provided by many anonymous strangers. It's really inspiring.
I found this forum because I was looking for others, like me, who've been intimately involved with victims of childhood sexual abuse. I was on the verge of proposing to and planning my life with my best friend, a girl I asked to Prom in high school and the only person I ever wanted to be with. But those plans and our life together came to a screeching halt this past summer, and I've since come to suspect (though she never did tell me directly) that she was sexually abused by her father at a young age. Complicating matters even further is the fact that her father is still married to her mother, who I believe is unaware of this.
In the past few months I have consumed a number of different books and articles relating to the effects and symptoms of CSA. At first I was merely confident in my feeling that my ex had been abused, but after reading a number of books and talking to psychologists and happening upon wonderful forums such as this one, I'm now 100% sure that my ex suffered through this horrific experience.
Instead of writing a treatise about the whole ordeal, I'll list some bullet points to describe her behavior and different anxieties:
1) Hyper-vigilance and a constant need for a felt sense of safety - was always on guard and needed to sleep on the side of the bed farthest away from the door because of an unexplained fear that someone was going to come into the room to take her away (she also needed to push a bureau in front of her door whenever she slept alone). She had a terrible fear of flying (afraid of being trapped) and suffocation. She has awful anxiety and suffers from panic attacks.
2) She needed to control EVERYTHING - scheduling, organizing her room or workplace, the style of my hair, etc. It was like living with a drill sergeant. I travel a lot for work, so at times she would visit me in nearby cities. When she walked into any hotel room she would immediately clean everything and rearrange my suitcase and get the room exactly how she wanted it. She was a perfectionist if there ever was one.
3) She had strange obsessive/compulsive behaviors. Everything had to be thoroughly cleaned and she refused to eat food if she saw it being handled by anyone. If her mother picked up a piece of chicken with her hand to throw it on top of a grill, she would refuse to eat it. To her, it was dirty and contaminated. She could not share dipping sauce with me, a person she was involved with intimately for years and had known since she was 16 years old.
4) She could not handle ANY amount of added stress or process complex emotions. Her first instinct was to avoid the problem/situation by running away.
5) She was VERY sexually active and has had a number of sexual partners over the years. At times after sex she would complain of abdominal/hip pain (I have since read that this is common among CSA survivors). She had a very low pain threshold in general.
6) She's had a long, awful history of substance abuse (both drugs and alcohol) and exhibited many addictive behaviors (shopping was the big one, which made her TERRIBLE with money).
7) She placed an extreme overemphasis on her physical appearance. Sadly, so much of her self-worth seemed to be tied into her body.
Anyhow, our relationship was rolling along for years when suddenly she morphed into a different person. She began screwing around with another guy, lashing out at me for unexplainable reasons and making my life a living hell. Each time I suggested counseling she would FREAK out and maintain that there was nothing wrong with her and she didn't need any help.
I suspect her father was the perpetrator for a few reasons. First, she was very overprotective of her little niece and started going to great lengths to ensure that her father was never alone with the child. She's obviously a very troubled girl - I loved her with all my heart - and her mother was well aware of her instability and substance abuse issues and desperately wanted her to go to counseling. Her father was adamantly against her going to therapy and seemed to think everything was rainbows and lollipops.
I guess I'm just searching for answers. These past few months have been incredibly tough on me. Having to watch a person you love unconditionally spiral out of control and ruin a loving relationship was very traumatic. I've visited a few psychologists myself to find answers and attempt to heal.
I read recently, through Thor, that it's common for partners to leave the BF/Lover stage and enter into the "authority figure/abuser" once the CSA survivor stops viewing their partner as their "savior". That resonated with me because she started treating me horribly, with so much resentment and coldness and vitriol, once this other guy popped into her life. I was wondering if perhaps she went through this described transformation.
We haven't spoken in 4 months, the longest we've gone without talking since we first met in high school. I wrote her and long letter explaining all of my thoughts, emotions, anger and frustrations about everything that happened. I don't think she has BPD, although I do see a few similarities from the posts other members have written (excessive fear of abandonment and suffocation, etc).
I don't anticipate that she will get help. Right now she's doing everything she can to avoid feeling anything, and I doubt she will even respond to my letter. Does anyone have any books they would recommend for me? I'm most interested in learning about the traits and characteristics of CSA survivors and how it affects their behavior. Any help would be appreciated.
This is my first post in this forum. Lately I have been reading a number of threads on this site and was overwhelmed by the care, insight and support provided by many anonymous strangers. It's really inspiring.
I found this forum because I was looking for others, like me, who've been intimately involved with victims of childhood sexual abuse. I was on the verge of proposing to and planning my life with my best friend, a girl I asked to Prom in high school and the only person I ever wanted to be with. But those plans and our life together came to a screeching halt this past summer, and I've since come to suspect (though she never did tell me directly) that she was sexually abused by her father at a young age. Complicating matters even further is the fact that her father is still married to her mother, who I believe is unaware of this.
In the past few months I have consumed a number of different books and articles relating to the effects and symptoms of CSA. At first I was merely confident in my feeling that my ex had been abused, but after reading a number of books and talking to psychologists and happening upon wonderful forums such as this one, I'm now 100% sure that my ex suffered through this horrific experience.
Instead of writing a treatise about the whole ordeal, I'll list some bullet points to describe her behavior and different anxieties:
1) Hyper-vigilance and a constant need for a felt sense of safety - was always on guard and needed to sleep on the side of the bed farthest away from the door because of an unexplained fear that someone was going to come into the room to take her away (she also needed to push a bureau in front of her door whenever she slept alone). She had a terrible fear of flying (afraid of being trapped) and suffocation. She has awful anxiety and suffers from panic attacks.
2) She needed to control EVERYTHING - scheduling, organizing her room or workplace, the style of my hair, etc. It was like living with a drill sergeant. I travel a lot for work, so at times she would visit me in nearby cities. When she walked into any hotel room she would immediately clean everything and rearrange my suitcase and get the room exactly how she wanted it. She was a perfectionist if there ever was one.
3) She had strange obsessive/compulsive behaviors. Everything had to be thoroughly cleaned and she refused to eat food if she saw it being handled by anyone. If her mother picked up a piece of chicken with her hand to throw it on top of a grill, she would refuse to eat it. To her, it was dirty and contaminated. She could not share dipping sauce with me, a person she was involved with intimately for years and had known since she was 16 years old.
4) She could not handle ANY amount of added stress or process complex emotions. Her first instinct was to avoid the problem/situation by running away.
5) She was VERY sexually active and has had a number of sexual partners over the years. At times after sex she would complain of abdominal/hip pain (I have since read that this is common among CSA survivors). She had a very low pain threshold in general.
6) She's had a long, awful history of substance abuse (both drugs and alcohol) and exhibited many addictive behaviors (shopping was the big one, which made her TERRIBLE with money).
7) She placed an extreme overemphasis on her physical appearance. Sadly, so much of her self-worth seemed to be tied into her body.
Anyhow, our relationship was rolling along for years when suddenly she morphed into a different person. She began screwing around with another guy, lashing out at me for unexplainable reasons and making my life a living hell. Each time I suggested counseling she would FREAK out and maintain that there was nothing wrong with her and she didn't need any help.
I suspect her father was the perpetrator for a few reasons. First, she was very overprotective of her little niece and started going to great lengths to ensure that her father was never alone with the child. She's obviously a very troubled girl - I loved her with all my heart - and her mother was well aware of her instability and substance abuse issues and desperately wanted her to go to counseling. Her father was adamantly against her going to therapy and seemed to think everything was rainbows and lollipops.
I guess I'm just searching for answers. These past few months have been incredibly tough on me. Having to watch a person you love unconditionally spiral out of control and ruin a loving relationship was very traumatic. I've visited a few psychologists myself to find answers and attempt to heal.
I read recently, through Thor, that it's common for partners to leave the BF/Lover stage and enter into the "authority figure/abuser" once the CSA survivor stops viewing their partner as their "savior". That resonated with me because she started treating me horribly, with so much resentment and coldness and vitriol, once this other guy popped into her life. I was wondering if perhaps she went through this described transformation.
We haven't spoken in 4 months, the longest we've gone without talking since we first met in high school. I wrote her and long letter explaining all of my thoughts, emotions, anger and frustrations about everything that happened. I don't think she has BPD, although I do see a few similarities from the posts other members have written (excessive fear of abandonment and suffocation, etc).
I don't anticipate that she will get help. Right now she's doing everything she can to avoid feeling anything, and I doubt she will even respond to my letter. Does anyone have any books they would recommend for me? I'm most interested in learning about the traits and characteristics of CSA survivors and how it affects their behavior. Any help would be appreciated.
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