You saying about the group of boys who thought you were consenting made me think: how do you feel about people/incidents where you were abused unintentionally? For example I used to frequently be ‘starved’ by people who had been told I felt too Ill to eat, when they didn’t feed me they were contributing to me being abused however they were trying to be kind. And times where an abuser scared me beyond how a child should “normally” feel but without trying to, my fear being based on previous expereinces or expectations. For me a major part of healing is working out how I feel and relate to people or experiences but this is something I really struggle with. I am only now understanding how I feel about people who trigger me by accident, but that has taken a long time, do you ever feel any anger about that? ~Sophie
I touched upon this topic is the blog entry Many Facets of Teen Rape, where I discussed Jodi Picoult’s book, The Tenth Circle. I wrote that blog entry while I was still reading the book. My conclusion after finishing the book is that the boy experienced the intercourse as sex while the girl experienced the intercourse as rape. From a legal perspective, I would not convict the boy of rape because there was no intent. However, unquestionably the girl experienced the sexual contact as a rape victim and needs to work through all of the same emotions that any of us rape survivors do.
The same dynamic applies to my “gang rape” situation in college. I am using quotes because I do not believe that any of the boys who participated (other than the one who intentionally triggered me) had any idea that I was an unwilling participant. A traumatized, compliant child alter part was triggered and gave no indication to those boys that I was being traumatized by their actions. I would not convict them in a court of law. While I do not morally agree with a string of boys receiving oral sex from a consenting woman, that’s not a crime.
Now let’s get to my reaction to the same event – It was an extremely traumatizing night for me, so much so that 25 years later, I almost passed out on a military parade ground by being triggered by college boys in military dress. Until reading Jodi Picoult’s book, I did not appreciate that I could be traumatized this badly by people who had no intention of traumatizing me. I suspect this is one reason why my therapist advises me to stay out of my abusers’ heads – He doesn’t want me to cheat myself out of necessary healing based upon the motivation of the abuser.
Like Sophie, there were people in my life who contributed to the abuse in more subtle ways without even knowing that I was being abused. My father falls under this umbrella in many ways, and it has been hard work sorting through my conflicting feelings of seeing him both as my “savior” and “abuse enabler.” I also feel conflict toward my grandparents (my father’s parents) for not stopping the abuse, which I will cover in tomorrow’s blog entry.
Image credit: Amazon.com
Personally, I find that if I feel what I need to feel towards unwitting abusers, mainly anger and disgust, eventually I get to the point where they just fall off my radar. When I think of someone who tried to hurt me, I think “scum of the earth”, when I think of someone who hurt me without meaning to, I just don’t think anything. It’s almost like they’re not relevant. I think a lot of the time they have only done so because of something to do with the intentional abuse, like the way I was acting because of it led the unwitting abuser to act as they did (as in the examples above), and so in my mind, their abuse is just another symptom of the main abuse, if you see what I mean. It’s complicated. If I want someone to blame, often I can trace it back to the intentional abuse, in which case it’s just another black mark against the people involved in that.
Your blog brought up a very similar issue my therapist and I were discussiong yesterday. We were talking about how I have most often experienced sex/lovemaking in the past and present -What happens is for a more adult and seductive part to get into the intimate situation with the person, whoever they may be-stranger or husband (doesn’t matter) but does not stick around for the actual sex, leaving a much younger part to deal with it. This in essence is a re-traumatization of myself (no fault of my own) and is quite damaging. I believe when this happens the person if they had any sense at all, could detect they were no longer engaged with an adult, but a frightened child. Just like our abusers, they could see the terror in our eyes. My therapist says when the adult has left and the child shows up, this is not consenual but rape. I can’t beat myself up for the mere fact that when I disappear it is out of a basic need for survival. What I can do is journal and communicate to my system about the importance of having an agreement in regards to only my healthy adult self participating in sex and keeping the younger parts safe from this. Granted there are those self-destructive alters that are wanting to sabotage any healthy. What is important for me, is I’ve opened the door to communicating with all of them. They are listening and they want to be heard. It is important I continue to journal and give each one a voice. I also gain a lot of insight and useful information from my writings.
i think this is a really tough subject, as much as i dont want to hate enablers or unintentional abusers its hard when that doesnt reduce how it feels at the time or after, its really hard
It seems like there is a continuum with unintentional abusers. There are those who simply stood by and did nothing, or, thinking the perpetrator was a “nice person” sent me off with them when if they had looked closely they would not have seen a happy child. These people in my life are hard to understand. I’ve forgiven them…not absolved them, just let go of my judgment of them because I cannot figure out their intentions – I just know being bitter towards them hurts me and those i love now.
But then there are the ones who have no relation to the original abuse and are just blind or insenstive to things that would be offensive to some and are huge triggers to me. My challenge it to put what they did to trigger me in the right light…not related to the childhood of abuse…but insensitive and offensive in the present. I guess that means I need to deal with the present in the present? It’s harder than it sounds.
Then there are the very innocent trigger-trippers, like the man with the cologne (I have the same trigger, tho probably differnt colognes), or the person who whisltes a song just like “he” did when “he” was doing hideous things to me. They really have done nothing to me. But I’m triggered and sometimes cascading out of control anyway. Perhaps there I need to let it not be at all about them, but be about dealing with the original trauma that caused the trigger to exist at all. Again…so much easier said than done.
I’m mostly just thinking out loud. Am in the process of learning to live moment by moment without switching and it’s a challenge…especially at this time of year. This blog helps me with the gazillion triggers lurking around most corners these days.
Thanks for letting me ramble on,
ruby
[...] « Processing Feelings toward Those Who were Unwitting Abusers Societal Taboo on Female Abuse [...]