Sanctuary for the Abused

Tuesday, June 28, 2022

Victim Blaming & Control

On victim-blaming and control
It's virtually a law of Internet discussion that any conversation about rape & abuse will turn into a debate about the need for women to keep themselves safe. The attitude that women have the responsibility to protect themselves from abuse is, at the most generous reading, an uncritical acceptance of the idea that men cannot be prevented from raping. At its worst, it is yet another example of the way society makes women responsible for anything men dislike. And all the while, there is no acknowledgement that this is just the mechanism by which sexist men can benefit from rape without themselves committing it.



That women are sexual beyond the ways men wish them to be disturbs a certain kind of man. The fears that once kept female sexuality in check are gradually being eroded by social change and medical advances: fear of ostracism, fear of disease, fear of unwanted pregnancy. But fear of rape remains, and it can be a powerful weapon.

There was one piece of fall-out from the paratrooper incident that I didn't mention. A family member learned that I'd gone back to the camp with a couple of men for sex. He had no reason to think anything non-consensual had happened, but he was horrified all the same. He told me that my behaviour was disgusting and that I should be ashamed of myself. Friends and other family members defended his attitude by pointing out what many people in the other thread pointed out - that I'd put myself at quite some risk.

That explanation failed to convince me. Disgust and shame are appropriate responses to moral wrongdoing, not foolhardy risk-taking. He was horrified that I'd allowed myself to be sexual in an unapproved way; the risk of rape was a justification, not his true motivation.

It shocks some people that I want sex and don't want to submit to male authority. It shocks them even more that these two desires outweigh my fear of rape, so that I dare to gratify both by picking up paratroopers in a pub. The "prudent" suggestions for keeping myself safe always boil down to giving up sex (or at least, the kind of sex I'm interested in) or submitting to male authority.

These "solutions" might well have no effect on my risk of being raped. But even if they were guaranteed to protect me from all risk, they wouldn't be worth it. I think I'd rather be raped than spend the rest of my life turning aside from what I wanted and settling for something less. I know I'd rather take risks than allow fear of rape to control my expression of my sexuality.

In my ideal world, men would not be tempted to commit rape. Sexual encounters would be handled with negotiation, not with one partner's insistence on getting what he wants at the expense of another. Men would respect the desires of women to control what happens to their bodies, whether they've known each other for ten minutes or ten years.

And in my ideal world, the fear of rape could not be used as a justification for slut-shaming.


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Sunday, October 14, 2018

REVICTIMIZATION




© 2009 Pandora's Project
by: Louise

I am a survivor of sexual and other abuse in my childhood, as well as domestic violence and partner rape. As I began to heal, it occurred to me that many of the things I had felt in the abusive relationship were things I had felt much earlier as an abused child.

While it is important not to subscribe to stereotypes that a certain "type" of person is repeatedly raped or experiences domestic violence, it is known that the risk of revictimization by sexual assault is approximately doubled for survivors of child sexual abuse (1). For example, in Diana Russell's study of women who had experienced incestuous abuse as children, two thirds were subsequently raped (2).

This article discusses revictimization drawing on literature together with my understanding of how it worked for me. It should not be seen as a generalization that only child abuse survivors experience repeated rape or domestic violence - or that survivors of child sexual abuse are sitting ducks for further abuse. Sometimes, even people from stable, loving families are subject to the dynamics of later domestic violence. And it cannot be stated strongly enough that any person can be subject to sexual assault. Nevertheless, child sexual and other abuse can leave us with vulnerabilities that abusers may be quick to exploit. It's important that we see repeated victimization not as a reason to hate ourselves, but as stemming from wounds incurred through no fault of our own and for which we deserve our own compassion.

Read through, and if this fits for you, please know that there is help available.

CHILD SEXUAL / OTHER ABUSE AND REVICTIMIZATION
 
Were you sexually, physically or emotionally abused as a child? Did you experience more of the same when you got older? Have you been in a relationship where you were beaten, raped or otherwise abused? If the answer is yes, you may feel, as many survivors of repeated abuse do, that you have a “sign on your back”, that you “attract” abusers or even that you were born to be the recipient of other people’s abuse. One of the saddest legacies of repeated abuse is that survivors often feel that if it’s happened so often, they must somehow deserve it. Unfortunately, we live in a society that agrees. Judith Herman writes:

The phenomenon of repeated victimization, indisputably real, calls for great care in interpretation. For too long, psychiatric opinion has simply reflected the crude social judgment that survivors “ask for abuse." The earlier concepts of masochism and the more recent formulations of addiction to trauma imply that victims seek and derive gratification for repeated abuse. This is rarely true (3)

So, why does revictimization happen? Before we go on to look at just some of the reasons, a reminder: This is not an exercise in how to blame ourselves more. Even if there`are factors that make some of vulnerable to further abuse, perpetrators alone are responsible for the abuse they commit.

WHY REVICTIMIZATION HAPPENS - SOME OF THE REASONS

Personalities forged in an environment of early abuse : Children who are abused by people they are close to learn to equate love with violence and sexual exploitation. They have not learned to create safe and appropriate boundaries with people, and they grow up unable to see themselves as having any right to choice. Their self-image is so damaged that they may see nothing wrong with even extremely abusive treatment of them by others. It is seen as unavoidable and the ultimate cost of love. Some women sexually abused as children may believe that their sexuality is all they have of any worth. (4).

Compulsion to repeat trauma : Bessel van der Kolk writes, "Many traumatized people expose themselves, seemingly compulsively, to situations reminiscent of the original trauma. These behavioral reenactments are rarely consciously understood to be related to earlier life experiences (5)". Survivors of earlier rape and abuse may put themselves at risk of further harm, not because they want to be abused or hurt, but because they may be seeking a different, better`outcome, or to have more control. It may also be because they believe they deserve the pain inflicted on them. Often, reenactment has a compulsive and involuntary feel. Survivors may feel completely numb, and unaware of how reenactment is taking place (6). Conversely, it may call forth the same terror and shame as experienced in childhood. van der Kolk further explains,

People who are exposed early to violence or neglect come to expect it as a way of life. They see the chronic helplessness of their mothers and fathers' alternating outbursts of affection and violence; they learn that they themselves have no control. As adults they hope to undo the past by love, competency, and exemplary behavior. When they fail they are likely to make sense out of this situation by blaming themselves. When they have little experience with nonviolent resolution of differences, partners in relationships alternate between an expectation of perfect behavior leading to perfect harmony and a state of helplessness, in which all verbal communication seems futile. A return to earlier coping mechanisms, such as self-blame, numbing (by means of emotional withdrawal or drugs or alcohol), and physical violence sets the stage for a repetition of the childhood trauma and "return of the repressed (7)

The effect of trauma : It is true that some people may have a series of violent partners, or encounters with rapists. I had a friend who was subjected to rape three times in two years . A family member - echoing typical victim-blame - sneeringly asked me "why she kept leaving herself open to it. - wouldn't you think that if she went through it once, she should have known how to steer clear of creeps?" This reflects a lack of knowledge about the workings of trauma: While some survivors may be overly cautious about everybody, other traumatized people actually have a harder time forming accurate assessments of danger (8). The above question also absolves the perpetrator who falsely seeks to engage the trust of a trauma survivor in order to abuse them.

Traumatic Bonding : Judith Herman writes about the tendency of abused children to cling tenaciously to the very parents who hurt them (9) Perpetrators of sexual abuse may capitalize on this tendency by giving their victim the only sense of specialness, or being loved, that they have ever had. Bessel van der Kolk tells us that people subjected to trauma and neglect are vulnerable to developing the tendency to traumatically bond with those who harm them. Traumatic bonding is often behind the excuses of battered women for the violence of their partners, and for the repeated returning to a batterer (10).

REVICTIMIZATION AND ME

Unfortunately my adult experiences of rape and battering were not new to me. Being battered by both my parents since infancy and sexually abused throughout childhood and early teens (by non-related perpetrators), and receiving little in the way of protection or belief taught me some powerful lessons, which I brought to an abusive partner. I remember exactly what I felt the first time he hit me. He cracked me across the face, and as I cradled my rapidly swelling cheekbone, I was certainly upset. But there was another, deeper feeling of validation; something went "click" inside me. It was a sense of correctness about what he had done, an utter familiarity which confirmed a bone-badness I had always felt. The first time he raped me, there was a similar - and terribly powerful - sense of meeting with something I seemed destined for. It works differently for different people, but let me share with you some of the specific lessons of childhood that I believe made me fair game for a battering and raping partner - you may identify:

As a woman who lived in a violent relationship; returned to it again and again, loved the abuser and truly cared about him, I have been patronized, had insulting inferences drawn about my intelligence, been branded as "sick", and "masochistic" - that last by a psychiatrist whom I told about the relationship. Many of us will recognize these labels. People who blame you don't understand that layer piled upon layer of trauma may tend to produce a crippling of ability to care for oneself in the ways non-traumatized people would see as commonsense.. Child abuse really is like a cancer; left untreated that malignancy can metastasize into further and possible fatal dangers - indeed, I am lucky to be alive.

But does this need to be the case? Let's look at the next section.


SOLUTIONS AND HEALING
Socially, picking up on children who have been hurt and offering early intervention so that they carry far less damage into adulthood with them would be a great big plus. Not kicking abuse survivors in abusive relationships or who are repeatedly hurt by rape when they're down by branding them "stupid" and abandoning them - thus proving to them again that they're worthless - will also go a long way.

I think that what worked for me was that I at least had a concept of safe, nurturing love - even if I didn't feel I deserved it. Some people don't even have that concept, and I believe I am lucky that I did because it gave me a starting point. My fellow survivor, If you have identified with any of the above, I implore you to seek counselling to overturn those old scars and recognize that you too, have the same place in the scheme of fairness and love as anybody else. All that I learned, and all the ways in which it was reinforced have not, after all, stopped me from growing into a woman who knows that I don't deserve to be the recipient of other people's abuse. It was not my fault; I was not bad, and I can tell somebody with a mind to hurt me to go to hell - I owe them nothing; least of all my soul.

Does such a change in attitude rape-proof us? No, as long as there are perpetrators, we are all vulnerable regardless of what we think about ourselves. To say that somebody is raped because of their self-image is victim-blame - again - it's the perpetrator who takes advantage. But I do believe that the reduction in self-hatred and boundaries that come with healing make us less inclined to accommodate people who are disrespectful and even dangerous. Knowing I deserve to be safe - that I do not deserve to be raped - means that I listen to my gut, put distance between myself and abusive people and reduce my chances, at least for now, of being harmed again. Our safety is sometimes contingent on how much we value it; healing means changing patterns of devaluing it.

I healed. You can do it too, even if the damage is extensive. You are worth it. You are. You were not abused again and again because you deserve it. You have been traumatized, you were set up and others capitalized on it. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Please feel free to discuss multiple victimization at the Pandora's Aquarium message board and chat room - we understand, and we value you even if many others didn't.

Please give yourself compassion - you certainly have mine.

SOURCES

    1. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
    2. Cited in Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
    3. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
    4. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
    5. Van der Kolk, Bessel A. MD. "The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma: Re-enactment, Revictimization, and Masochism", Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Volume 12, Number 2, Pages 389-411, June 1989 http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
    6. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
    7. Van der Kolk, Bessel A. MD. "The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma: Re-enactment, Revictimization, and Masochism", Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Volume 12, Number 2, Pages 389-411, June 1989 http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
    8. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
    9. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
    10. Van der Kolk, Bessel A. MD. "The Compulsion to Repeat the Trauma: Re-enactment, Revictimization, and Masochism", Psychiatric Clinics of North America, Volume 12, Number 2, Pages 389-411, June 1989 http://www.cirp.org/library/psych/vanderkolk/
    11. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
    12. Herman, J. Trauma and Recovery: From domestic abuse to political terror, BasicBooks, USA, 1992
SOURCE

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Monday, September 24, 2018

We Mistakenly Believe...




That he cares about us and our well-being, if only we were better able to express and explain what we mean, he wouldn’t be so angry or disgusted with us,

if only we didn’t have some inexplicable problem in perception, we wouldn’t take things the wrong way,

if only we weren’t so inadequate—we wouldn’t feel so much pain and hurt,

that he is sincere, that he is the same way with everyone and they don’t make him mad, so there must be something wrong with us,

like he was always saying “this is what I’m talking about ...I just want to be happy — I don’t see us being happy - you make me do this, you make me drink, you’re going to make me drink, you, you, you are the problem.”

That we are suffering needlessly because of some lack or flaw. This lack or flaw is not particularly defined but is instead a general sense of inadequacy derived from countless accusations (which he will reinforce by saying “everyone says”), we mistakenly believe, if only he would find religion, be reborn, born again, stopped doing drugs, got into recovery, worked his steps, bonded with his inner child, dealt with his anger issues, “childhood issues”, intimacy issues, commitment issues, abandonment issues, went to therapy, stopped smoking, started smoking, got a job, got a better job, got a degree, got a better degree, then the tyranny would stop

or if we were: younger, prettier, thinner, smarter, prayed more effectively, better, or right-things would get better, got into recovery, became more religious, more holy, more fervent, more faith filled, were more chaste, celibate, married in a church, renewed our vows, were more self responsible, reasoned with him, asked the Lord to open his heart, more successful, more loving, more understanding, more forgiving, more assertive, more submissive, more in touch with our inner child, changed our thinking, raised our self esteem, stopped creating/ recreating these types of relationships, healed our family tree, stopped enabling, “let go”, got therapy, took antidepressants, dealt with our childhood issues, intimacy, commitment and abandonment issues, forgave our parents, forgave our perpetrators, forgave ourselves, forgave him, stopped being the victim, developed better communication skills, wore bright colors, sat up straight -things would get better- did more for him and others - then the tyranny would stop.

Wrong.

Misogynon

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Thursday, February 22, 2018

Porn: One Man's Shame



mothers of children exposed to pornography

from: Diane Herceg, Texas
to: United States Justice Department Commission on Pornography

Gentlemen:
My son, Troy Daniel Dunaway, was murdered on August 6, 1981 by the greed and avarice of the publishers of Hustler magazine.

Hustler magazine published the article "Orgasm of Death" in its 1981 edition. Its publishers edited the article, illustrated the article, distributed the article and even mailed the article to my home address. The article graphically depicted autoerotic asphyxiation. I have attached a copy of the article to this letter. At the time, Hustler knew or should have known that the magazine would end up in the hands of youth under the age of 18 and children. Their own surveys showed that a portion of their mail subscribers were under the age of 18, and that the vast majority of the homes to which the magazines were mailed had children in the home.

My son read the article "Orgasm of Death", set up the sexual experiment depicted therein, followed the explicit instructions of the article, and ended up dead. He would still be alive today were he not enticed and incited into this action by Hustler magazine's "How To Do" August 1981 article; an article which was found at his feet and which directly caused his death.

I feel these magazines should not be sold anywhere because most people do not care who buys them and will sell them to anyone just to make money. Even if only adults buy them, they are in homes where young people can see them. Most magazine publishers will print anything just to sell the magazines; not caring what happens or who gets hurt or killed, or how many families are nearly destroyed by the effects of losing a child or a family member.

I think the government should step in and put a stop to all pornography before any more lives and families are destroyed. I hope that the government will accept its responsibility in putting these peddlers of smut and death out of business forever.

Sincerely,

Diane Herceg

***********************



one man's shame

When I found my cousin's hidden stash of soft-core pornography a few weeks after being molested by an older boy at church camp, my emotional ground was broken enough for those seeds to sink deep and grow quickly into a devastating force in my life.

I began to introduce other boys to pornography. I spent as much time over at his house as I could. When my cousins stash of material was no longer titillating, I began to frequent liquor stores that sold pornography. No one at the stores seemed to mind my looking at the magazines I bought them when I could, and when I couldn't; I would steal them, and sell the pictures at school. I quickly learned that the more graphic and explicit the photos, the more money I made. This began a slow progression from the "men's magazine" pornography which I had encountered at my uncles to the hardest types of pornography I could find at the liquor stores. Several other boys became my "buddies" in these escapades. We would dare each other too ever more risky attempts to steal pornography. Often, one of us would occupy the person at the counter so the others could steal what we wanted. The thrill of this risk was intoxicating to me.

But even this thrill wasn't enough after a while, The pictures in the magazines got old, and I began to look for graphic, explicit images. To get the same high I had received in viewing the softer images of women. After a while pornography still seemed to lack the punch it once had, so I began to look for more real and dangerous ways to satisfy my desires.

I began to experiment with voyeurism, watching girl's undress through holes in the wall or windows, or sneaking into the girl's showers. I would literally do anything to see a girl's nude body. Watching girls undress was like having the pictures of my porn fantasies come to life. The tragedy was that my pornography habit kept me totally alienated from any real relationship with girls. I found it difficult to relate to real girls, who didn't behave like the girls in pornography, I didn't have girlfriends, because the girls I met or dated reacted with fear and disgust to my pornography-inspired advances toward them.

Pornography had taught me that the way to be accepted and loved was through sex, but in reality my obsession with sex brought me only alienation, loneliness, and shame. All this continued to escalate moving into harder and harder material and more risky episodes through my high school years until finally a crucial experience motivated me into a recommitment to my Higher Power.

I dropped my pornography habit cold immediately. I opened my own roofing business to support my self as I was going to college, and I met this wonderful woman at the college. After a 9-month period of dating, we got married. I firmly believed that I had turned my life around. I didn't view pornography, nor do any unhealthy sexual activity. But the injury my life had been subjected to had not been dealt with or healed properly, I was like a man walking around on a badly healed broken leg. There was a fundamental weakness only waiting for an unusual stress for another break to occur.

That stress occurred eighteen months after my marriage.

My wife was pregnant with our first child, and because of her symptoms and reaction to the pregnancy, our sexual relationship began to evaporate. As I tried to deal with the mounting stress in our marriage, I was driving past an adult bookstore one day, and my sexual frustration nagged me into going inside.

It's difficult to describe my reaction to my first visit to a hard-core adult bookstore. I was deeply shocked and disgusted at the material I saw there. I was ashamed of myself and promised myself never to go into a place like that again. But the sight of this hard-core material and my shame at being there was also like a sudden injection of some incredible drug straight into my veins. In an awful way, it excited me tremendously. And in spite of my vow to myself, I found that as my relationship with my wife worsened, I went back there - again and again. Using the pornography as a drug to numb the pain of a struggling marriage.

Just as it had in high school, my pornography addiction began to consume more and more of my time. I found reasons and excuses to visit the store for more, and more hours every day. My business began to suffer as much as my marriage. I would hide money from my wife to spend on pornography; finally, I was finally forced into bankruptcy. Still my habit progressed.

Since I went to pornography in the first place to escape, the pain of bankruptcy only increased my need for the escape of pornography. And then came a move to California, and things got better for a time. It's difficult to explain completely, but at each critical time in the progression of my addiction, I felt I was being given providential opportunities - chances to stop, and turn myself around.

But I didn't take them, I was too afraid to let anyone see the real me. I was convinced that if someone saw the real me, the one that struggled with all this evil stuff, they would find me dirty, disgusting, and would have no other choice, but to reject, abandon me. The move to California was a chance like that. For several months, I tried to commit myself to making a new start for my family and business.

Then one day my business carried me to an area where there were sexually oriented bookstores and I fell completely back into my addiction, picking up where I had left off. It became such an easy way out. I felt that I was too dirty to love, inadequate as a man, father, husband and that no woman could accept me and love me. In my pornographic fantasies, those needs for love and acceptance were seemingly met.

Once again, my addiction drew me into more and more graphic and even violent material. Gradually, I found a growing interest in sadistic pornography. In the ever-increasing violence of my fantasies, I found an outlet for my anger at all the rejection I had faced from women all my life, which wouldn't love me or meet my needs. Pornography and violence are woven together, as to say sex, anger, power, and violence should be a part of the same experience.

Porn glamorized the violence.

As my mental scenarios demanded more graphic expression, I gravitated to more and more twisted and violent pornographic images. This material that once would have nauseated me, now have become my fantasy. I want make it clear here, before I proceed with the final stages of my addiction, that pornography never FORCED me to make these choices. But at each stage, as pornography began to have longer and more influential contact with my life, my ability to resist the compulsion for it grew less and less until I was seemingly powerless to resist it. I now found myself in this helpless situation.

I remember times when I would drive by a liquor store that sold pornography and force myself, with all of my willpower and every ounce of my mental strength to drive on past . . . only to find myself involuntarily turning around and returning to the store to buy pornography. By this time, images on paper and film were beginning to lose their power to satisfy me. Increasingly, I craved the "real thing"; it started out with going to a strip tease joints.

Just as with the bookstore, my first visit left me shocked at myself. I left promising never to return again! But I was soon back, spending hours and hours watching the girls. From there I progressed to massage parlors, and finally to using prostitutes. Just as at each step before, what was at first shocking and repulsive became easier and easier to accept. In fact, it was the shock and repulsion that gave me that "rush" I craved. And I craved it more and more. I would arrange phony business trips to cover my activities, and I would hide or even steal money to cover the costs of my habits. I laid out elaborate plans to keep myself from being suspected or caught.

Even in my own mind I lived a double life. My public life was commendable, but the fruit of my private life was full of bitterness and pain. This pain only increased as I made futile attempts to draw closer to my wife sexually. I thought that the way for us to be close was for us to have a better sex life. I was hoping she would be like the women of my pornographic fantasies, she naturally responded with revulsion.

Ironically, I even tried to "spiritualize" my requests by appealing to distorted biblical ideas about her duty of "submission", that her body belongs to her husband, and that it was her responsibility to meet my needs sexually. But again my attempts at this kind of closeness only ended in more alienation and anger. As this anger was building, I found that even my visits to prostitutes didn't dissipate the rage inside me.

More and more, I found myself fantasizing about satisfying myself and venting my rage at the same time. I deserved love, and if I can't get it through the natural channels, then I will have to take it. I began to entertain thoughts of raping a woman. At first, it seemed only like a game. I would make intricate plans in my mind about how I would do it without being caught. Then I began to do "trial runs" of a rape.

I would visit dark parking lots around department stores at night and follow women home. Then I would sneak into the back yard to watch them undress through the window. These games, became real, intricate "trial runs'' of a rape. But always something stopped me. It remained, for the moment, a game. But an ever more serious game. Finally, as I was getting out of my car at a racquetball club. I saw a woman walking to her car alone in the dark parking lot. She fit my perfect woman fantasy; she was the one of my dreams. Something inside me said this is your chance, she's yours", and my game became reality. I followed her to her car and asked directions as I positioned myself in front of her open car door, then I lunged at her, and forced my way into her car, my hands on her throat.

Terrified, she asked me what I was going to do to her. I told her. All I saw as I looked into her eyes was fear. Those that shocked me like a someone had hit me with a baseball bat, and woke me up. Suddenly, with my hands around her throat, I realized what was happening - how far I had come down a horrible road. I came to the sickening realization that I had intended to kill this woman, if necessary, to keep my terrible secret.

Reeling from the shock of my awakening, I released her, muttered something about having made "a mistake", and walked in a daze straight to my car. I need to emphasize that not until that moment, when I was a razor's edge away from killing someone, was I finally forced to admit that I had a terrible, uncontrollable problem. Up until that time, even though my will was being increasingly sapped by my addiction, I had still managed to lie to myself. Now the truth descended on my like an avalanche. Once the truth was out, it pursued me relentlessly.

Naturally, the woman had seen me walk to my car and taken my license number. As I was home beginning to open my secret up to my wife, the police came to my door and arrested me. After that came time in jail. I tried to defend myself by pointing to my sterling reputation in the community. This was just a onetime occurrence, my attorney argued. And so I was given a lenient sentence. Unlike problems such as alcoholism, my problems with pornography and sex were the type of sin that unspoken rules prevented openly discussing - or forgiving. I became a spiritual "leper" and found little support from some of my former "friends".

Little wonder, then, that I didn't "confess" my entire pornography problem. I was still playing a game of damage control, and I revealed as little as possible. I bitterly regretted having been caught. But it was not the process that led to my personal catastrophe. Naturally, the strain on my marriage, already near the breaking point, reached a critical stage during, the aftermath of the rape attempt. In a last-ditch effort to save my marriage, I took my wife on a getaway to Santa Barbara, CA only to find us in a hot and bitter fight.

Deep in my heart, I still resented the rejection I felt from everyone, especially my wife. In a self-justifying tirade I rehearsed to myself how my entire problem had really been my wife's fault. "If only she had met my needs," I thought. "If only she had totally accepted me, I wouldn't have had to look elsewhere." I believed that if a woman kept her husband sexually satisfied he wouldn't be looking outside the home.

So it was my wife's fault for never meeting my sexual needs, not realizing that I had this problem way before I met my wife, and that I was the one who was truly responsible for my problems. My marriage, I decided, was over, and then, something extraordinary happened. Like a cornered animal with no where to run, I finally found myself face to face with the TRUTH, and my life started on a different path that was the beginning of my journey to healing. Please don't think I was instantly healed of my addiction. It was a process, and not always an easy one.

But at that moment, a door cracked open and lighted up the first step on the road to freedom to control my own life again.

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Friday, January 04, 2013

Common "games" between those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) & 'Normals'


Common "games" between those with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) and those who do not have BPD

 (note: BPD is similar in it's expression to Narcissism; but not the same disorder)

 Feelings Create Facts

 In general, emotionally healthy people base their feelings on facts. If your dad came home drunk every night (fact) you might feel worried or concerned (feeling). If your boss complimented you on a big project (fact) you would feel proud and happy (feeling).

 People with BPD, however, may do the opposite. When their feelings don't fit the facts, they may unconsciously revise the facts to fit their feelings. This may be one reason why their perception of events is so different from yours.

 Splitting: (I Hate You—Don't Leave Me)

 People with BPD may have a hard time seeing gray areas. To them, people and situations are all black or white, wonderful or evil. This process of splitting serves as another defense mechanism. Peter, who has BPD, explains: "Dividing the world into good or evil makes it easier to understand. When I feel evil, that explains why I am the way I am. When you are evil, that explains why I think bad things about you."

 Tag, You're It : A Game of Projection

 Some people with BPD who act out may use a more complicated type of defense mechanism — we've named it "Tag, You're It"- to relieve their anxiety, pain, and feelings of shame. It's more complex because it combines shame, splitting, denial, and projection.

 People with BPD usually lack a clear sense of who they are, and feel empty and inherently defective. Others seem to run away from them, which is lonely and excruciatingly painful. So borderlines cope by trying to "tag" or "put" these feelings onto someone else. This is called projection.

 Projection is denying one's own unpleasant traits, behaviors, or feelings by attributing them (often in an accusing way) to someone else. In our interview with Elyce M. Benham, M.S., she explained that projection is like gazing at yourself in a hand-held mirror. When you think you look ugly, you turn the mirror around. Voila! Now the homely face in the mirror belongs to somebody else.

 Sometimes the projection is an exaggeration of something that has a basis in reality. For example, the borderline may accuse you of "hating" them when you just feel irritated. Sometimes the projection may come entirely from their imagination: for example, they accuse you of flirting with a salesclerk when you were just asking for directions to the shoe department.

 The BP's unconscious hope is that by projecting this unpleasant stuff onto another person-by tagging someone else and making them "it" like a game of Tag — the person with BPD will feel better about themselves. And they do feel better, for a little while. But the pain comes back. So the game is played again and again.

 Projection also has another purpose: your loved one unconsciously fears that if you find out they're not perfect, you will abandon them. Like in the Wizard of Oz, they live in constant terror that you'll discover the person behind the curtain. Projecting the negative traits and feelings onto you is a way to keep the curtain closed and redirect your attention on the perfect image they've tried to create for themselves.

 How can people with BPD deny that they are projecting when it is so obvious to everyone else? The answer is that shame and splitting may combine with projection and denial to make the "Tag, You're It" defense mechanism a more powerful way of denying ownership of unpleasant thoughts and feelings.

 Some adults who enter into relationships with borderlines feel brainwashed by the BP's accusations and criticisms. Says Benham: "The techniques of brainwashing are simple: isolate the victim, expose them to inconsistent messages, mix with sleep deprivation, add some form of abuse, get the person to doubt what they know and feel, keep them on their toes, wear them down, and stir well."

 Everything Is Your Fault

 Continual blame and criticism is another defense mechanism that some people with BPD who act out use as a survival tool. The criticism may be based on a real issue that the person with BPD has exaggerated, or it may be a pure fantasy on the borderline's part.

 Family members we interviewed have been raged at and castigated for such things as carrying a grocery bag the wrong way, having bed sheets that weighed too heavily on the BP's toes, and reading a book the BP demanded they read.

 One exasperated non-BP said that if by some chance he didn't make an unforgivable error one day, his wife would probably rage at him for being too perfect.

 If you object to the criticism or try to defend yourself, your loved one may accuse you of being defensive, too sensitive, or unable to accept constructive criticism. Since their very survival seems to be at stake, they may defend themselves with the ferociousness of a mother bear protecting her cubs. When the crisis has passed and the person with BPD seems to have won, they may act surprised that you're still upset.

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