He loves me so he hurts me
To try and make me good.
It doesn't work. I'm just too bad
And don't do what I should.
My memory has so many different sections and, like all survivors, there are so many compartments with so many triggers. I'll remember a smell which reminds me of a man which reminds me of a place which reminds me of another man who I think was with a woman who had a certain smell — and I'm back to square one. This is the case for most survivors, I believe. When we try to put together our pasts, the triggers are many and varied, the memories are disjointed — and why wouldn't they be? We were children. Even someone with an idyllic childhood who is only trying to remember the lovely things which happened to them will scratch their head and wonder who gave them that doll and was it for Christmas or their third birthday? Did they have a party when they were four or five? When did they go on a plane for the first time? You see, even happy memories are hard to piece together — so imagine how hard it is to collate all of the trauma, to pull together all of the things I've been trying to push away for so many years.
Tags: pain suffering memory victim child-abuse trauma survivor abuse abused traumatic grooming
Eating disorders are prevalent among women who were sexually abused as children. They seem to have components of other symptoms such as obsessions, compulsions, avoidance of food, and anxiety, and they primarily include a distorted body image and feelings of body shame.
For some women, eating disorders are related to the loss of control over their bodies during the sexual abuse and serve as a means of feeling in control of their bodies now. Eating disorders can also be indicative of the developmental stage and age at which the sexual abuse began. Women with anorexia and bulimia report that they were sexually abused either at the age of puberty or during puberty, when their bodies were beginning to develop and they felt a great deal of body shame from the abuse. By contrast, women with compulsive eating report that the sexual abuse occurred before the age of puberty; they used food for comfort.
Tags: eating-disorder anorexia healing recovery body-image trauma sexual-abuse abuse binge-eating child-sexual-abuse comfort-food bulimia child-rape bdd eating-disorder-causes triggers
You hardly asked if I was okay the entire time we were together.” (Jessie)
“Okay? You wanted me to ask you if you were okay? Jessie, I saw you! How could I think for one second you were okay? Do you think it’s normal for me to watch a girl being raped from the roof? But I was there, loaded down with enough guns to do some serious damage. And what did I do about it? Nothing. Because I could do nothing, because my sole goal was to get you safely out of there. So I sat and watched it… for hours. I let them do that to you. I heard you. I saw you. And eventually, I had to turn away. I couldn’t watch it. It was that bad. I know why you’re not okay. I don’t have to ask why.” (Will)
Tags: pain violence trauma sorrow-leanne-davis
When I got out of prison, I was basically no longer human,' Miriam says.
Anna FunderTags: humanity prison human torture trauma ptsd traumatic-experiences traumatic no-longer-human political-prisoner
Prison left me with some strange little tics.' She has taken all the door off their hinges in all the apartments she has lived in since. It's not that she has anxiety attacks about small spaces, she says, it's just that she starts to sweat and go cold. 'This apartment is perfect for me,' she says, looking around the open space.
'How about elevators?' I ask, recalling the schlepp up the stairs.
'Exactly,' she replies, 'I don't like them much either.'
One day, years later, her husband Charlie was fooling around at home, playing the guitar. Miriam said something provocative and he stood up suddenly, lifting his arm to take off the guitar strap. He was probably just going to say 'That's outrageous', or tickle her or tackle her. But she was gone. She was already down in the courtyard of the building. She does not remember getting down the stairs-it was an automatic flight reaction.
Tags: fear flight fight anxiety trauma ptsd freeze captive claustrophobil
Miriam is upset. Her voice is stretched and I can't look at her. Perhaps they beat something out of her she didn't get back.
Anna FunderTags: beat germany goverment trauma survivor gdr ptsd beating traumatic security-state phsyical-abuse
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