Been Feeling Wackadoo for A While (very long)

[meanbeanPL]

I'm new here so brief introduction before I say what I wanted to say

My mother was sexually abused by her stepfather when she was a teenager, and even though the courts ordered a restraining order because of it - my grandmother kept letting him into the house after my mother went to bed & kept telling my mother to "just forgive him." I feel certain my mother suffered more abuse than this, however, I'm confident I will never know the truth since she refuses to talk about it.

Fast forward to when I was 13 - my mother has been verbally/emotionally abusing & manipulating me for years now & my mother's husband couldn't keep his hands out of my swimsuit...I was chronically depressed, suicidal, nearly catatonic for minimum 1 year during/after it happened. I didn't tell anyone, but wrote a prayer to god that he would end my life so he wouldn't be able to keep molesting me. My mother confronted me about the journal, stating her husband found it in my bedroom while I was sleeping one night (why was he in a 13yo girl's bedroom while she is sleeping?!) Her husband was sitting right there the whole time she confronted me. He didn't say a word, just stared at me. She asked me why I would make up a horrible lie just to break up her marriage & told me god was disappointed in me & people go to hell for doing things like this. (He confessed to a detective about 10 years later, however, where I live, this is beyond the statute of limitations so he will never face punishment for what he did, even though he confessed.)

Fast forward to when I was 19 - my boyfriend at the time (I hate calling him that) constantly stole from me, cheated on me, and raped me after making sure I was high as a kite. To this day, I can't actually remember having sex with him because I was ALWAYS shmammered beyond belief...except one time...one time, deep in the woods of a national park, a 20 minute drive from the nearest occupied structure or cell service of any kind...one time when I was shivering cold, terrified in the dark & the only comfort I was offered was his unprotected ejaculate that would later grow into my daughter.

Fast forward to today - I've been in therapy since before my daughter was born but I feel like I struggle more now with my assaults than I ever did before. I realized in therapy that 13yo might not have been the first time I was assaulted. I believe it's possible I might have been sexually assaulted or otherwise abused when I was less than 5, but I don't remember at all. I'm considering EMDR in addition to my normal therapy to address this.
My sexuality has been coming up a lot - I'm questioning why I'm attracted to porn that includes things like rape fantasy or sex with an older man & a younger girl or unprotected sex.....I mean...those are EXACTLY how I was abused...why would I like that stuff? I'm scared it's because I'm more like my abusers than a victim if I enjoy the horrible things that were done to me rather than being repulsed by them. But I am repulsed by them but I'm also turned on. My therapist wants me to talk about it more to explore these feelings and I tried to talk to my husband but he left in the middle of our conversation to play video games with his friend so I felt TOTALLY rejected & alone & unsupported & now I can't stop feeling mad at him & pushing him away even though all I want is to feel close & supported & accepted by him. And I've been trying to find other survivors of rape-related pregnancy who decided to raise their children & even though I've been active in networking with other survivors for a long while now, I'm having a very hard time finding others who identify with this specific trauma so I feel exasperated & alone. And I know it probably sounds ridiculous & I'm going to show my ignorance here, but I can't get the concern out of my head that after all I've been through that I might've developed a serious psychological disorder. (For example, my therapist casually mentioned that the extreme gaslighting & emotional whiplash my mother put me through is one way a person might develop schizophrenia so now I can't stop thinking about how my aunt was schizophrenic before she committed suicide & how if there's obviously a pattern of abuse in my family & that happened to my aunt, maybe it could happen to me too!) and of course as an extension of that concern, how does that affect my loved ones if I do have a serious condition? And on top of facing all these trauma issues, I find myself triggered by late summer/early autumn because that's when I was raped & conceived my daughter so I keep remembering her father & thinking about things he said/did while I was with him and my work schedule changed & I hate it, I'm a morning person but they have me working 2p-10p so I feel like I don't get to spend time with my daughter because I'm working during the time I would normally spend with her. And this new schedule seems to be exacerbating issues between my husband & I making me feel more unsupported & alone like he doesn't help. But when I tell my friends how to feel they say I just just give up & leave instead of listening to how I feel.

And all of these things seem to be compiling on top of one another & I can physically feel myself shaking with emotions...emotions that I don't know what they are called or where they are coming from but I can't seem to push them down or out or away & I can't seem to face them. I JUST FEEL SO MANY THINGS AND I WISH IT WOULD STOP JUST FOR ONE SECOND SO I COULD BREATHE! I feel like I've been treading water for the longest week of my life & I'm gasping for air but everything is in my face - all the pain, all the trauma, all the fear - everywhere I turn.

[coconuts]

I can relate to many of those feelings. I think many of us can. Drowning in the shame and the million other emotions. I feel like I can't even process thru memories fully until I can label all the emotions. I am doing EMDR but it is intense and hard work. It does work though. I'm amazed sometimes at the way it works. But tackling all this is difficult and I have to fight through it. It's hard.

As for the sexuality stuff. I think that sometimes we have to realize that our minds and our bodies are not always in sinc. Many people feel shame for feeling aroused during a sexual assault. Does it make them guilty. Hell no!! I know for myself that when I think about some of my experiences that even though I feel terror in my my body and mind there is also a level of arousals. A physical reaction to an external stimulus. Basically our bodies are physically built to respond to certain touch and feel aroused. Even if that touch came in inappropriate ways it's still subject to that stimulus/ response scenario.

I really hope work schedules and relationship issues calm down for you and you can find some peace somewhere.

And welcome. So sad you belong here but glad you found us