I was writing this while MartyS was posting. I agree 100% with what he wrote. From my experience as a therapist, I can say that avoiding a difficult conversation because it may 'dredge something up' often prevents a new, deeper level of healing from a trauma by both parties involved. I also agree with Russoguru, your empathy, and your insights into your behavior demonstrate that you are a caring person.
Now to what I spent the last hour or so writing.
Variety of Cells, you've brought up a great deal. I can read the pain in your description of what happened. You are clearly suffering from those events. I am sorry that is the case for you, just as I am sorry if she is still suffering from them.
Hopefully anyone reading this will know some things about me. The first I hope they keep in mind is that, with my head injuries, when past my limits I may not always express myself completely or clearly (and I have been so messed up of late that most days out of the last couple months I have slept between 10-14 hours because I have been so mentally exhausted). So please, if something I've written here is unclear, or sounds odd, please ASK before jumping on me, OK? Thank you. The second is that, when I was a therapist, while I did neuropsychological testing, and studied the brain both functionally and biochemically with the intent after my PhD becoming a certified Neuropsychologist, when I did therapy while working on my dissertation, I worked almost exclusively with abuse and neglect survivors (learning way more than most of my colleagues knew in that area). So I know something about traumas.
Now I would like to start to reframe your experience, particularly your current one, regarding this past event:
Both you, and the young woman involved, were traumatized by the sick culture you grew up in, the culture which led to that experience. Clearly from how disturbed you have been by it, you were traumatized by the experience. In a different way from how she was, but you were traumatized nonetheless.
This country has been sexually sick for a LONG time. It originates with sex being 'hidden' and avoided by parents, as if it is somehow different than teaching a child how to eat properly or how to brush their teeth to protect their health. It then comes from things like you described: media feeding false information ('alcohol just reduces inhibitions' and up until recently 'no means maybe'). And then there is the 'sport' of sex for teenage and young adult males... that approach persists and is so massively ingrained in EVERYONE in this sick culture, that I dare say it would be incredibly difficult in this culture to find anyone who did not understand what, "I got to second base with her," meant. Sex is not a 'game' (unless two consenting parties want to make it one for fun). And then there is the 'conquest' that males are taught - in sport, in business, and in sex. Some who are particularly sick carry the belief that this is OK through adulthood (e.g. the Sexual-Predator-in-Chief).
Again: this entire culture has been sexually sick for a LONG time.
Luckily for this culture, that attitude would have persisted if not largely for brave women who have stepped forward and begun to say, "this is very much
NOT OK!" There is, as enraging as it is in each instance, a benefit to the culture as a whole from things like white student athletes getting off with minimal sentences for raping a woman. It is benefiting the culture because it has forced the problem into the mainstream where those who would normally choose to ignore and avoid it (and thereby perpetuate it) cannot avoid it any longer and now have to THINK and ACT on it, to whatever degree they are capable of.
You have said that you have learned from your experience, and will be a strong force for teaching your future children about consent. That is great. It is many people, like you, who are waking up to how sick this society has been, and how it has victimized both males and females, that will ultimately change it. One child at a time. But hundreds - thousands - of individuals waking up to this awareness, means hundreds or thousands more children at a time will be learning that all human beings have the right to respect and self-determination in their actions and with what happens with them.
But that still leaves that, what you experienced was - for YOU - a traumatic experience. You were traumatized by the culture and what it did in helping shape your behavior. Your description of your feelings are basically a definition of a trauma response. [I cannot go through the symptoms of PTSD with you, but you certainly fit some of those as well as a 'less diagnosis-based' definition of trauma response.]
I dare say you (and others) may possibly indignantly ask, "you're saying that his experience was as bad as hers?" Well, one can't 'compare traumas' any more than one can 'compare injuries' from an auto accident. e.g. Who is 'worse off': a person who is paraplegic following an accident, or one with a significant change to their brain functioning from a head injury from an accident? It depends on how each affects the individual. There is no way to compare traumatic experiences, whether they are physical or psychological.
Guilt over actions of the past is a sign of someone who actually cares enough to look deeply at their history and learn from it. But maintaining that guilt is likely to cause additional problems going forward. So please think about what I have written and see if it at least partially fits for you.
My best to you, and I hope that you can continue to heal from this trauma.
If you are interested, the best overall book I've seen on trauma is this one: Aphrodite Matsakis
I Can't Get Over It. It may help to read it.
Topic: General Psychology Thread (for non-emergency and long-term issues) (Read 54626 times)