‘Dwelling on victimhood does not help’, wrote a psychiatrist about sexual trauma.
I got stuck on that for a moment… because it only touches such a small part of what trauma can be.
Trauma is about boundaries. It divides, fragments, confuses, and entangles your sense of self. Starting from the role of victim, the question is how you find yourself again. As a powerless victim, guilty as if you were the perpetrator, looking away like an uncomfortable bystander? Or a confusing mix of all of them?
Internal division The consequences of trauma exist in all kinds of forms. From experiencing yourself as a single person – in relative harmony with the different sides of yourself – to living from different ego-perspectives, without feeling a main character. And of course, everything in between.
Single trauma PTSD, Complex PTSD, a dissociative identity disorder... Psychiatric language does little justice to how your inner landscape can develop under the pressure of trauma. No disorder, but a reflection of how you managed to survive.
When I was violently abused as a young child, I shattered into pieces. Into the sharpness of pain, into helpless watching, into freezing with fear. Into total incomprehension of what was happening, into blissful acceptance, into rock-hard denial.
Victimhood was the starting point, but ultimately not the problem. The problem was that we got stuck, kept going in circles, in mutual conflict. All over the place, except in that one reality: that I was that victim.
For those who live with the damage of sexual boundary violation, ‘just don't dwell on it’ is a worthless tip. Say instead that you hope I find solid ground beneath my feet to stand on so I can see what really happened.
That the victim role was forced upon me uninvited and violently. How my ‘no!’ died away and the wondrous dissociative abilities of a small child took over. And that back then, without any preparation or script... we actually did pretty well?
Lying in my hammock, I rewind the film one more time.
Rasila
Have you had a bad sexual experience or experienced sexual violence and do you need help or advice? Then contact (anonymously) the Center for Sexual Violence.
