Gaining Control over Automatic Reactions
At any time, some signal in the present can rubberband a survivor back to old trauma and pain. One of the biggest challenges survivors face in sexual healing is overcoming automatic reactions which block clear access to present situations.
—GREGORY MULRY, Therapist
Judy, a rape survivor, reacts with fear every morning when her husband turns to kiss her goodbye. This instantaneous reaction confuses Judy—she loves her husband. When Tony, a survivor who is single, sits next to an attractive woman in a coffee shop, he immediately enters a sexual fantasy of dominating and controlling her. He feels trapped by his own sexual thoughts. Simple conversation with her is impossible.
Tony and Judy are experiencing “automatic reactions”—feelings, thoughts, and sensations that echo past abuse and inhibit healthy sexuality. These reactions represent ingrained reactions to sex, touch, and intimacy learned during the sexual abuse.
Automatic reactions are an extremely common and insidious repercussion of sexual abuse. They persist even when we have been changing our attitudes about sex and are feeling better about ourselves sexually. They reflect an interwoven pattern of physical and emotional responses. Automatic reactions often operate below our conscious awareness, making us feel confused, upset, and out of control.
As we sexually heal, we become more aware of our automatic reactions. We learn to pay more attention to our responses as we challenge ourselves to change long-standing patterns of sexual behavior. We may run into our automatic reactions as we attempt new ways of experiencing touch and sex. “It seems like the abuse is following me everywhere,” a survivor told me.
Automatic reactions that were learned in the abuse can harm us sexually. They can inhibit and disrupt our present-day sexual experiences, keeping us trapped in patterns of self-denying and damaging sexual behavior for many years. And they can make us feel bad about ourselves and keep us from joyful sexual intimacy with a partner.
In this chapter information is presented to help you learn how to recognize, understand, and cope with your automatic reactions. You will find that the knowledge and skills you acquire here will aid you immensely in being able to change how you behave sexually and in learning new approaches to touch and sex.
RECOGNIZING AUTOMATIC REACTIONS
We react automatically in many situations in our lives. Keeping our hands from a hot burner on the stove, looking both ways before crossing the street, or hugging our children when they have been hurt are automatic reactions that are healthy and good. Problems occur when the automatic reactions we developed in traumatic and confusing situations, such as sexual abuse, interfere with our present ability to enjoy our sexuality. These automatic reactions cause us to react in strange or inappropriate ways that inhibit our ability to feel good about ourselves and close to people we care about.
Often operating subconsciously, automatic reactions may be difficult to recognize. We may not even realize when we are experiencing automatic reactions learned from the abuse. Consequently, we may inaccurately attribute our response to something else, a bad habit, or a failing in ourselves: “I am afraid of sex because I’m not a loving person,” “I feel like masturbating when I see underclothes because I’m perverted,” or “I move away when my partner touches me because I don’t really want to be touched.” We may suffer years of self-loathing and isolation simply because we are not aware of our automatic reactions and how they affect us.
To help you recognize your automatic reactions, we will begin by examining three main types: emotional responses, physical sensations, and intrusive thoughts. To aid in identifying your automatic reactions, first review your responses to section 3 of the Sexual Effects Inventory in chapter 3.
Automatic reactions that are emotional responses. One evening, Mandy, a thirty-year-old lesbian survivor, curled up on the couch with her lover, Chris, to watch a romantic movie on TV. During the movie Chris became amorous and began stroking Mandy’s shoulders. Mandy immediately became scared. Her fear didn’t make sense to her. She knew Chris would stop stroking her if asked. Mandy’s feeling of fear was automatic, triggered by Chris’s stroking her shoulder, which in some way reminded her of past sexual abuse.
Survivors can experience many different types of emotional automatic reactions related to sexual abuse. A list of some common ones follows. Check any you experience in situations involving touch, sex, and intimacy.
_____ I feel fear.
_____ I feel panic.
_____ I feel terror.
_____ I feel anger.
_____ I feel sadness.
_____ I feel shame.
_____ I feel disgust.
_____ I feel paranoia.
_____ I feel anxiety.
_____ I feel confusion.
_____ I feel suspicion.
_____ I feel emotionally numb or distant.
Automatic reactions that are physical sensations. Nancy, a forty-year-old survivor, is fine when she’s on a date unless she starts to feel attracted to the man she’s with—then her whole body tightens and shuts down. She gets short of breath, her body becomes hard and cold, and she starts to shake from deep in her guts. Talking becomes difficult. She spends the rest of the date anxious to get home where she can relax and be alone. For Nancy, this automatic physiological reaction to intimacy is preventing her from building healthy relationships.
Some physical reactions that result from sexual abuse can be extremely uncomfortable and make sexual enjoyment impossible. Another survivor explained her reactions:
Sometimes when my husband starts to touch me in a sexual way, I go through a tensing experience in my body. Weird feelings come in sporadic waves. Tense energy from my stomach moves out through my arms, creating a tightness. It feels almost like pain. I can’t relax. It feels like a burning sensation, but, strangely, at the same time, I feel very, very cold.*
In contrast, other physical reactions can be extremely pleasurable and cause survivors to compulsively seek out sexual experiences. Sex can trigger high levels of excitement similar to those obtained by using alcohol or other drugs. Even the possibility of sex may produce an automatic feeling of euphoria. “When he ripped open the condom,” a survivor said, “I felt the same excitement I used to feel when I was using drugs and someone was about to stick a needle in my arm.” Although this automatic reaction is temporarily pleasurable, in the long run it can cause behaviors that lower self-esteem and prevent real intimacy from developing.
The following is a list of some common types of physical sensations that can be automatic reactions to sexual abuse. Check any you experience in situations involving touch, sex, and intimacy.
_____ I feel nauseated.
_____ I feel pain.
_____ I get a headache.
_____ My stomach feels tight.
_____ My heart beats rapidly.
_____ I feel chest pain.
_____ I feel genital pain.
_____ I experience an adrenaline rush.
_____ I sweat.
_____ I get chills.
_____ I feel cold.
_____ I feel flushed or hot.
_____ I feel euphoric.
_____ I experience unwanted or inappropriate sexual excitement.
_____ I experience spontaneous orgasm.
_____ I feel sleepy.
_____ I feel faint.
_____ I experience physical numbness.
Automatic reactions that are intrusive thoughts. Sam is a forty-five-year-old heterosexual survivor of molestation by his older brother. He is bothered by thoughts of sexual abuse that creep into his mind when he is making love with his wife. In some ways Sam finds these thoughts stimulating—they add to his sexual arousal. But intellectually, he finds it upsetting that the content of his fantasies has to do with sexual abuse and exploitation. Sam is embarrassed and feels ruled by these intrusive fantasies. For Sam, these are not healthy thoughts that add to his overall sexual enjoyment and self-esteem. Rather, these fantasies take him out of the present moment and leave him less able to be sexually intimate with his wife.*
Intrusive thoughts can be very confusing and upsetting. After reading about sexual abuse in a newspaper, a survivor was disturbed and angry at herself for automatically fantasizing more details about the abuse and getting aroused. Another survivor said, “It pains me that even though I was used as an object for another person’s gratification in the abuse, I still get the idea of using someone else the same way when I meet them for the first time.”
Intrusive thoughts can cripple sexual enjoyment and satisfaction by causing survivors to shut down sexual arousal. One woman survivor felt so bad that thoughts of her offender’s name kept popping into her head when she was about to climax in lovemaking that she wouldn’t let herself become aroused.
The following is a list of some common types of intrusive thoughts that can be automatic reactions to sexual abuse. Check any you experience in situations involving touch, sex, and intimacy.
_____ I think abusive sexual fantasies.
_____ I think abusive scenes from porn.
_____ I think my partner is the offender.
_____ I think the past is the present.
_____ I think I am a child.
_____ I think I am being victimized or abused.
_____ I think I am bad.
_____ I think I am inadequate.
_____ I think I am unworthy of being loved for myself.
_____ I wish I was someplace else.
EXPERIENCING AUTOMATIC REACTIONS
Some automatic reactions last for seconds, others for hours. Usually, reactions come in a series. They can be linked so that one triggers another. One survivor said whenever she became aroused during masturbation, she immediately went numb and felt disgusted with herself. Linked reactions can frustrate and annoy, causing survivors to interrupt touch and sex activity. A survivor described her reaction:
I find it hard to spontaneously initiate sex. I start to feel scared [EMOTION]. An incredible tape starts running in my head with real negative thoughts about my partner [INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS]. I get irritated with myself because my reaction doesn’t make sense [EMOTION]. I then have to take extra time to talk things through with my partner before we can make love.
A chain of automatic reactions can turn an otherwise pleasant experience into a nightmare. A man who had been molested by his mother and father recalled such an occurrence:
My girlfriend and I had gone out for the evening. She came back to my apartment with me. We hugged and kissed for a while. Then she started taking off my clothes and proceeded to give me a blow job. I froze [PHYSICAL SENSATION]. I felt like I wasn’t there [EMOTION]. I didn’t want to be there [THOUGHT].
A chain of automatic reactions related to abuse can also cause a survivor to be drawn to self-damaging, compulsive sexual activity. Feelings such as depression, anxiety, fear, disgust, and loneliness may have become fused with an automatic reaction of sexual interest or arousal. Feeling bad about oneself can trigger a desire to engage in compulsive sexual behavior. “Whenever I’m feeling bad about myself, I am tempted to have an affair,” a survivor said. Another survivor explained, “The days I’m likely to go to an adult bookstore are when a business deal falls through and I’m depressed and feeling lousy about myself.”
For some survivors who experience sexual arousal in this way, having sex can be used as a way to end a chain of uncomfortable automatic reactions. Survivors attempt to bury uncomfortable mental and physiological reactions by escaping in powerful sensations of sex. Unfortunately, this pattern of seeking sex to end discomfort has negative consequences. It can lead to sexual experiences that harm one’s self-esteem, endanger health, or hurt others. This kind of sex prevents real emotional and sexual intimacy from forming. A woman who had been raped on a date described her pattern:
I’ll be out on a date with a guy. I worry that he might not like me or find me attractive. Suddenly I ache to be held and hugged. Then I become possessed with a desire to sleep with him. I manipulate the situation into a sexual one as quickly as I can. I end this panic by having sex, even though I know that later I’ll feel miserable with myself.
Some linked automatic reactions don’t simply flow in one direction. They can cause survivors to have incompatible responses, making them feel simultaneously a desire for sex and a desire to retreat from sex. “I’m scared to death, and I desperately want your body,” a man told his wife. For him, two contradictory reactions—fear and sexual desire—were linked.
For some survivors a chain of automatic reactions can lead to an uncomfortable, uncontrollable fit of anxiety. They may feel consumed by fright—paralyzed and terrified. Panic reactions can be so extreme that they rob survivors of the comfort of nurturing, nonsexual touch, like the hug of a friend or the gentle, steady hand of a nurse during a minor medical procedure. A thirty-year-old deaf survivor was uncomfortable with any kind of touch.
My older brother molested me starting when I was about twelve. At the time I didn’t wear hearing aids. I never heard my brother creep up from behind. He’d grab me and then proceed to feel, squeeze, and pinch my breasts. I have a sense his hands went lower, though I can’t quite remember. What I do remember is the absolute terror of a big heavy man with big strong hands feeling me. I couldn’t get free; I just froze. I have a “thing” about hands now. When anyone touches me I go cold. My stomach churns and turns over. I shiver and freeze—total panic. The whole area of touch, sex, and sexuality is a minefield.
What bothers me most is not that I can’t make a sexual relationship—because I’m nowhere near that—but that I can’t accept a nice comforting hug or cuddle. I can’t let anyone hold me. I worry endlessly whether it’s right, whether it’s sexual or nonsexual. Where will it lead? Will I get hurt? Will I be able to cope? Invariably I just keep well away. But I’m dying of hunger—hunger for a cuddle or touch.
For this survivor, her fear of having a panic reaction makes her avoid any situations that could involve touch, sex, or intimacy. In essence, her fear cripples her life.
A chain of automatic reactions can induce an experience in which one’s mind feels temporarily separate and split off from one’s body, a sensation therapists call dissociation. Survivors can feel they are sliding out of the present moment, losing a sense of physical identity or emotional connection with a partner. “My partner used a certain tone of voice with me,” a survivor said, “that pushed me back into a tunnel. I could feel myself falling away from him. He held me, but even his comforting touch felt very loud to me.” Some survivors describe feeling as though their mind is in one part of a room (say, hovering near the ceiling), and their body is in another (lying on the bed, for example). These experiences of being split off from one’s body can be strange, and even terrifying, at times.
Flashbacks are another disturbing but common manifestation of automatic reactions. More than sixty percent of the eighty survivors who filled out questionnaires to provide information for this book reported that they had experienced at least one flashback. Something in the present related to touch, sex, or intimacy triggers a number of strong automatic reactions at once. An intense flood of feelings, sensations, and memories rush forward as the original sexual abuse is re-created in the present moment. Survivors who were abused as children may feel themselves become younger and shrink in body size. Many survivors have vivid sensory experiences that cause them to relive what they felt during the abuse. “It was like being inside a videotape with every detail and color very vivid, with the addition of smell,” a survivor said.
One woman survivor of a gang rape told me that the moment her present boyfriend put his penis in her vagina during lovemaking, she was immediately transported back to the abuse.
I felt like a young girl again. My brother’s friend, Billy, was thrusting away on me. I could hear his friend, Donny (who was next in line to rape me), counting, “one, two, three, . . . a hundred fucks for a buck!”
Flashbacks often result when some aspect of present-day sex feels similar to what survivors felt in the abuse. An incest survivor recounted her flashback:
I was performing oral sex on my partner. He began to tenderly play with my hair. Then I was back re-experiencing the first time I was forced to perform fellatio. I felt my uncle’s hands on my head.
Once inside a flashback, survivors often see, hear, or feel things that happened in the abuse but aren’t really happening now. They can have temporary sensory hallucinations, as these survivors explained:
My partner touched my nipple when we were making love. Immediately, I felt something push into my vagina, though there was nothing there in reality. The sensation lasted several minutes and was very uncomfortable. I regressed emotionally to a very young age.
Once when I was having oral sex with my husband I looked down at him and saw my father’s bloodshot eyes staring back at me. I can remember him looking at me with that penetrating stare as if it were yesterday.
Flashbacks, panic reactions, feeling emotionally dissociated, and other combinations of automatic reactions can be extremely frightening and unpleasant. They usually happen without warning. In an instant, survivors can find themselves lost in another world, feeling things they don’t want to be feeling and doing things they don’t want to be doing. Automatic reactions can temporarily deny survivors a sense of being mentally and physically in control of themselves. They may feel they are losing contact with present-day reality. An incest survivor said:
I was having sex with my partner. Suddenly I felt very young, helpless, and terrified. I started to cry, then I mentally left the experience completely. I went into the sheets and disappeared.
Because flashbacks and other automatic reactions are so upsetting, many survivors try to avoid them. Some survivors, like the deaf woman described earlier, simply stay away from situations that have anything to do with touch, sex, and intimacy. They shut down and steer away. The trouble is, this avoidance often becomes part of the problem. Staying away from touch and sexual experiences makes these experiences even more unusual and thus even more likely to cause an upsetting reaction when they unexpectedly occur.
Survivors may try to avoid unpleasant automatic reactions in many other ways: they may become very aggressive and controlling in touch and sex, they may actively use sexual fantasies and pornography to keep their minds off what is happening in the present, or they may develop a sexual dysfunction that prevents them from having certain sexual sensations that might trigger disturbing reactions. These ways of avoiding and handling intense automatic reactions often cause problems as well. They can inhibit healthy sex and intimate sharing. Later in this chapter we will learn about some new, alternative ways to handle automatic reactions that encourage healthy, positive sexual experiences.
Because automatic reactions can be upsetting, frightening, and annoying, it’s easy to understand why many survivors come to hate or feel ashamed and secretive about their reactions. And they may even hate themselves for having them. Unconsciously, survivors often associate these sudden, unpleasant, disruptive, and overpowering reactions with the abuse itself. Automatic reactions may seem like an external threat, an outside force that is intent on inflicting harm. One woman said, “It feels like I’m being hounded by a plague of black flies.”
When survivors maintain an antagonistic stance in relation to their automatic reactions, change can be difficult. We need to understand, respect, and in a way even accept our reactions before we can develop new ways to tame and diffuse their influence.
UNDERSTANDING HOW AUTOMATIC REACTIONS RELATE TO PAST ABUSE
Automatic reactions are not external forces. They are an understandable part of a survivor’s legacy of past abuse.
Sexual abuse is alarming, traumatic, and strange. The abuse itself may last only minutes, but during that time victims are emotionally and probably physically overwhelmed. They lose their sense of safety, control, and individual autonomy. The abuse experience is too much to process, flooding victims with sensations, feelings, and thoughts that they cannot assimilate at once.
Sexual abuse affects survivors profoundly, like other intense events, such as having a life-threatening accident, giving birth, watching someone die, or being kidnapped. Normal awareness is heightened, intensifying the experience down to the most minute detail. Most victims are unprepared to handle this situation mentally or physically.
To cope with the abuse while it’s happening, victims learn to group together all aspects of the abuse. Everything—where they are, what they are doing, who they are with, and what they feel—becomes fused. A traumatic crystallizing of experience occurs, as if they have taken a three-dimensional picture of the abuse. Because survivors may be confused about what caused the abuse, this crystallizing records everything that might be a possible cause. When survivors feel more prepared to analyze what happened to them and why, they can retrieve this mental three-dimensional picture.
Automatic reactions are activated, or triggered, by something in our present-day reality that reminds us, either consciously or unconsciously, of the past abuse. The trigger can be almost anything: an object, a picture, a touch, a movement, a smell, a sound, a setting, a sensation, a physical characteristic, or a feeling such as fear, abandonment, or anxiety. When a trigger sets off an automatic reaction, within seconds touch and sex experiences in the present become contaminated with feelings, thoughts, and sensations from the past.
Any portion of the crystal image can become a trigger. If we were in a dark room and felt scared during the abuse, then darkness, fear, and sex become part of our crystallized picture. That’s what happened to one woman, who was abused as an infant.
Being sexual in a dark room can trigger a flashback. I say nothing. I have no words. I just feel abject terror and panic. My breathing becomes labored, and then I start to cry like a baby.
Many of our automatic reactions were learned as a way to cope with the mental and physical stress experienced in the abuse. Victims may begin dissociating, for instance, to sidestep anything from pain to pleasure. “I didn’t feel what was happening during the molestation because I was outside of my body,” a survivor explained. Dissociating also allows victims to cooperate with the offender and thus avoid further violence and pain. “I coped with the abuse by mentally checking out,” a survivor said. “It was a way of saying to the offender, ‘You can do what you want, but you can’t make me be here.’ ” This reaction can enable a victim to retain a sense of power and self.
For many survivors, especially those who were victimized repeatedly, the process of dissociating becomes something they do over and over again. Splitting off becomes an ingrained response to sex, a habit.
I learned to separate myself from my body. I recall looking in a mirror when I was nine years old and hypnotically telling myself that the little girl in the mirror was not me. Now, every time I feel icky about sex, I head for the hills emotionally. I separate my mind from my body.
Other survivors may have learned to cope with the stress of abuse by numbing their own physical sensations. Numbing may have allowed them to endure the abuse.
My abuse experiences were usually physically and emotionally painful. To take care of myself, I blocked out feelings and sensations as well as I could. One time in the abuse, I experienced some pleasure. I felt guilty and betrayed by my own body. It made me feel dirty like my abuser. Now if I happen to feel pleasure I automatically block it out as well as the pain.
A third coping strategy survivors may have learned in the abuse is going along with what is happening. Enjoying sexual feelings, experiencing pleasure, and having orgasms are natural, automatic responses to sexual stimulation.
I coped with the abuse by going into it. I became aroused, flooded with sensation, overwhelmed, and orgasmic to get through it and to numb the psychological and physical pain. Now when I’m having sex I easily get flooded and overwhelmed. Then when I finally orgasm I feel frightened.
Some survivors learned that they could gain a degree of control over what they experienced if they went along with the abuse. Doing what a rapist tells you to do, and acting like you like it, can save your life or prevent you from further violence and pain. One man learned that he could avoid pain and injury by pretending to want what was happening to him when he was a ten-year-old boy being abused in an adult sexual orgy.
After being tumbled, turned, and poked, I began to like it. At first I was only pretending to like it, but then I actually started to like it in a weird way. I began to ask to be hurt. This made my abusers touch me in less violent ways.
“Enjoying” abusive sex may have helped some victims to survive, but meanwhile this was becoming ingrained as their way of responding to sex.
Tragically, this life-saving method—going along with, encouraging, or “enjoying” one’s own sexual abuse—lowers self-esteem and endangers a survivor’s health and well-being. “It turns me on to think of being victimized,” a survivor said. Survivors can feel ashamed of their sexual interests and develop secretive, compulsive sexual activities. A man, abused by another man when he was a teenager, expressed his reaction:
Initially, I felt horrible about the abuse, but I was still attracted to the sexual feelings, the attention, and the excitement that was involved in it. With time I buried all my negative feelings and developed strong desires for the sexual stimulation.
His automatic reaction was to bury his anxiety, humiliation, and fear. This protected him years ago from the emotional pain of the abuse. But continuing to bury his negative feelings today only perpetuates the damage.
Automatic reactions may have been important to you in the past. You can respect yourself for having developed them in the first place as a coping mechanism. Given what you went through, they helped you to handle and survive your situation. But now that you no longer are in extreme, traumatic situations, these protective measures no longer are needed. You can learn to handle your automatic reactions in ways that don’t damage you or your sexual relationships.
IDENTIFYING WHAT TRIGGERS YOUR AUTOMATIC REACTIONS
As described earlier, triggers can be anything in your present-day reality that reminds you, either consciously or unconsciously, of past sexual abuse. Many survivors feel as if they’re in a minefield, braced for an explosion at any step. But it is possible for survivors to learn to anticipate these automatic reactions and to gain control of their responses and even defuse the trigger.
You may already have some idea of what is likely to trigger your automatic reactions: a type of touch, a certain sexual activity, an object, feeling a particular way toward a partner. “I have always panicked when hugged from behind,” a survivor said. The reaction of another survivor was triggered by a common word.
I cringe and feel afraid when I hear the word love. My mom frequently spoke of what a loving person she was and how much she loved me. “Love” became the reason she could do anything she wanted to me and why I could not object.
Other triggers may lie dormant for years, then surface unexpectedly. A woman who had been molested by her cousin and later raped by a stranger said:
I was having intercourse with my partner, and we decided to change positions. In the process he accidentally struck my jaw with his elbow. I cried out and became hysterical. I found myself in the corner, wrapped in the blanket. I was terrified. So was he.
Another survivor also discovered a trigger by surprise:
My husband and I were having sex for the first time in our new house. I was focusing on the overhead lamp and realized it was just like the ceiling lamp in my bedroom as a little girl. Suddenly my husband became confused with my father. I became like a child, fighting back and weeping.
Sometimes survivors can easily see how a trigger connects to the abuse. “I have flashbacks whenever my arms or legs are restricted in any way,” a survivor said. “My abuser used to lie on my legs in such a way I couldn’t move them.” For this survivor the restricted body position was a trigger.
Other times, the connection is less clear. Survivors may know only that something bothers and upsets them. Memory loss, a frequent repercussion of abuse, can keep survivors from understanding the reasons behind their reactions. Until he remembers past abuse in which he was encouraged to look at pictures of nude women, a survivor may not understand why he can’t stop staring at women’s breasts in public.
Some triggers may be difficult to identify because they are related to a highly specific aspect of a sexual experience. Josie, a married survivor, became distressed when she experienced the initial feelings of sexual arousal and excitement. But once past this stage actual intercourse and orgasm were very pleasurable. When Josie was a child her grandfather had fondled her breasts and genitals, but there was no penetration or orgasm. In contrast, Becky, a survivor of a brutal rape, was comfortable with affectionate touching and initial sexual arousal, but intercourse and orgasm triggered pain and fear.
Some triggers may be hard to identify because they at first appear to have nothing to do with sex, touch, or intimacy.
I grew up with a strong revulsion about white handkerchiefs. I hated being around them. When I’d see adults use them, I became sick to my stomach. Handkerchiefs had a sexual connotation to me, and I didn’t realize why. Recently I remembered my father having orgasms on top of me when I was a little girl. He’d use a handkerchief to clean up afterward.
Sandy, a survivor of molestation by her grandfather, made a similar discovery. For as long as she could recall, Sandy became hysterical when she saw mushrooms. Friends told her that her fear came from worrying she would eat a poisonous one, and they teased her for being unnecessarily afraid. In counseling, Sandy discovered that her reaction to mushrooms evolved because she associated them with the look and feel of the tip of her grandfather’s penis. Lacking any language for the penis as a little girl, she had associated penises with an object she did know, a mushroom.
Since triggers can be almost anything, it’s important to take seriously the reactions you have. Your reactions can clue you into particulars about your abuse and can facilitate your recovery. When you have a reaction you don’t understand, you might ask yourself, What might have triggered my reaction just now?
It is possible to take an even more assertive approach to identifying your triggers. This approach, while often highly informative, can sometimes be unpleasant. Increasing your awareness of possible triggers will require you to think back on the abuse, in detail. You may not want to recall the subtleties of the experience. But if you try thinking back on the abuse, even if in little bits at first, you may find it helps you get a handle on what causes your automatic reactions.
Identifying triggers gives you power. Triggers lose their secrecy and mysteriousness once you understand them. Gaining this new awareness can be like learning how special effects work in horror films or finding out how a magician performs a trick. Once the mystery is explained, you may still react, but you will no longer be surprised or horrified by it. And you may find you can now put words to experiences that may have mystified you before.
The exercise Discovering Your Triggers can help you through this process. If you decide to skip it for now continue reading on page 154.
DISCOVERING YOUR TRIGGERS
This exercise is designed to gently guide you through a process of thinking back on the abuse. It helps you to slowly think through different aspects of the experience and find out what associations with touch and sex you might have made during the abuse.
As with all the exercises and techniques in this book, this is optional. You may be more comfortable doing this at another time or with a counselor. Or you might want to proceed, but give yourself permission to stop at any time.
Thinking back on the abuse can be difficult if you have little or no memory of it. Do as much remembering as you can with what you know or what you sense happened. If you have little or no memory of the abuse, give yourself permission to skip questions and guess at answers to questions you are unsure about. Be aware that your present feelings and reactions may get stirred up by this process.
Let’s look at the factors that existed at the time you were sexually abused. If you were abused more than once, focus on your initial abuse experiences or experiences you think were most traumatic to you. Then repeat the exercise again later with other experiences.
Answering the questions below will give you clues to your present triggers.
What you were like at the time of the abuse
You may be sensitive to people and images that remind you of what you were like when you were sexually abused.
How old were you? ___________________________________
How much did you weigh? ___________________________________
How tall were you? ___________________________________
What did you look like? How did you dress? ___________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
How did you feel about yourself before the abuse began (insecure, successful, ignorant, innocent, and so on)?
Where you were at the time of the abuse
You may be sensitive to being in settings that remind you of the environment in which the abuse occurred.
What was the time of day? ______________________________________
What was the season of the year? _______________________________
Were there any specific circumstances surrounding the abuse (holiday
or special event)? ____________________________________________
What were the weather and temperature? ________________________
Describe where you were and what you were doing. _______________
______________________________________________________________________
What objects were there? ______________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
What were the background noises, smells, and sights? ______________
______________________________________________________________________
Were you under the influence of any substances or unusual conditions
(alcohol, drugs, illness, pornographic materials, and so on)? _________
______________________________________________________________________
What the offender was like at the time of the abuse
You may be sensitive to people, places, and things that remind you of the offender.
What did the offender look like? ________________________________
How did the offender move? ___________________________________
What habits did the offender have (smoking, drinking, hobbies, interests)?
______________________________________________________________________
What outstanding characteristics did the offender have (gestures, voice, posture, unusual body features, smells, sounds)? ____________________
______________________________________________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
What type of person would you describe the offender as? ____________
______________________________________________________________________
What your relationship with the offender was like at the time of the abuse
You may be sensitive to dynamics in a present relationship that are similar to the interpersonal dynamics that existed in your relationship with the offender.
How did you know the offender before the abuse (stranger, relative, acquaintance)? _______________________________________________
How did you originally feel about the offender (friendly, afraid, respectful, creepy, and so on)? __________________________________
______________________________________________________________________
What did you most want and need from the offender (affection, respect, acceptance, love, and so on)? ___________________________
______________________________________________________________________
What were the main emotions the offender expressed in the abuse (anger, excitement, fear, “love,” a lack of any emotion, and so on)?
______________________________________________________________________
How did the offender relate to you (violent, pleading, dominating, flirtatious, manipulating, and so on)? ____________________________
______________________________________________________________________
What kinds of things did the offender say to you? _________________
______________________________________________________________________
How did you feel about yourself in relation to the offender during the abuse (chosen, betrayed, abandoned, scared, loved, and so on)? _____
______________________________________________________________________
What touch and sexual experiences you had during the abuse
You may be sensitive to touch, activity, and sensation similar to what you experienced in the abuse.
What types of touching did you experience in the abuse (grabbing, hitting, pinching, soothing, stroking, rubbing, and so on)? ___________
What parts of your body were touched the most? ___________
What did the touching feel like (pleasurable, painful, ticklish)? _____
What sexual sounds, smells, tastes did you experience? __________
What sexual positions were involved? ___________
What sexual acts occurred? ___________
What injuries did you sustain? ___________
What sensations or lack of sensations did you experience in the sexual parts of your body (breasts, mouth, genitals, anus)? ___________
What sexual responses occurred (excitement, orgasm)? ___________
What was happening inside your body at the time of the abuse
You may be sensitive to physiological sensations in your body similar to the ones experienced during the abuse.
How did you feel physically in general (paralyzed, weak, not there, out of control, like fleeing, like fighting, excited, overwhelmed, powerful, hot, cold, sleepy, and so on)? ___________
What specific physiological experiences did you have (fainting, vomiting, numbing, rapid heartbeat, bleeding, gagging, spitting, crying, sweating, shaking, and so on)? ___________
What your emotional feelings were at the time of the abuse
You may be sensitive to emotions that are similar to ones you experienced during the abuse.
What emotional feelings did you experience right before the abuse began (fear, sadness, confusion, shame, anger, disgust, terror, embarrass-ment, shock, humiliation, and so on)? ___________
What emotional feelings did you experience during the abuse? ________
What emotional feelings did you experience immediately after theabuse? ___________
Other outstanding sensations, feelings, or thoughts you experienced at the time of the abuse
______________________
______________________
Any of the items you identified in this exercise have the potential to trigger automatic reactions. Because abuse is so traumatic, you may have unconsciously linked many items together or fused them in your memory. Now, as you begin to identify these triggers, you may find that one memory triggers another, just as one explosion can set off others in a minefield. But as you begin to defuse each one, you can learn to assume more control over how you react.
AVOIDING AND DEFUSING TRIGGERS
Once you have identified possible triggers, review them and think about when they tend to arise. You’ll probably notice that many triggers, such as heavy breathing and genitals, are natural parts of intimacy, sex, and even nonsexual life. These natural triggers can’t be easily avoided without inhibiting your sexual enjoyment. You can avoid or minimize other triggers, however, such as those dealing with your environment, or words used in lovemaking. Reducing the number of triggers you have to contend with makes your sexual healing easier. You can focus more of your energy on learning to handle the triggers that naturally occur.
Jackie, a twenty-two-year-old survivor of incest by her older brother, had sexual difficulty with her fiancé. She froze and dissociated when he would approach her intimately. As a young girl, Jackie had been abused at night in her bedroom. After looking at her past abuse and identifying triggers, Jackie realized that her present apartment was furnished with the same furniture she had when she was abused—the same little lamp by her bed, the same drapes, the same pillows, even the same bedspread. Over the next several months Jackie changed the decor and furnishings in her room. This simple change helped. “I realized it was time to grow up,” she said. “I feel a lot older and more comfortable when I’m in the room with my boyfriend now.”
Another survivor, Josie, reviewed the abuse she had experienced by her grandfather. She realized that many of her husband’s physical characteristics reminded her of her grandpa: her husband’s hair was gray, he slurped his soup the same way, he had a similar body odor. Together Josie and her husband defused these triggers. He didn’t change his hair color, but he did learn a new way to eat soup and began wearing a new cologne that Josie picked out.
Many survivors who feel drawn to potentially damaging sexual behaviors find they can minimize their urges and desires by avoiding stimulants that have provoked uncontrolled sexual responses. If watching pornography, drinking alcohol, or using other drugs encourages you to act out sexually, avoid them. If violence charges you up sexually, avoid movies, stories, and shows that associate violence and sex. Avoiding these stimulants is often easier said than done. Some survivors may fear that they will lose their ability to become aroused if they give up a particular trigger, even if it creates problems for them in the long run. Many survivors find they need special help to overcome their fears. Counseling, therapy groups, twelve-step programs such as Alcoholics Anonymous or Sex Addicts Anonymous, and sexual dependency treatment programs can be essential in avoiding and defusing triggers associated with compulsive sex (see the Resources section).
GUIDELINES FOR HANDLING AUTOMATIC REACTIONS: A FOUR-STEP APPROACH
Automatic reactions can happen very quickly and take you by surprise. The key to coping with them is to bring them into your conscious awareness. You might say to yourself, “I’m having an automatic reaction.” You can stop to acknowledge your reactions even when you are unsure what triggered them. Once you become consciously aware of your reactions, you can take time out to calm yourself and determine what may have caused them to occur. Then you can choose new ways of responding to the situation.
Robin, a forty-three-year-old single survivor, told of her success in changing an automatic reaction that had gone on for years:
I went to visit my married sister and her family for a week in the summer. One day I entered the bathroom and saw my brother-in-law’s swimsuit turned inside out to dry over the towel rack. Immediately, I felt scared, felt like I was a voyeur, and started to condemn myself as bad and sexually sick-minded.
Before I got too far in that line of thinking I just stood there for a moment and relaxed myself. I thought, why am I reacting like this? I knew the suit somehow reminded me of my father’s clothes. I thought about how this was my brother-in-law’s swimsuit and how it made sense that he would turn it inside out and dry it in the bathroom. Then I examined the suit more closely. There really wasn’t anything inherently disgusting or sexually suggestive about it. It felt so good to realize I have choices in how I react.
Robin was able to relax and stop her usual reaction, which would have been to feel fear, arousal, and self-loathing.
Robin followed a four-step process in responding to the swimsuit triggers. It is a process all survivors can use in present situations related to touch and sex. Here are the steps:
1. STOP and become aware.
2. CALM yourself.
3. AFFIRM your present reality.
4. CHOOSE a new response.
1. Stop and become aware
As soon as you find yourself reacting in a sudden, upsetting, irrational way that feels out of your control, stop. Acknowledge what’s happening. Assume that you have hit a trigger and are reacting to past sexual abuse. Try to determine what triggered your reaction. Take this trigger seriously, even though it might seem silly or inconsequential. See if you can make a connection between the trigger and something that you experienced in the abuse.
2. Calm yourself
Tune in to your body. Are you feeling fearful or close to panic? Are you inappropriately sexually aroused? You may be responding with extreme physiological responses that go beyond the realities of the present situation. Calm yourself. Tell yourself some reassuring things such as, “I’m safe, no one can hurt me now.” If your heartbeat is going wild, focus on slowing it down. Sit down. Sit up straight. Sometimes placing your right hand over your heart and applying gentle, slow massage can help. If you have stopped breathing or are breathing rapidly, concentrate on taking some slow, deep breaths. If you have tensed your muscles, relax them. By modifying your physiological responses, you modify your automatic reactions. You can’t continue to feel anxious when your body is relaxed.
3. Affirm your present reality
Remind yourself that what you are doing and experiencing now is different from what happened to you during the abuse. Look around. Touch things. See where you are and who you are with. Look at yourself. Remind yourself who you are and how old you are. Affirm your rights. You have a right to positive, healthy sexuality. Remind yourself of the difference between sex and sexual abuse. Reaffirm that you have a true sexual self, separate from the influences of sexual abuse. Realize that your body belongs to you, that you can exercise choice and control in terms of what touch and sexual activity you engage in. A survivor said, “When I have a flashback, I remind myself that I lived through sexual abuse once and it was real then. It’s not real now and can’t hurt me.” Another survivor said, “I recognize my reaction for what it is and tell myself, The abuse was then, this is now. Now is better.”
4. Choose a new response
Once you’ve stopped and realized what’s happening, calmed yourself, and affirmed your present reality, you have several options. You can remove yourself from the trigger. You can alter the trigger in some way so that it doesn’t bother you as much. You can approach the trigger slowly so that it does not startle you. And you can accept the trigger and experience your automatic reaction, paying close attention to your thoughts and feelings in order to understand more about the abuse.
Removing yourself from the trigger. In Robin’s case, she could have removed herself by leaving the bathroom where the bathing suit hung. When touch or sexual behavior upsets you, you can stop. Breaking contact with the trigger brings relief. A survivor who was plagued with fantasies and flashbacks during masturbation said, “When they happen, I stop what I am doing, go make some tea, sit up in bed with my teddy bear, and wait out the night.” She could also call a friend if she were in an incest survivors’ support group to disarm the trigger by talking about it.
Altering the trigger. You can choose to interact with the trigger in some way to change it. Robin did this when she examined the bathing suit more closely. The goal is to control and change your inner experience rather than avoiding the object or behavior that triggers your reaction. If an overhead light is a trigger, you might take a break from what you are doing to decorate it in some way you like. You might also choose to remove or replace it. If an automatic reaction is triggered during a hug, you might stop and practice hugging in different ways. If seeing a picture of a nude woman in a magazine triggers a desire to compulsively engage in sex, you might make paper clothes to tape over the woman’s picture, or draw in some clothing.
Janet, a survivor of incest by her father, felt scared and sick when her partner said the words I love you to her for the first time. When Janet thought of saying these words to her partner, she imagined she would be saying, “Go ahead and beat me up!” Hearing them from her partner, it was as if her partner was saying, “Now I can do anything I want to you.” Janet altered this trigger by asking her partner to change the phrase I love you to Will you be my valentine? With this change, Janet was able to exchange words of affection with her partner.
Some survivors, plagued with intrusive, abusive sexual fantasies, find that it helps to alter the content of the fantasy as it is occurring. Let’s say a survivor fantasizes about a woman being tied up and raped by a man. The survivor might alter the fantasy so that the woman and man are good friends and lovers, playacting and being silly. The rope is a big spaghetti noodle, and the couple giggles through the whole experience. Changing the fantasy in this way starts to bend the unconscious thinking away from abuse and toward healthy sexual expression. If you can find humor, it’s a great healer. Even if you can make only one small change in the direction of healthy sexuality in the fantasy, it is an important step: It will help you disarm the trigger.
Changing a sexual fantasy in small steps enables a survivor to hold on to the erotic power of the fantasy. Tory was troubled by sexual fantasies of an older man seducing a little girl. While she disliked the power imbalance and exploitation of her original fantasy, she did like the excitement found in the elements of innocence and curiosity it contained. Over time she revised the fantasy. She made the man younger and the female older so that they were both consenting adults, and she highlighted elements of sexual wonderment and teasing, which kept the fantasy arousing.
Realizing we have the power to revise and re-create our fantasies to suit our individual needs is empowering. As one survivor said, “Before, I used to feel like I had to surrender to my fantasies. Now I can go to fantasy and make it what I want it to be.”*
Altering the trigger slowly can be especially helpful for survivors who experience fear and panic reactions. Have you ever noticed how a child overcomes his initial fear of a toy that at first frightens him? When my son, Jules, was a toddler, we got him a monkey doll that clapped its hands together, repeatedly clanging two cymbals as it jumped about. At first Jules hid from it, watching it carefully. Then he got a little closer and threw other toys at it to watch its response. Later he nudged it with a stick. And finally he kicked it about, picked it up, and pulled its arms apart. No longer afraid, he then set it down and laughed as it continued to jump around. Jules had discovered that he could overcome his initial reaction by interacting with the monkey—poking it, touching it, stopping it, permitting it to continue. He overcame his fear by experiencing his power in relation to it. Through his own actions he developed a new response to the trigger of the monkey doll.
A survivor told how she handled her reactions by altering the flashbacks that triggered them:
When I have a flashback, I imagine that my experience is a video playing on the television. I use the control knobs on the TV to click the flashback on and off, depending on how ready I feel to handle it.
Approaching the trigger slowly. Survivors can learn to slowly approach some triggers, such as objects, places, or body parts. They can practice techniques such as slow breathing and muscle relaxation, so that they remain calm as they approach a trigger in small steps. For example, a survivor who becomes overwhelmingly sexually excited whenever he sees a woman’s bra might practice standing at different distances from a bra. Perhaps when he is fifty feet away from a bra he is not sexually overwhelmed. From that distance, he can slowly move closer to the bra, stopping when necessary to maintain relaxation and calm. It may take practice on a number of separate occasions for him to begin feeling comfortable when he is close to a bra.
Accepting the trigger and experiencing your automatic reactions. Automatic reactions don’t last forever. You can choose to experience and ride them through. This approach can be particularly helpful for survivors with compulsive sexual behaviors. Like pockets of hot, humid air floating in the wind on a cool summer’s eve, uncomfortable sexual feelings last a while and then move along. You can learn to experience them without becoming upset at yourself and without acting in a destructive sexual way before they have a chance to pass.
You may choose to explore some automatic reactions which relate to withdrawing from sex, such as flashbacks and panic reactions, in a safe and supportive setting. Since these reactions can be quite disturbing, it’s best to have the guidance of a skilled therapist or the support of an understanding partner. In chapter 9 partners will learn how they can assume a supportive role in this kind of active healing work.
Experiencing your automatic reactions can help you process feelings from the abuse, releasing emotions that may have been locked up for years, such as a survivor described:
Sometimes when I’m having a flashback, I go into it, reexperience the feelings from the abuse, and scream and cry. Other times I choose not to go into them. I ask my partner to do specific things such as hold me, remind me to breathe, change positions, sit up and move around with me. I am safe with my partner. The more I reexperience flashbacks to the abuse, the less intense they get. It helps me understand that the past can’t hurt me anymore.
Another survivor said:
When I have a flashback my partner and I stop and let the flashback continue. He holds me and later talks to me to bring me back to the present. For some reason I’m very accepting of these flashbacks. They feel like a release and remind me that I didn’t make it all up.
Similarly, when experiencing an intrusive, abusive fantasy, a survivor can choose to look closer at the fantasy, watching what is going on in it. Sexual fantasies are like dreams and nightmares. They can symbolically represent unconscious psychological conflict. By analyzing interpersonal dynamics and identifying symbolism and imagery, survivors can get clues as to how the abuse affected them on a subconscious level.
When David, a survivor of father-son incest, made love with his girlfriend, he would sometimes find himself fantasizing that his girlfriend was shouting at him, calling him a prick. This fantasy became so upsetting that one evening David stopped in the middle of making love and told his girlfriend what was happening. She listened attentively. In talking with his girlfriend about his reaction, David realized that he had imbued his girlfriend with all the anger he felt toward his father, but had never been able to express. David then imagined himself, as a boy, shouting at his father, and he began crying aloud: “You prick, you bastard, you prick! How dare you do this to me!” From that evening on, David was no longer traumatized by the intrusive fantasies, and they eventually disappeared. By voicing his inner outrage, David disarmed the fantasy of its emotional power and made it psychologically unnecessary.
While it may be scary to think of riding an automatic reaction through, survivors often describe a feeling of accomplishment at the end. “I did it!” a survivor said. “I got through it, without slipping into any of my old behaviors. I know that it will be easier to handle if I ever have this reaction again.”
OTHER TECHNIQUES FOR HANDLING AUTOMATIC REACTIONS
Besides techniques for handling automatic reactions that survivors can do on their own, several others can be done in a therapeutic setting with the help of a therapist or intimate partner.
Adopting out the reaction
One such technique that I invented is called adopting out the reaction. In this approach a survivor describes a particular sequence of automatic reactions in minute detail to another person. You ask the other person to try to experience your reaction as you experience it. Obviously, the other person has to be someone who is psychologically strong and comfortable with this exercise. Sometimes, I encourage clients to do this with me. Here is an example of a female survivor’s using this technique in a therapy session. Her automatic reaction was panic when her husband grabbed her around the waist and gave her a hug. I played her role as she described the automatic reaction.
ME: Where am I?
SURVIVOR: You are standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window, washing dishes.
ME (I stand and move to a window.): I am standing at the kitchen sink, looking out the window, washing dishes. Then what do I experience?
SURVIVOR: You hear footsteps behind you, and you know they are my husband, Fred’s. Suddenly you feel his breath on your neck and his arms fold around your waist.
ME: Okay, I feel my husband, Fred’s, breath on my neck and arms fold around my waist. Now what happens? What emotions do I feel? What’s happening in my body? What am I thinking?
SURVIVOR: Fred squeezes you closer and says he loves you. You feel scared, but more than that a little angry that he surprised you, then you feel guilty for being so sensitive to his affections. Your body tightens, you lose your breath and suddenly feel hot and sweaty.
ME: Fred squeezes me close and tells me he loves me. Now I’m feeling scared, but I’m angry, too. Now I feel guilty for being so sensitive to his affections. My body tightens. Where do I feel it tighten in me the most?
SURVIVOR: Your chest and stomach tighten, like a knot.
ME: Okay. My chest and stomach are getting tighter, I can’t breathe very well. I’m feeling hot and sweaty. Boy, this is uncomfortable. Then what?
This dialogue can be continued until the automatic reaction has ended. Survivors often feel relieved to share their reactions; the therapist, or partner, gains valuable insight into the details of the survivor’s experience. Later the survivor and therapist or partner might brainstorm and practice different options the survivor could employ for handling the automatic reaction as it is occurring. For example, the survivor might practice stopping and talking with her husband, Fred, about how she feels when he approaches her that way, and how she would like him to approach her differently in the future.
Adopting out the automatic reaction allows the survivor to see his or her own reaction from a more distanced, psychological perspective. It validates the importance of the reaction. The survivor is no longer the sole person who has to experience the symptom. No longer do we have to be alone with our experience, like we were in the abuse: We share the burden of the reaction. The power and hold of the reaction are reduced.
Imagery rehearsal
Some survivors benefit from the therapeutic technique of imagery rehearsal. A survivor spends time in counseling generating a list of many possible touch and sex activities. Then he or she arranges the list in a hierarchical order with the least disturbing item at the top and the most disturbing at the bottom. Using slow, controlled breathing to remain relaxed, the survivor imagines progressively one of the listed situations at a time. When triggers are encountered, the survivor imagines successfully coping with the automatic reaction, for instance, by using the four-step approach described earlier. The imagining enables a survivor to rehearse and practice coping methods, gaining skills that enable him or her to comfortably experience the activities in real life.
Survivors can handle specific automatic reactions in an infinite number of ways. Give yourself permission to experiment with the different approaches mentioned in this book and to invent some approaches of your own. Aim for approaches that strengthen your self-esteem and help you take a step toward positive, healthy sexual experiences.
When we learn to handle our automatic reactions, we gain skills that enable us to move away from troublesome sexual behavior and eventually to create new, life-affirming sexual experiences.