Learning to Allow Myself Affection
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Entry posted by masongator in Processing ·
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I understand that to some this concept can come across as pretentious or like a non-issue...so I ask that if you read this, you're willing to hear me out on why I don't view it as such in my case. It has been a painful road to navigate trying to understand my assault and why my assaulter chose to do it to me. I'll likely never know his reasoning. Unfortunately, in this situation, your brain can take it upon itself to start filling in the gaps before you even realize it. At least for me anyway. Needing to recontextualize what I know of my assault now and recognizing the attitudes people have had towards me have been incredibly hard to take in, and the process has affected my view of what it means to be loved.
I posted about this in a different thread, but I very recently resurfaced two new memories of being sexually harassed as a young child, and as a young teen. I'm going to focus on one here. The assault that happened when I was 8-9 I had mostly repressed until around a month ago, and one part of that memory was my teenage neighbor came to me to try and get help for me and to get the story out of me, which terrified me at the time. Initially, when I had remembered him doing that, I felt grateful that even though I couldn't do anything, someone was at least making an attempt to help me. Then these new memories came. This was not my peer; I would have been somewhere around 7-9, and he would've been close to 15-16, and a large teenager at that. He was so big he could pick me up and hold and carry me, and often did. He understood perfectly that I was vulnerable. I remember him talking about how smooth and soft my butt was, and how he wanted to grab and touch it. He knew me since I was an infant, he literally was introduced to me when I was born. And he felt comfortable making comments about wanting to grope my butt while I'm sitting innocently in my underwear, in front of my brother. Who sat there and allowed him to do all this, despite them being the same age, and never informing our parents. I can't remember if I was being groped or touched by him or not because this is not the only time he's done this; just the one I can remember any details of. I feel so confused and let down. To get into the relevance to the title; this has affected me so deeply because the people who I thought loved me, wanted to care for me, are once again the ones who took advantage of me as a minor, or were complacent with my assaulter and sexual harassers doing these things to me. It's hard to know how to love yourself after you've been treated like a toy by the people who supposedly care about you.
This is why I have to recognize that I am my only advocate, as much as hurts to know that. I have been learning over the years to work on my esteem and to be honest this has set me back. I have resolved to try to remember though, that I can love myself and it matters as much as the love of anyone else. I have been taking time to reflect on my body and showing it the love it deserves as a part of me, loving myself sexually and trusting myself. It's a long way away but I am learning to open myself up to caring for myself and having physical reminders that I need to have my own back, because nobody else is going to. Mentally I have been trying to be kinder to myself and giving myself a few little gifts and trying to remember that I deserve to respect myself. I just want to be able to share that love with someone I can trust someday. For now I'm intending to write down what I need to allow myself to feel cared about and lower the apprehension towards self-care. Finally I'm just trying to remember my abuse doesn't define the way I need to feel about myself, as hard as it will be to deprogram myself out of the mindset that tells me it does. Finally, if you have any advice for self-care and love, I'd be open to it. Thanks if you read all that.
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