I've thought about my sexual molestation as a 12 year old a lot more since reaching middle age. I don't know why. When I was a missionary and also when I was a young married adult I effectively banished the abuse from my conscious thoughts.

Probably not the most effective way to deal.

But upon reaching my 40s I've thought a lot about it. Sexually, it is a part of me. It isn't a part of my sexuality that I cherish for obvious reasons. But it is there and no I've not become a perpetrator as a result. I'm not attracted to children. Actually I probably shouldn't have become a parent.

It is a demon I'm attempting to understand not tame. I have never understood the perpetrator side of this dark corner. Consanguinity to a perpetrator hasn't made me one either.

So why is this shadow so many decades old so haunting to me and stronger in middle age than in my youth? I'm trying to find this out. Thinking about it I think I've found some corollaries to giving it the strength it has in me and how it probably will be a part of me till I die.

I think 3 principle factors came together in my abuse that really set it deep into my psyche and I blame Mormonism for strengthening these factors to the degree of power they have.

The best I can describe these is this way.

A culture (Mormon created) of sexual repression

A family of no support (for one's sexuality or otherwise) and all about outward appearances

A naive and trusting society of peers and adults

I think people like me who have been sexually abused as children in conditions of life where sex is a forbidden subject, family is not really more than a group of related people, and these people live among a group of people conditioned by their culture to see membership in their church as proof of their goodness have a perfect storm of conditions to put their sexual headspace in a hard place to help.

I do have my suspicions in the Mormons I've interacted with for years that their sexuality has suffered like mine even without sexual abuse. It makes me wonder if Mormonism isn't flat out breeding ground for problems?

I definitely agree. The silence is torture as a survivor. What is even more torturous however is when you choose not to be a victim and then you are faced with a choice; tell and keep telling, or give up on yourself. To me it was worth the telling.. I didn't care who I hurt in the process. Classic anger.

Now as a middle aged adult myself though I agree it does come into my thought process more than I would certainly like - but I earned these stripes! I am no longer silent and no longer relying on the protection of anyone but me. This gives me a power! Embrace the fact that I survived and I know where the blame lies. I don't believe the need to "forgive" every wrong. Just as he didn't believe in asking for it.

cmgone Wrote:
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> Just as he didn't
> believe in asking for it.

I'm weeping.

He asked for so much but never for forgiveness with me or any of the others that I know of.

So many children just want love and are abused. Someone to really care about them as a person not an object of desire. I wonder if sexual predators upon children (non-violent but using this desire to be loved) think that they are providing a service for what they take?

When I hear LDS Inc. representatives preaching unconditional love I go a little crazy.

This church didn't get where they are financially today by not knowing how to protect themselves and their number one resource which certainly isn't a child. Children are dispensable and the easiest way to demonstrate that is to remove all of their power.

Unconditional love is a term that means something different to those of us that have experienced the negative love we know too well. To those of us with the inherent ability to identify internally firstly who is capable of hurting us, the term must be redefined in our wiring. The only way to do this I have found is to understand that buzz words are just words, while I hate them because of what I believe they mean, to the lucky they are positive.

I've learned that often, when a child reaches the age close to when the parent was abused, he or she begins to trigger. Do you think maybe this is part of it?

They reached the same age as I was. Coincidental? I think you might be onto something. In seeing them struggle to become adults and with their own sexuality I think this is a big part of it.

I've read experiences of parents not dwelling on their abuse, then *bam* when the child reaches 5 for example, PTSD and all the lovely symptoms start hitting really hard. Because PTSD and abuse affect people differently, it's not easy to see it when you're in the middle of the triggering.

If you never received the support to deal with the trauma, it's not wonder it's eating at you. It's also something that stays with you the rest of your life. You be be perfectly fine for years, you're triggered, and you suddenly feel broken all over.

That is a very accurate description of what I've been dealing with in the last few years.

I got good at blocking. I was taught to by the best - my mother. She has admitted to me that her own father sexually molested her sister. I think he probably abused her as well but she hasn't admitted to it.

She recounted a story where her sister was favored over her and something their mother made for my mother was given to her sister and I think it dealt with the sexual abuse.

My mother is all about blocking the bad in yourself and your family. I think this is why this talk hit me so hard.

https://www.lds.org/general-conference/2008/04/to-heal-the-shattering-consequences-of-abuse?lang=eng



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/02/2015 05:49PM by Elder Berry.

It's not healthy at all and she really doesn't think there's anything wrong with her. The fact that 4 out of her 6 children have been institutionalized, her 3 daughters all attempted suicide multiple times, and another son was/is a sadistic abuser doesn't seem to weigh on her at all.

My sister, who's a counselor, recommends LENS therapy for this kind of trauma and has experienced improvement from it. It's worth looking into.

It's good you recognize now what's going on. Better late than never.

Thank you Itzpapalotl. I will look into LENS therapy.

I went to group therapy for three years to help deal with being sexually abused as a kid. Best thing I ever did. The group leader mentioned (in the twenty years of helping men,) the average age was 50 when they started the group. I was 49.

Things first started to bubble up for me around age 38, the age of my abuser. That's when I really understood how bad his crime was against me. But it took another ten or so years to finally go and get some direct help... Even AFTER confronting my abuser!

The issues are as deep as tree roots and it takes a long time to face them, understand them and try to fix them.

If you have any questions, just ask. I normally just lurk these days

Ed/Ether

This is something that might help:

http://kspope.com/therapistas/amnesia1.php

That article looks very interesting...

I suffered the same as Elder Berry at about the same age - member - family friend.

My parents couldn't have been more eager for it to go away. Once they were aware, I was asked: "Do you need some help or something?"

I was 13 yrs old, my brain screamed YES but my tough guy persona just said: NO, I am fine.

That was that. Left to my own bearings in puberty - the hard line church stance of guilt and shame from church and nothing from my parents.

I alone had to figure all this stuff out and still am.

I am surprised I am as healthy as I am now, but still carry the scars. Even outside of TSCC, it's not something people want to hear about and I preemptively oblige them by not bothering to bring it up.

The "Everything/Everyone is Awesome" pervasive TBM culture does create a protective shield to predators (IMO). The pedo's and sociopaths navigate this environment extremely well because EVERYONE is acting just like they are. Bad acting only stands out against genuine sincerity.

The upside of the abuse is I became a skeptic at a young age. I quit trusting the words and motivations of authority figures and started examining "the presented truth" cautiously and critically. Just like a Antelope who has a near miss with a Lion at a young age - as an adult - he watches for Lions all the time.

Anon 4 this one Wrote:
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> The upside of the abuse is I became a skeptic at a
> young age. I quit trusting the words and
> motivations of authority figures and started
> examining "the presented truth" cautiously and
> critically. Just like a Antelope who has a near
> miss with a Lion at a young age - as an adult - he
> watches for Lions all the time.

This is one of the best descriptions I have read. Literally, one. of. the. best.

I've come to think (possible erroneously) that I am the only one of 10 kids who was abused. I am the only ExMormon. I am one of few who see through my (some only see some) parent's ruse of a perfect family (or even a family.) Most of my siblings put up with my parents and some have become like them - hardened in their Mormonism enough to confuse Mormonism's fantasy of family with a sincere group of people loving each other as unconditionally as they possibly can.