- Today, I want to talk to you about how to heal sexually
from past sex abuse or incest.
(tinkling piano keys)
As always, I'mma use my favorite book,
The Courage to Heal Workbook.
Now this is written by Laura Davis, and it's amazing.
She also has the The Courage to Heal, just the regular book,
but this is the workbook and this is what I find
to be most helpful in session with my clients
to give them some tools and some journal topics
and things like that to go on.
The topic that I'm going to talk about today is something
I get a lot of questions about.
And that is, I have a partner
and I want to be sexually active,
I want to have intimacy with this person,
but because of my incest or my sexual abuse in my past,
I find that to be impossible.
And it's really difficult for many of us to do this
to have loving sex, in a loving sexual relationship with
someone when we've had that in our past.
Because we are triggered,
it can cause us to have flashbacks.
We can have like a PTSD like type response,
we can have a panic attack and we have to stop.
Often times, in the middle of lovemaking,
we'll have to say, "Get off me! Get off me!"
We might even have a complete emotional breakdown,
where we like freak out and get off of us,
and we feel, the thing I love about this book is
that Laura gives her experience and she talks about
how often times she thought it was her fault,
and she would feel really broken
and like it's all the baggage that I have
and all the stuff that I carry around makes it my fault.
And finding a sexual partner, that's patient,
that understands, that you can be open with,
not only physically, but also emotionally,
and talk to them about the process.
She talks about how important that is
to the healing process of this, because it's gonna be hard.
We're gonna to take two steps forward
and we're gonna slide back a little and every time we try,
it might not be, you know,
the perfect lovemaking experience,
but we're getting that much better at it.
And having a partner that's understanding and
responsive is really key.
And I think, I wanna read a little excerpt from this,
because she says this and it's such an important point
for all of us who've struggled with this to hear
and take in, so I want you to really try and listen to this.
She says, "Overcoming shame and accepting myself was
"at the core of my sexual healing.
"I had come to the realization that every one of the
"sexual problems I was experiencing
"had a certain inner logic.
"Each one was directly connected to something that had
"happened to me as a child.
"The problems I had with sex had been forced on me,
"as surely as the incest.
"They were not my fault."
And I think that's really important.
Often times we are made to feel like this struggle,
and the fact that we may have to stop and start
and stop and start is all our fault.
But I assure you, it is not.
Okay?
I want you all to hear that.
And now, the things that she talks about after this,
and the kind of the work that we're going to do today
is figuring out why we want to work through this.
Why do we want to heal?
Why do we want to have a loving sexual relationship?
And so, often times,
because our past is the incest
or the sex abuse that sex was on someone else's agenda.
It was put at their time and their pace and whenever
they wanted it, and we had no say.
This is a time when we get to have a say.
This is our life.
This is what we get to decide,
when, where, who, how, et cetera.
And the first things within this workbook that
she asks you to do is completing the following sentences.
I want to work on my sexuality right now because?
And she gives some prompts,
I'm ready,
Jackie will leave me if I don't,
and you can insert whoever's name into that,
I want my body back, I don't want my abuser in my bed,
or my marriage is at stake.
And she says, go back and circle any reasons that
indicate your own internal readiness.
So you can make a list, those are just prompts.
So start making a list.
I wanna work on my sexuality right now because.
Why do you wanna work on it now?
And then go back and circle the reasons
that indicate your own internal readiness because of you.
And then put a star next to those that are
based primarily on outside pressures.
Like someone will leave me if I don't.
I'm afraid they'll laugh at me again
or who knows what's happening.
Now the next prompt,
I don't want to work
on my sexuality right now because.
I'm not sure anything will change,
I'm afraid of having flashbacks,
I'm not ready.
Why would we not wanna work on it?
And then I want you to compare both sets of answers
and respond to these following questions.
Which sets of reasons is more compelling to me and why?
Do I feel pressured to heal sexually?
If so, by whom and why?
And does that pressure remind me of the abuse.
If so, how?
I think the important part,
and the reason I wanted to talk about this so much is
because often times we repeat the pattern.
We talk in therapy all the time about
recapitulation of past issues,
so something may have happened to us,
but we're reliving it again today.
And the thing that we don't recognize is
that we have a choice not to.
And as soon as we can recognize that
we don't have to have sex on someone else's agenda,
doesn't have to be at their time,
it doesn't have to be when they want it.
We are in that relationship too,
and we have every right to say you know what,
I'm just not ready today.
Today's a bad day, I had a really triggering day.
I'm feeling really down or whatever it is.
And the sooner we can learn to accept that part of ourselves
that what happened to us is not our fault,
the hurt and the pain and the scars from surviving it
is not our fault.
But how we go about healing ourselves from it,
is something we have control over
and we can be patient with ourselves.
We can take those two steps forward,
and maybe slide back a little,
but know we are on the path to recovery.
We're going to heal from this.
And so I would encourage if any of you are
having this struggle in your relationship,
you're worried that your marriage may be at stake
or your relationship may,
they may break up with you,
or whatever's happening,
if you're worried about that or you're just trying
to work through healing from past sexual abuse,
and you don't have a partner,
but it's something you're working on,
I still think these can be great tools
for you to take time to think about.
Why do you want to?
Why do you want to work on it?
Why don't you want to work on it?
And then, which set of reasons is more compelling?
Why?
So take time to think, because trust me, I know it's hard.
I know it's gonna take time,
but we can get through this.
We're working together, right?
We're working towards a healthy mind and a healthy body,
and I promise you, if you utilize this workbook,
it's an amazing workbook.
If you utilize this and at your own pace, work through it,
you will heal.
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And I will keep working with you,
putting one foot in front of the other,
towards a healthy mind and a healthy body.
Forward with our therapist,
and then we will have times that
we have a really shitty day
and we cry and we act out,
so know that will happen and that's normal.
And when we struggle so much,
and we've had such a trauma.