If someone would have asked me a few months ago, I would have answered with certainty, that I have never been sexually abused in my childhood. I never even had the slightest idea. But as someone who has worked for over 10 years as a Conscious Sexuality Therapist, I did have all the symptoms. I just thought they they had come from other things I had to endure in my childhood. I always thought, that I have been so lucky, because I have done so many stupid things in life, but sexual abuse never happened. Well, guess again.
In the last years I started to dive deep into the trauma world, because I desperately needed to understand it. I realised that I can’t help people, my clients, if I don’t understand trauma in depth. All the big trauma therapists caught my attention, Gabor Mate, Peter Levine, Bessel Van Der Kolk, Tim Fletcer etc. And at one point I came to an understanding that our subconscious mind often hides our deepest traumas, so we could go on with our lives. But the experience actually truly never leaves us, because the body remembers. So we have all kinds of things off with our health, but we don’t realise what the reason is behind it.
I have been in the path of self-development already for more than 20 years and for the last 8 years I dove deep into the work with my subconscious mind, but that trauma never showed up. After hiding inside of me for almost 40 years, it was ready to come to surface. I have always had a kind of background anxiety and restlessness, no matter how much work I did on myself. I also had a strong need to control everyone and everything around me, which also clearly showed the amount of fear that lies inside of me.
I have been together with my husband for almost 5 years and married for 3. The last year had been a difficult one for us. Our daughter had just turned 2 years old and as for many couples, when our children are born, the years after, are not the easiest ones. On a beautiful summer saturday we decided to do together a certain couples therapy, to hopefully understand each other better. I had been in the process for some time already and I suddenly felt and enormous panic, total darkness and fear of dying come over me. But it was such a momentarily experience, that when I tried to look deeper into it, it just dissappeared. And a moment later I realised, that I had been sexually abused at the age of 3. I knew immediatley where and when that experience had taken place. I had been alone in the hospital for a month at that age. In the russian time, parents were not allowed to be in the hospital together with the kids. I had some glimpses of memories of that time. I remembered seeing my mother through a glass and everytime she came to see me, I couldn’t talk to her or touch her. And I was terrified when she left and didn’t take me with her. I never talked to my mom about that experience consciously, so I decided to call her and ask. She told me that it was true, she could only see me through a window outside the hospital and wave to me. I realised that every time after, she left and didn’t take me with her a massive fear rose over me. I started seeing many other things about what had happened there to me and who did it. My parents had, of course, no idea of what had happened to me.
The next moment all my life started to roll out in front of my eyes, it came all together as a puzzle. Why I had been a “difficult” child. Why I had problems with alcohol, drugs and why I was addicted to men and sex. All my relationships were highly toxic, abusive mentally, emotionally and physically. I realised why I can’t tolerate anger and accusations, because somewhere during the abuse, I had to tolerate that also, when I tried to say no. My subconscious told me, that later there had been more incidents like that and they were also hidden away.
Often when I tell someone something and they don’t listen to me, a deep anger arises from inside. So I realised during the therapy, that it is also there because of my trauma. During the abuse I had said no and no one listened to me. I also realised, that at some point I did try to tell someone, a grown up, but I was told that I was lying. So every time I tell someone something and they don’t believe me, that massive fear comes up again. I was dominating and controlling with men, because then I felt safe with them. A man in his true power and soveirignity was so unsafe for me. If I pushed a man down and made him dependent on me, I could feel safe. I can’t tolerate any authority over me and if someone tries to do it even a little, I leave. I like to be alone a lot, because I feel then safe and in peace. I can’t fall asleep in strange places for several nights, because my nervous system is on high alert. It also took me always about a month to be able to actually fall asleep in the same bed with a new partner. I scanned all possible outcomes of every situation in life and often just didn’t do many things, because I didn’t want to put myself into danger. I felt like I was keeping myself inside of a capsule, to be safe. Even writing blogs and posting content was hard for me, because I had a massive fear of being judged and people telling me that I am wrong. I hate going somewhere with somebody else’s car, I always have to drive and I have to be able to leave when I want. And god, how I hate hospitals, the smells, the rooms, the people. These were just a few things that were the results of that trauma.
But if I look on the other side of that trauma, I also realise how many gifts it brought me. It took me to a path of deep self-healing journey. It gave me a chance to dive into the depths of sexuality and it brought me to a new path in the end of last year. I now work with many women, who have the same trauma. And we have been able to bring out successfuly many similar hidden sexual abuse incidents.
Over the last 20 years, I had fully left behind alchohol, drugs and sex addiction. I can be in a relationship with just one man now and be happy. I don’t cheat anymore. I have no coffee or any other substance addiction and I am working on the parts of myself, that still carry the shadow side. While at the same time accepting myself with all my flaws and darkness. After recovering from this trauma last year, months later my life has gone through a massive change. It feels like I am coming back to being myself. That prison no longer holds me. I am able to relax more into life and let go of control. I used to wake up every morning with high anxiety for years and I had to scan my surroundings and remind myself, that I don’t need to be afraid anymore. I am safe.
Our mind hides those memories, but our bodies know. Often when I do therapy sessions with my clients now, they can’t remember the incident, but their body starts to tell a story. The anxiety or chronic fatigue for some people is there, because we are suppressing something so big. And the hardest moments are the quiet ones, because we know it can start surfacing, so we keep ourselves constantly busy.
Trauma breaks our nervous system. We can’t be in relaxed and repose states, but mainly flight or fight, fawn or freeze. Sacred and anxious all the time. And we have no energy to do the things in this life that we truly should. So we look for ways to calm ourselves down by building often unhealthy coping mechanisms. There are not many places and situations where we feel safe, after experiences like that. Gabor Mate, known psychologists and trauma therapist has said it really well: “Don’t ask why the addiction, ask why the pain?” It is so easy for us to judge others and much harder to take a moment and ask why.
I have no blames or regrets today. In the end, this experience brought me to the place where I am today. And I feel happy and content today. I also realised that pedofilia is like a virus, the ones who have been abused themselves, will also become often the abusers. And as men often become the sexual abusers, we women become the emotional abusers, because there is so much pain and fear and shame inside. Along the years when I worked as a conscious sexuality therapist, I had many times wondered, why I had so many clients, who have been sexually abused in the childhood. I always thought, that this is one trauma I don’t have. Actually they all came to me, because they resonated with me.
That experience had left a deep mark on me. It took away my wings and made me also hurt a lot of other people around me. I have done may things, I am not proud of. But in the end I know now, why I was, like I was. Today I can choose a new way of living and being. I can let go fo the guilt and shame and set myself free.
I have been wondering, how many others are there, that have a similar experience, but they never knew it. And every day they keep struggling with themselves. How many go into deep depression and become suicidal? How many develop anorexia or bulimia or a mental disease? How many have chronic fatigue and can’t understand why? How many give their life away to addictions? How many women have all kinds of diseases in the pelvic are and don’t understand why? A dutch psychologist Bessel Van Der Kolk says that in America it is registered, that every 5th woman is sexually abused as a child. In truth the number is much bigger, because most is unregistred. Many can’t even remember it. And it’s not just women, but men also.
Now, when months have passed from my discovery, I see many changes inside of me. I can manage my anger better. I can let go of control easier, or I notice it, when it starts to come up. I have a new lightness in me. I have a new direction and purpose in life. My relationship with my husband has changed for the better. I am not a victim of life, I have taken this experience and turned it into something, where I can also help others who went through a similar thing. A trauma like that, leaves a deep mark inside of everyone who goes through it. But as we enter into a complete new energies in the world, it is time to shed off layers of the past and it is time to heal all these traumas, so we can continue with our lives from a new place. From a place of knowing, that all what happened is in the past. We don’t have to re-live with that trauma every day anymore. I am free. Free to be more my authentic self with each passing day.
With Love,
Katrin
