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Guest
·Hi, I'm new here, but I'll share my story anyway. I just learned about depersonalization today, and am pleased to finally have a name for what I have lived. My story starts at the tender age of 6.
2 months after my sixth birthday, I was raped by a cousin in the basement of my Aunt's home on Thankgiving Day. After this event, I, of course, developed an extreme consciouness of my body. I did not want people looking at it, touching it, especially men - and this included my own father.
Now my father, being the type that he is, views resistance as direct defiance. My unwillingness to hug him or let him 'lovetap' me (light pat on the bottom) was, in his eyes, equivalent to disobeying him. My father needs to feel in control at all times, and always made sure we knew that he was the parent and we were the children and we HAD to listen to him. Therefore, my resistance caused him to hold me tighter, longer, and more often. This is when DP set in. Not from the rape, but from my father.
I did not want to be touched, but I was, far more often that I should have been. I did not want to be in my body anymore - did not want to have to feel this - so I began to leave it. When he would pull me onto his lap, I could feel my mind pulling away from my body, floating up to the ceiling. I would look down on us, watching us. He would demand hugs, kisses, and my empty shell would obey in silence, but it was okay because it wasn't me. I'm up here. That's just something that LOOKS like me. No different than if I had laid my photograph in his lap, then hid around the corner to see if he'd notice it wasn't me. After these episodes, once my father let me go, it would take my mind about an hour to reassimilate into my body.
I hit puberty at 8, and my body bloomed rather quickly. As the curves of a woman replaced the body of a child, my fathers need for affection grew more frequent...and more involved. My mind hovering above, I would watch him give me bear hugs, forcing my breasts firmly into his chest. When he kissed me, his hand was now behind my head so I couldn't pull back or turn my head away. The lovetaps were now outright gropes, and he bagan to insist on giving me backrubs that went too far down and too far in front. At this point, I feel that my overly affectionate father became my molestor. But it didn't matter because it STILL was not me.
Then when I was 12, I was raped for a second time. I was angry at myself for a long time after that, but not for the reason that victims usually are. I was pissed that my mind did not pull away for this - that I had to actually experience it. After this event, DP set in permanently. The remainder of my teens and into my 20's will be watched as though it were a live movie, playing in my head, 24/7.
At this point, my body became my nemisis. I began to blame it for everything. If it wasn't for that body, none of this would have happened. None of it. Here, I evolved yet again. From this point on, I will view my body in the third person. Someone that I am stuck with until death. Death, you say. That brings us to the next chapter.
In my teens, I became intensly, horribly self destructive. Anorexia, bulimia, self-mutilation, drugs, sex. None of it mattered, because again, it was not me. I have enormous keloids on my body now from the cuts I made then. Looking at them, you wonder how ANYONE could actually bear to do that to themself. I didn't feel a thing. I wasn't in the body when it happened. That how I was able starve so frequently, puke so violently, cut so deeply, and still carry on normally through my days. I was also suicidal, but not in the technical sense. I think it would more accurately be described as homicidal. A burning desire to murder the body that had so betrayed me. The compulsion to torture it. To make it pay. How dare it exist, and make me live through all of this.
I'm gonna jump ahead a few years. I am now 24. I don't remember exactly when the DP absolved itself. I just remember realizing almost 2 years ago that I am now actaully LIVING my life again, as opposed to watching it, and that I had been for some time. Probably the result of a hell of a lot of therapy. I do still have the problem of viewing my body in the 3rd person, though I don't know what this is called. I don't especially hate it anymore - and this a very new thing (the last month or so). But once again, I just kinda realized yesterday that I'm starting to unite with it again. I stubbed my toe on a chair, and my reaction was "Wow, that hurt!" Normally it would have been "Aww, poor baby," in reference to my body.
So sorry that I have no enlightening revelations at the end of my story. Thanks for letting me vent though. I feel great right now
Take care all!
Chantal
2 months after my sixth birthday, I was raped by a cousin in the basement of my Aunt's home on Thankgiving Day. After this event, I, of course, developed an extreme consciouness of my body. I did not want people looking at it, touching it, especially men - and this included my own father.
Now my father, being the type that he is, views resistance as direct defiance. My unwillingness to hug him or let him 'lovetap' me (light pat on the bottom) was, in his eyes, equivalent to disobeying him. My father needs to feel in control at all times, and always made sure we knew that he was the parent and we were the children and we HAD to listen to him. Therefore, my resistance caused him to hold me tighter, longer, and more often. This is when DP set in. Not from the rape, but from my father.
I did not want to be touched, but I was, far more often that I should have been. I did not want to be in my body anymore - did not want to have to feel this - so I began to leave it. When he would pull me onto his lap, I could feel my mind pulling away from my body, floating up to the ceiling. I would look down on us, watching us. He would demand hugs, kisses, and my empty shell would obey in silence, but it was okay because it wasn't me. I'm up here. That's just something that LOOKS like me. No different than if I had laid my photograph in his lap, then hid around the corner to see if he'd notice it wasn't me. After these episodes, once my father let me go, it would take my mind about an hour to reassimilate into my body.
I hit puberty at 8, and my body bloomed rather quickly. As the curves of a woman replaced the body of a child, my fathers need for affection grew more frequent...and more involved. My mind hovering above, I would watch him give me bear hugs, forcing my breasts firmly into his chest. When he kissed me, his hand was now behind my head so I couldn't pull back or turn my head away. The lovetaps were now outright gropes, and he bagan to insist on giving me backrubs that went too far down and too far in front. At this point, I feel that my overly affectionate father became my molestor. But it didn't matter because it STILL was not me.
Then when I was 12, I was raped for a second time. I was angry at myself for a long time after that, but not for the reason that victims usually are. I was pissed that my mind did not pull away for this - that I had to actually experience it. After this event, DP set in permanently. The remainder of my teens and into my 20's will be watched as though it were a live movie, playing in my head, 24/7.
At this point, my body became my nemisis. I began to blame it for everything. If it wasn't for that body, none of this would have happened. None of it. Here, I evolved yet again. From this point on, I will view my body in the third person. Someone that I am stuck with until death. Death, you say. That brings us to the next chapter.
In my teens, I became intensly, horribly self destructive. Anorexia, bulimia, self-mutilation, drugs, sex. None of it mattered, because again, it was not me. I have enormous keloids on my body now from the cuts I made then. Looking at them, you wonder how ANYONE could actually bear to do that to themself. I didn't feel a thing. I wasn't in the body when it happened. That how I was able starve so frequently, puke so violently, cut so deeply, and still carry on normally through my days. I was also suicidal, but not in the technical sense. I think it would more accurately be described as homicidal. A burning desire to murder the body that had so betrayed me. The compulsion to torture it. To make it pay. How dare it exist, and make me live through all of this.
I'm gonna jump ahead a few years. I am now 24. I don't remember exactly when the DP absolved itself. I just remember realizing almost 2 years ago that I am now actaully LIVING my life again, as opposed to watching it, and that I had been for some time. Probably the result of a hell of a lot of therapy. I do still have the problem of viewing my body in the 3rd person, though I don't know what this is called. I don't especially hate it anymore - and this a very new thing (the last month or so). But once again, I just kinda realized yesterday that I'm starting to unite with it again. I stubbed my toe on a chair, and my reaction was "Wow, that hurt!" Normally it would have been "Aww, poor baby," in reference to my body.
So sorry that I have no enlightening revelations at the end of my story. Thanks for letting me vent though. I feel great right now
Take care all!
Chantal
