Sex / Pornography Addiction Support Group

You are more than welcomed here. I am sure it was not easy to post, but I for one am proud of that effort, seems like you are ready and willing to look inside for some change (finally)

I would encourage to to read the older posts. I promise you that you WILL gain some great insights not only form the addicts but also the spouses.

Welcome to the group... I hope you find what you need here.

Welcome, I'm glad you're here. It seems so unfortunate that so much time seems to elapse between incident and heeling. I trust you've been to therapists over the years? There most definitely is help for you, both here and through other resources, I personally have found a lot of support in SAA. I'm stealing this line from Dr. Phil (eww) but, "You know you are NOT to blame for anything that happened to you?"
I pray you find the support you need, taking a step forward is an acknowledgement of higher consciousness at work.

Thank you for the welcome. I wish it was just about any other group you were welcoming me to. I am embarrassed and ashamed of most of my life...but I have had shining moments - accomplishments. But that post about the ties this has to our childhoods really drew me in. My therapist says I fail to nurture myself...I say, I don't know how. I was not shown those lessons. I crave physical touch -- not intimacy as much as simple, human bonding. It is hard for me to admit that the things I have done to myself are compulsory. You see, in rape, it is all about loss of control. So, to have this "compulsion"...this 'drive to self-soothe' in ways we don't discuss anywhere we aren't anonymous, well...that is another loss of control...one I can't blame on three perverts...just me.

I am learning where it comes from...what need I am trying to meet by doing what I do. I have learned how to stop it...how not to need it so much...how to accept realistic forms of love as opposed to those borne of fantasy. I like reality when it makes sense to me. I am glad to find this place and hope that I don't make any 'newbie' errors. Are there any unwritten rules I should know about? I mean, is there anythingI could do to upset anyone or make a mistake? I don't want to do that ever.

Thanks again for the kindness....and JimOR, I didn't go to therapy until 2006. I spent years pretending to be healed and happy. I was a mother...and I was a good one. My son knows...has always known how much I love him. But I spent my childhood in an abusive, alcohol-drenched home filled with anger and emptiness...I hid in my closet with my stuffed monkey and cried away my lonliness and fears. It helped then....not so much as an adult, lol.

Thanks StoneHeartedMan....I have read some posts already...I am thirsty for knowledge about this...how it happens to us...how we can beat it. Thanks for the suggestion...Gee, you don't seem stonehearted at all...:)

Yes, you are very welcome here. Your experience of orgasm during your rape and your reaction to it is very common for boys who are abused. The pleasure you experience muddies the boundaries of the asult. You liked it so you desreved it. This makes the situation intensly more difficult to face and address.

Let me tell you a story about the last part of your post. Lately I have been in a very bad place in my recovery. My thing is to find anonymous partners to give me oral sex. I spend hours recently using a email account I set up, to make these arrangements. I knew it was my addict doing all of this, and I knew how to protect myself from actually doing it by relying on the relationships I have with men who are truly willing to care for me even though they know me. This is the soltution to the shame, being known.

So, I called my accontability partner, told him what was going on, and told him I needed him to delet that account. Not as THE way to keep safe, but a stop gap to give me a few moments to pause. And really to bring my behaviors into the light where they no longer have power.

I asked him if I should delete all the email threads, or leave them. My rational was that I did not want to trigger him. My real reason was shame. He said,,"it is your disclosure, and your decision." Then later he called me and told me to leave them for him to read. He told me the reason for this was that he wanted me to know that there was nothing that I could be involved in that would affect his friendship, or his willingness to support me.

The secrets that you keep from your husband will hurt or maybe scare him up front, but the shame you feel about those secrets is an insidious trap. It is a lie, and the fact is that there is more compassion waiting for you on the other side of being fully know than you could ever imagine. You are not designed to heal inisloation. Your husband was given to you to support and protect you and keep you safe so you can heal.

I am not saying to be cavalier about letting him know your deepest darkest secrets, but I am saying to decide that that is what you are going to do. Accept that you can and will be loved, and begin walking in that direction.

Your rape pierced your heart, and that wound can only heal in relationship with God and others that love and charish you. The belief that if noone would love you if they fully knew you is a cage. And letting people love you by revealing your true self to them is the key to that cage.

Your story is truly sad to hear. But this is a place where people will genuinely love and nurture you. We need to care for each other just to keep ourselves free, so don't think you are not offering us anything, supporting you helps us love ourselves.

I appreciate your kindness too ChooseAUN (sorry, went the short route)....I have so much that has held me in the place of shame it is unreal, even to me, at times. I hid the rape, for many reasons, but I was 17 when we married, and all I thought was that the lie would drive him away..or, worse, the truth would. Who could love a person like me with 'that' kind of thing happening to her? I convinced myself I deserved the rape because I had been talking to the guy on the road down from my house. He was older, had his own car and a mustache. I believed him when he said he liked me...that I was pretty. It was the beginning of the perfect set up for what happened next. My home life exploded one day and I ran out of the house...and he was riding down the road. He supplied everything no one else did. I could say parnetal abuse raped me. I could say lonliness, or anger, or fear raped me. I could say that, but in reality two men and a woman spent an afternoon doing evil things to a young girl who reached out for friendship and compassion and found a nighmare instead. I couldn' tell. It was not any altruistic sense I had to protect my loved ones from my truth - it was that the truth of what happened to me would never have been believed by the beer-guzzler I knew as Dad...perhaps by the weak-willed, dependant woman I called Mom, but she was trapped just like us. So, I washed away their evidence...cleaned up my house, and pretended I was just fine. But that feeling had been ignited. I had found the attachment I so longed for, and aside from the cuts...the bruises..and the parts being forced into places much too small, I had found something that filled the void in my life. I found I could soothe the pain, make everything go away. I had found the water's flow when I tried to wash them off of me...out of me. In doing that, the water found that place on me that they had manipulated, and I allowed the water to do to me what they had done...but the water didn't curse at me, or hit me, or poke me with things or make me put my mouth in places a 12 year old had no idea was for any purpose but to pee. I was changed that day - forever. But I believe my therapist when he says this is now MY choice, and I can shoose to control it...to wakl away from it. I want that.

But I have to ask this. Please be honest with me because it will serve none of us for me to trigger things here and make matters worse for others. Please tell me, does talking about it in this manner seem to stir it up...or aid in calming through commonalities and not feeling like such a freak? Sorry...it is how I feel.

Hi mockingbird12,

I would like to join the others in welcoming you to this group. On the one hand, I'm sorry you have issues with sexual addiction, but on the other, I'm delighted you found your way to this site. I hope you'll find the understanding, acceptance, support and hope that you are looking for here on this panel.

I'm sorry to hear about the rape. I can't begin to imagine just how traumatizing that must have been for you. Your reaction (being repulsed by sex but at the same time being drawn to it) is, to me, perfectly understandable. And so is the fact that when you have addictive sex, you like to get into the rough stuff. Let me explain why I say that.

One thing about sexual addiction is that the behaviors that are a part of your acting out will, in some way, represent a repetition of any sexual abuse you've experienced. The rape was violent, rough, and painful for you, so your addictive behaviors will recreate these experiences. Actually, this is one of the principles of sexual addiction counseling, and this tendency to repeat past abuse is referred to as "repetition compulsion".

As you check in with this panel from day to day, you will soon learn that you are DEFINITELY NOT the only female sex addict here. Over time, you will get to know some of the others and hopefully form a bond, a friendship with them and begin to see that you are certainly not alone or unique in this situation (being a female sex addict).

Your post seemed to indicate that you are trying to get a handle on this addiction, trying to figure out what it's all about. I firmly believe that knowledge is power, so for that reason, I'm going to suggest that you begin your exploration of sexual addiction by reading two (2) books. The first is titled "Out of the Shadows: Understanding Sexual Addiction", by Patrick J. Carnes, Ph.D. Pat was one of the first people to recognize this disorder and his book is responsible for the growth of the sexual addiction recovery movement. The book will give you a very good, basic understanding of this disorder as well as the childhood roots of sexual addiction.

As great as Carnes' book is, there is a problem with it. It's written from a male perspective. To get a female's slant on things, I'd suggest you read "Women, Sex, and Addiction", by Charlotte Kasl, Ph.D. This will round out your understanding of this disorder.

Both books are widely available. If they are not in your local library, they might be at your neighborhood bookstore. If you'd prefer, you can order both books from AMAZON.COM. Each book costs around $15.00.

Next, you might want to check out one or more of the Twelve Step groups that exist for sex addicts. There are five (5) main groups: Sexaholics Anonymous (S.A.), Sex Addicts Anonymous (S.A.A.), Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (S.L.A.A.), Sexual Compulsives Anonymous (S.C.A.), and Sexual Recovery Anonymous (S.R.A.). If you will click on the "Recommendations" tab at the top of this page, you will find all of the information you will need to get in contact with each of these groups, including each group's website. If you go to a group's website, you will find somewhere on the site a "Where and When" listing, a catalogue of all of that fellowship's groups indexed by state for your convenience. You might want to check and see if any of the listed groups are conveniently located for you. If so, consider going to a few meetings and see what you think. If nothing is convenient, try checking the telephone groups and online meetings. Somewhere in all of this you should be able to find one or two meetings that will work for you. When you find something that will work, make a commitment to go to that meeting on a regular (at least weekly) basis. Some groups meet daily, so you might want to think about going to to or three of these meetings a week.

IMPORTANT!! A lot of women have trouble with Twelve Step groups like these because there are a lot of men who attend groups. If this will be an issue for you, please check out the Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous (S.L.A.A.) meetings. This fellowship attracts a lot more women than any of the others.

There are a couple of additional websites you need to know about. These sites contain information of treatment centers for sexual addiction, information on certified sexual addiction therapists, suggested reading lists on sexual addiction, and much, much more. Actually, these websites are kind of like clearing houses for information. The websites/web addresses are as follows:

Sex Help (www.sexhelp.com/)
Society for the Advancement of Sexual Health (www.sash.net/)
Sexual Recovery Institute (www.sexualrecovery.com/reso...)

Well, that's enough to get you started. I hope something here is of some help. Please stay in touch with this panel and let us know how you're doing. If you have any questions, or if I may be of any further assistance, please let me know. I'll be happy to help in any way I can. Take care of yourself, and hopefully, we'll have an opportunity to chat again real soon. Peace!

I just read several more responses to your posting which apparently were added while I was adding my response. I have just a wee bit more for you in the way of input.

First, I've been on this panel for a while now, and as far as I know, there are no secret rules or regulations, no issues that can't be talked about. The only thing I think most people would ask is that you not get too graphic. None of your responses today, nor your original posting, have come anywhere near that line, much less gone over it. So I guess what I'm saying is that you're fine. No problems.

Your attraction to the guy who eventually raped you is totally understandable, given the lack of love and nurturing you received at home. If you don't get what you need, what you deserve, from your parents, you're going to look for it outside the home. Sometimes, you may be fortunate and hook up with a mentor who really cares about you and will be there for you. But all too often, something like your story happens. You are DEFINITELY NOT responsible for the rape. You did nothing to cause it or ask for it, and you certainly did not deserve it. As far as the orgasm goes, when your body is stimulated, it is going to respond. Having an orgasm during an episode of sexual abuse should in no way be construed as enjoying the experience, nor should it be viewed as voluntary being a part of the assault. The facts are simple. You were raped. During the assault, as a result of external stimulation by your attacker, you experienced an orgasm. That means absolutely nothing. Please don't ever read anything into that event or experience.

You mentioned that your father was an alcoholic. One other Twelve Step group you might want to check out is called Adult Children of Alcoholics (A.C.O.A.). They have thousands of meetings every week all across the U.S. and Canada. Ask your therapist what he thinks about the group. If you'd like to learn a bit more about them, you can Google the group's name and go from there

Finally, you said you were hungry for simple human touch. That's certainly understandable. Touch can be so nurturing and affirming. Since the only touch you're familiar with is unhealthy touch, maybe you might like to experiment with something a bit more healthy. Have you ever considered therapeutic massage? Lots of folks are now licensed massage therapists. Even some chiropractors have gotten into it. If a chiropractor gives you the massage, the cost of the service will sometimes be covered by your medical insurance. Just an idea. See what your therapist thinks.

Thank you for all this helpful information. My husband will 'snuzzle' with me...he knows when I ask that it is out of lonliness and need. He is not a talker...but he loves me and has stood by me through all of this. I do hide certain things about my deep pain...I do it for me...not for him so much. He doesn't like details or graphic issues regarding what happened, so we never discuss the rape or how it affects me today -- it still does.

I work very diligently toward healing, and I have made great headway in some areas...not so much in others. I will check in to the information here and I am happy to know I haven't crossed any boundaries. It is easy to do when you do things headstrong like I tend to...so, thanks for the pointers.

I am embarrassed by my 'issue'. I am humiliated that I sit with a man every week and tell him ugly things like this...but he is not shocked or disgusted by my admissions. He is gentle and encouraging, and he says many of the things you have said here...thanks!

Hi mockingbird,

Welcome to the board. And yes, making the connection between childhood trauma and sex addictions is shocking, but it can be liberating. I am very sorry for what you went through and I feel compassion and hope for you.

I have nothing to add to what the others have said regarding yourself. I am curious though, is your husband going through counseling with you?

You see, when we are traumatized in our family of origin, we fail to learn adequate boundaries. Your husband's behavior ("not a talker") suggests to me that he has walls just like you. Much of trauma work is relational. Your recovery can be boosted by being more intimate with your husband. John Bradshaw "re-spells" intimacy as "into-me-see." This means that when you BOTH see the truth of who you really are, you are able to heal more readily. Healthy boundaries are essential for this to take place.

For example, my wife and I have been in recovery for more than 20 months. I am a sex and love addict, she is a love addict. )She may share some of her story here, Lorilou is her handle). We are currently on stage 3 recovery of the Pia Mellody model; becoming proficient in relational boundaries. Part of my job is to become a well "boundaried" receiver so that she can express her anger towards her abuse. My boundaries need to be healthy so that I can mirror her self-worth and so that I don't internalize that anger. This takes a lot of practice and in fact we are going to have an intensive session in a few weeks to work on this issue. She recently admitted to me some horrible things about her past. She needs me to be able to listen and lover her despite her trauma.

You ask if talking about these issues helps. What I credit for my sobriety is a full disclosure of every sexual activity I engaged in since the age of 8yo up until discovery followed by a yearly polygraph test for accountability. Her forgiving despite hearing all the things I did broke the shackles and gave me new life. Our life is more wonderful than we ever thought possible. However, recovery never stops. We continue to work though our issues and learning more about each other every day.

Sorry I rambled. I just wanted to add that perhaps he should consider going into relational therapy with you so that you both can work on your boundaries. BTW, boundaries is the core of Pia's model and deeply spiritual work. It took me a while to understand that.

Best of luck, I hope this made sense.

Hi Mockingbird,

I'm trying my best to keep my hands steady as I type this. I have been here on DS now since about February. The reason was 19 months ago I discovered my husband (Soberone's) sex-addiction. But he is now a successfully-recovering SA. Although, that is not why I am replying to you tonight. I believe since this discovery I have learned to hear God's calling for me to go in certain directions so clearly now. Your pain filled disclosure has come at a time in my life that I can not ignore his prodding for me to go forward and disclose something so shameful I had told no one until recently after individual counseling to try to understand why I continue to have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that seems to go deeper than the discovery of my husband. In the past I would have horrible nightmares of sexual encounters with men I hardly knew. Only I just couldn't figure out why it all seemed like an accident. I would wake up wracked with shame and guilt at being a happily, married woman with a beautiful boy. I just couldn't understand why these awful night-demons plagued me. I have terrible leg cramps also, and have experienced them since childhood.

As I got further in therapy for dealing with the trauma of finding out about my husband I began to discover that I was not only very wounded from my husband but also from past abuse and trauma. I found out about a type of therapy called EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization Reprogramming) which has been used successfully since WWII on "Shell Shocked" war veterans. What happens in this type of therapy is it helps to make since of old memories and bring to light repressed memories. In addition, it reworks the neural pathways in the brain to replace negative thoughts regarding trauma with positive ones.

During this therapy past events came to make since in how I too found myself repeating the trauma which took place when I was about 6 years old. You see my father too was an alcoholic and emotionally absent. My mother was physically abusive. One day as I was admiring my mother as she was painting with Indian ink I accidentally spilled her ink all over her and myself. I'll never forget her look of utter hatred and rage as she stood up from her work and came at me, kicking me in-between the legs like a football. The pain was excruciating. I had ink all over myself. She roughly scrubbed me off. Later, I remember trying to go to the bathroom but couldn't as the pain was so horrible. So I went up to my bedroom to die, as I thought I surely would from either my bladder busting or the pain. Later my father came home to find me all bloody laying on my bed. He rushed me to the hospital where I would be further humiliated as the male Doctors took my clothes off to examine me and give me a catheter to relieve me. I remember screaming and struggling to get away, hence the life long leg cramps that are evidence of residual memories in the body. Later, at around the age of 15 I had run away from home, never to return. But I would repeat the trauma one night as I had gone out with a far to sexually wise girl-friend who had invited some boys over. I remember feeling very sick from the alcohol we were consuming so went to her bedroom to sleep it off only to wake up to the knowledge that I was crying. As I began to understand why I was crying I realized this boy was just finishing his business with me. I could not believe this was how I would start off my sexual life, it was not romantic as I had envisioned, it was degrading and shameful. I knew my friend must have known what I did even though I tried to hide that anything was different. Later, that boy seemed to avoid me like the plague, yet I was confused by my attraction to him which caused me to live the rest of my life thinking (like you) somehow I deserved it. For a few years the way I dealt with it was to become the abuser instead of the abusee. I myself was guilty of objectified men. Something I am not proud of. I was on a mission to conquer and destroy. I did mean and thoughtless things to guys as I went on the hunt to dominate and humiliate them. At first this gave me a sort of high, a feeling that I had won the battle. But my fantasy world began to unravel as the trauma repeated itself one night that I once again had too much to drink. It seems from that night forward there was a string of repetitive events that I just couldn't break away from. I began to spiral into a depression feeling I was getting what I deserved for the way I had treated men from the past. I felt God was passing judgement on me until one day I met a pastor and his wife who was a therapist. Somehow they knew I was going through a depression. They gave me two books to read and then gave me an intensive therapy session that consisted of me confessing my past and asking for forgiveness. I finally felt free. At this time I had met them I also met my husband (Soberone). This was about 13 years ago. For the first time I felt I had met a true gentleman. Little did I know the reason he did not paw me and sexualize me like so many men before him was because he was in a sexually anorexic state. I finally allowed myself to be vulnerable enough to fall in love and trust.

I believe at the time I had met the pastor and his wife I had started a very important therapy in ending the trauma repetition. Unfortunately, or fortunately however you choose to look at it, I did not go far enough into therapy to learn what to make of my trauma and understand how it was related to my past abuse, and how I subsequently became a magnet for sexual predators and addicts. In addition, because I was an expert at spotting overt sex addicts I was blind to the other extreme...sexual anorexics...who also act out sexually by binging. In addition, while I believed God had forgiven me, I had forgotten an important element...to forgive myself...so I too lived with the shame.

For the first time since discovering my h I can say it gets better, and I am grateful for the discovery, and the chain of events it has triggered in our lives, among them learning of how my past has contributed to the years of horrifying nightmares and extremely, painful, leg cramps. Since working on this issue in therapy my nightmares have transformed into odd dreams, no longer scary or shaming but instead revealing. My leg cramps have subsided and I have much hope for the relief of these symptoms.

I also want to thank you for including the "water thing." That too explains so much. I think somehow I was trying to cleans myself in an extreme way.

Thank you for your brave testimony. I am grateful for I am still trying to understand this. I hope my friends here at DS will understand my silence on this. I think, while I was not willing to disclose my shameful acts of the past it is what gave me understanding for my dear husband's struggle with his demons in those first days and months in trying to understand why he did what he did and that it truly was not about me. Obviously for those who know our story our issues seem to have been a mirror image. In this understanding only this man could understand me and only I could understand him.

I would strongly urge you Mockingbird to continue to share bits and pieces with our own husband. You might just be surprised at how understanding he is. He married you for a reason. You were the missing piece to his puzzle. It's strange that in getting to know my soul-mate better I am getting to know myself.

Lorilou