Realizations from a Trauma Course

I'm not sure how to start this, I just know I have thoughts and emotions I need to get out. My trauma course readings focus on the importance of allowing the client to say what they need about their trauma and I realized I never got that opportunity. 

Recently I've been experiencing recurring thoughts and images about the first trauma I experienced. Certain bodily sensations instantly bring me back to it... The problem is, I'm not reliving the trauma part, I'm reliving the lead up... The part I've never been okay with admitting... The part I enjoyed.

I could never figure out why I hated the feeling of spine tingles. The one you get when someone touches your tailbone, everything clenches for a moment and the tingling spreads. I got that feeling that night - I've avoided and shuddered at that feeling since I was 12 years old. This trauma class has had me thinking about my past trauma, how I feel about it now as an adult and how I felt about it then. I was so little, so young, so naive. I fully acknowledge that he was in the wrong, that it wasn't my fault, but it's hard not to think about the role I played in it... Or even the part that I (thought I) was okay with.

I feel sick and disturbed when I think about that night. I think about how good he made me feel. The way my body reacted to his touch. Bear in mind - I was 12, he had gotten me drunk, and he was 21. Of course I felt "special" and "chosen" - he had two other potential "partners" (victims) to choose from and he "chose" me. He is the root of my sexual trauma - I've always known this, sometimes this fact is reprocessed, is all. I sometimes feel that exact feeling - and it feels good, for a split second. Then my brain jumps to the trauma. My body tenses. I dry up (literally). I can't engage or perform - even a solo act.

I know I have underlying shame and regret, I know I blame myself to some extent for what happened. Just like I blame myself for the incident when I was 15, and again I'm my twenties. Not to mention the online "friends"... Good lord, I've put myself in a lot of victimizing situations. I'm not victim blaming myself here, I recognize that these people preyed on my vulnerabilities and my trust, but it's still hard not to feel some level of blame for believing them. Wow - that's a complicated sentence. Complicated sentiment. 

I need to acknowledge, once and for all, that what happened that nice was partially enjoyable - up until I was scared and then forced to participate. I did like how he made me feel, he even said it that night, and I think that's what made it all so much worse. He got in my head. Tried to force me to keep going, to do what he wanted. I probably would have, truthfully. If I wasn't so afraid, if he didn't force my hand, try to force my head... If I didn't feel ashamed for having my period and not wanting him to know it. I might have "let" it go further than it did, and I think that realization scares me. I was a child, I was made to feel special, sexy, chosen. I was made to feel all the things I'd never felt with another person. He preyed on my vulnerabilities the same way the internet predators did. 

It's scary to see how vulnerabilities can be played on so easily. Even as an adult, Harley played on them. He made me feel insecure so I'd seek his approval. He shut me out so I'd seek his affection. He gaslight me every step of our friendship and made me feel crazy. Picking fights so he could trap me into talking it out - so he could trap me into being late going home. He was a master manipulator. Even after all of this, everything he did, every realization I've had about this horrible abusive man, I still crave his affection. I still crave him. I want to talk to him, to know how he is, to have him validate me and make me feel special, to make me feel chosen. Holy crap. I want him to make me feel the way my original assailant did... He took advantage of me in the same ways. That was not a revelation I was expecting to have.