This month, Rose joins us to share how she came to understand the ways in which the abuser groomed her and how this shaped the way she felt about herself and reacted to others. Many times abusers will compliment and nurture their victims as a manipulation, and our job is to untangle these messages from those who harmed us so we can receive the nurturing from those who truly care.
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In working with several therapists including a child sexual assault trained therapist for three years, I focused on processing, discussing and healing from the abuse. I at times may have mentioned comments of my abuser but I never thought or even worked on how I was groomed, manipulated or threatened into being a tool for my abuser.
Initially what helped me was learning why people sexually abuse others. My abuser was a psychopath. He received joy from seeing others in pain. My guess is he likely was abused himself. He created a deep fear in me so I did not share what he did to me until I was an adult. He was never prosecuted for what he did to me.
When I started my healing, I had confirmation from a private detective he was dead. I had carried a deep sadness that those close to me felt, I never felt safe and I was always taking what people said personally. I was not healthy inside.
Everything came gushing out like a waterfall when I experienced back to back emotional and a physical trauma in 2016. I was emotionally crippled. I had a choice: address the deep seated issues, go under hypnosis or use something to soothe the pain.
I decide I wanted to be happy so I embarked on working on the abuse. The pain I felt at times made it difficult to get out of bed. I just keep stepping one foot in front of the other. I found some okay and good therapists that helped me start the work. I began to research and read anything and everything I could get my hands on to learn as much as I could. I began to unpack the trauma and pain working through my past one session, one hour, one day at a time.
Learning to let go and forgive allowed a heavy weight to be lifted from my soul that I carried for forty years. I felt like I had been carrying a large bag of rocks up a mountain for years and it finally tore open. I had no bag to carry the rocks. I had to stop and decide which rocks I was not ready to leave in that place on the mountain.
As I picked up the rocks, I began to walk slowly up the mountain to find I really didn't want to carry anymore rocks. After 3 years of work I recognized I needed to try something new.
In September 2019, I started working with a new therapist. In working on the traumas, I was tasked with writing down my life history detailing out by year my experiences. During one of the review sessions I shared how my step dad would tell me I was special before and after abuse, and I began to talk about how anytime someone would say I was special, I would feel tightness in my chest and anxiety.
In further discussion, I realized I wanted to scream back, "I am not special." I realized why when my husband surprised me with a beautiful ring saying I was special for an anniversary, I reacted with anger. I had made it in my mind I do not want to be special.
Wow stop everything this is truly awful! Almost worse than the abuse. My abuser created a pattern in my mind that I did not want to feel, be told or be recognized as special.
Unknown to me until I recognized the deep pattern, I was stopping myself from feeling special. I had been impacted and the people who loved me had been impacted by this unhealthy pattern. For over forty years, I felt uncomfortable anytime someone said I was special. The light bulb that went off. I have to change this pattern. I recognize how my own challenges with feeling special had been impacting my life in negative ways in my marriage, in relationships and how I viewed and felt about myself. How many times when my husband told me I was special and I responded in odd ways. I had created unhealthy patterns in my marriage.
This discovery catapulted my healing and opened me to identifying other grooming and abuses that had created unhealthy patterns for me that was impacting my self esteem, daily life and limiting me in my marriage, friendships and in work.
This discovery helped me understand why I have and was reacting so strongly to anyone that I sensed was attempting to manipulate me. It helped me identify and explain so many unhealthy patterns and break them. I began to see other patterns that were unhealthy or not serving me and have discovered how people attempt to push patterns on others.
While I am only four months after this life changing discovery, I feel that the progress I have made in the last four months has been key to loving myself for who I am more and more each day.
The trauma work was the foundation to discovery and healing. I went from a survivor who always said I will not let what happened to me define me to say I am now thriving, and I hope the discovery of how grooming impacted me for decades can hopefully help others break free sooner from the patterns created by grooming.
I am thriving and looking for patterns created that I need to change. Let's break the patterns and thrive together. Now I know I am truly special for who I am and for what I am. Being special is wonderful.
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A thriving and happy survivor of childhood sexual abuse and teenage rape, Rose found refuge in work. She became a workaholic to escape traumas, stay around people for a false since of safety until 2016 when she embarked on a new journey to heal the deep pains. In September 2019 while working through the traumas, she discovered the deep unhealthy patterns created by "grooming". Finding very little about the impacts of grooming, she has felt compelled to share the patterns and growth. She hopes to create more conversations, discussions and hopefully inspire others to break the unhealthy grooming patterns. She lives in California with her supportive husband and dogs.
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