This piece from PsyPost, in talking about differences in PTSD symptoms between combat veterans and sexual abuse survivors, lays it out simply. Sexual compulsions for child sexual assault survivors in particular may well be about sexual control.
Ain't that the truth.
Like many people in recovery, for various reasons, gratitude is sometimes an issue. If you're like me, it's more the issue of accepting compliments from others, without minimizing explainers attached in return, than it is being grateful for the outside world.
But, it can be both.
Anyway, recently, I realized in reflection that it was a problem for my dad on the other side. He just couldn't be grateful that often, or at least not publicly express it. I don't think it was an "older generation" thing of bottling up emotions as the primary cause. Rather, I think that it may have been a fear of looking psychologically weak and indebted, admitting he needed help at times (and had just gotten it) and related matters.
In specific, after he got his PhD at Concordia Seminary and was stuck with fill-in preaching because he didn't get a "call" to a Lutheran college, and also didn't get one to a Lutheran congregation, it was me that put a bug into the ear of a pastor visiting St. Louis that broke that logjam on the parish side. Yeah, Flint was already going downhill, but "East European ethnics" plus German-Americans in his congregation, it was a place he liked in many ways. Any thanks to me? Not that I recall.
I realized recently, after getting some new emails from Marie and journaling about it, that that's what I seek from life as much as possible.
Whether it's psychlogically good or bad, in the sense of healthy or unhealthy, that's been my goal.
I'm not a wilderness survivalist; I can't butcher my own deer. I can't even fix my own car. I accept the need to live, nay, to exist, within society.
But, to actually live, psychically? It's like Jeebus saying "be in the world but not of the world." And, I'm going to drop some more thoughts here in days ahead.
One other thing that stimulated this was reading my 2001-12 journaling Word document, at least most of it from 2006-12. It was "factual" and also an attempt at Branden-brainwashing (there are no Branden-brainwashing concertos) that didn't work because you have to already have psyched yourself out in some way to be able to psych yourself out further.
