UNDERSTANDING HOW AUTOMATIC REACTIONS RELATE TO PAST ABUSE 

Sexual abuse is alarming, traumatic, and strange.  The abuse may only last minutes, but during that time victims are emotionally and physically overwhelmed. We lose our sense of safety, control and individual autonomy. The abuse experienced is too much to process, flooding victims with sensations, feelings and thoughts that are impossible to assimilate at once. Normal awareness is heightened, intensifing the experience down to the minute details. Most victims are unprepared to handle this situation mentally or physically.

Victims may begin dissociating, for instance anything from pain to pleasure. For many survivors who have been repeatedly victimized. To cope with this, victims, while its happening learn to group together all aspects of the abuse.  Everthing, where we are, what were are doing, how we are with what we feel becomes fused. A traumatic cystalizing of experience occurs, as if we have taken a three dimensional picture of the abuse. Because survivors may be confused about what caused the abuse, this crystalizing records everything that might be a possible cause. When survivors feel more prepared to analyze what happened and why, we can retrieve this mental three-dimensional picture.  Automatic reactions are activated, or triggered by something in present day reality that reminds us, whether consciously or unconsciously of the past abuse.  The trigger can be almost anything: an object, a touch, a movement, a smell, a setting, a sensation, physical characteristic, or a feeling such as fear, abandonment, or anxiety. When a trigger sets off an automatic reaction, within seconds, touch and sex experiences in the present become contaminated with feelings, thoughts and sensations from the past.

Many automatic reactions were learned as a way to cope with the mental and physical trauma, the process of dissociating becomes something that is done over and over again. As one survivor puts it “I learned to seperate myself from my body. I recall looking in a mirror when I was nine years old and hypnotically telling myself that the litle girl in mirror was not me.  Now, every time I feel icky about sex, I head for the hills emotionally. I seperate my mind from my body.”

Others survivors may learned to cope with the stress of abuse by numbing their own physical sensations.  Numbing may have allowed us to endure the abuse.

Others survivors coped with the abuse by “going along with what is happening”. Enjoying sexual feelings, experiencing pleasure, and having orgasms are natural automatic responses to sexual stimulation. Some learned that they could gain control over what happened if they went along with the rapist tells you or acting like you like it, can save your life or prevent you from further violence and pain.

Guideline for Handling Automatic Reactions:  A four step approach

STOP and become aware, CALM yourself, AFFIRM your present reality, CHOOSE a new response.

As soon as you find yourself reacting in a sudden, upsetting irrational way that feels out of control, stop.

Calm your body. Tell yourself something reassuring,  such as “I’m safe, no one can hurt me now.”

Affirm your present reality, remind yourself that what you are doing and experiencing now is different from what happened during the abuse.

Choose a new response. Stop and realise what’s happening, calm yourself and affirm your present reality. These responses have worked for me and I am sure they can work for you too.  Practice.