Читать книгу Ready to Heal: Breaking Free of Addictive Relationships - Sarah Elisabeth Boggs - Страница 12

Maria is the firstborn daughter in a middle-class Hispanic family where her parents filled traditional gender roles. Her father worked and her mother stayed home to raise the children. They were active members in their church and community. Maria has few happy memories of her childhood. Mostly, she remembers being afraid. When her father wasn’t working, he was home, sullen and angry. His unpredictable moods terrified Maria. He physically punished her regularly. Although spanking was thought to be normal in the late 1960s and early 1970s, what Maria endured was extraordinary. Her father removed her clothing for a beating and stopped only when he seemed tired. After an abusive episode, Maria would be left alone in her room. No one came in to comfort, explain, or apologize. She remembers crying herself to sleep, frozen in a ball under her blankets.

Her mother was unhappy in the marriage and in their home. She was critical, unpredictable, and rarely affectionate. Maria had four sisters, all very close in age, and the girls often took refuge in one another since they couldn’t rely on their mother for comfort. Maria loved her younger sisters and recalls feelings of rage and terror when her sisters were beaten by their father. She desperately wanted to protect them but was powerless to do so. As a grown woman, she still hears her sisters’ screams echoing in her mind. This is a good example of how the beating of a sibling can be traumatizing for the other sibling(s) to witness.

As a young child, Maria found ways to comfort herself. She enjoyed Disney stories and longed to be beautiful like Snow White and Cinderella so that one day she would be rescued from her misery. Maria wanted to grow up, find a husband, and have children. She desperately wanted love. Her fantasy life carried her through the lonely nights at home. Maria masturbated every day as a young girl, although she doesn’t remember how she learned to do so. Her mother caught her once and yelled at her. She told Maria that masturbation was a sin and that she would never have a husband if she continued. Although this scared Maria, she couldn’t stop. It was her only comfort. She just tried harder to be secretive.

As a child, Maria unknowingly learned how to alter her struggling brain chemistry with an orgasm. The feel-good hormones released during masturbation soothed Maria’s fear and loneliness. For children, masturbation and food are two of the most accessible ways to alter brain chemistry in an effort to feel better. If a child is not able to attach to her caregivers, she will find something else to attach to. In Maria’s case, fantasy and masturbation provided a solace from the horrible isolation and pain of her childhood.

As an adolescent, Maria showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Although she was a good student, she had trouble concentrating on schoolwork. Her attention span was short and she had difficulty being still or quiet. She remembers always holding her breath and having frequent stomach problems at school. She dreaded going home but didn’t feel safe at school either. Maria also experienced regular nightmares throughout her childhood. Today, these symptoms may be diagnosed as attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Oftentimes, trauma is overlooked as a possible reason a child may be having difficulty in school or with peers.

When Maria was in the fifth grade, an older boy named Travis kissed her in a dark closet. Maria describes the kiss like an alcoholic describing a first drink: “It was dark … and I didn’t know what was happening. I was shocked when his tongue touched my mouth and opened my lips. I lost my breath. Instantly, I had butterflies in my stomach. I felt euphoric, and I understood that I would always need this to be happy.”

Travis and Maria explored each other’s bodies often but always in secret. At school, Travis wouldn’t acknowledge her. While Maria adored his attention, deep inside she was hurt and angry. This continued for three years until Maria, at fourteen, fell in love with someone new. She recalls immediately “turning off” feelings for Travis, channeling all her energy into the new relationship with Matt.

With Matt, Maria did anything to please him, just as she had with Travis. She held Matt on a pedestal. She admired his intelligence, athletic ability, and the fact that he was older. She laughed at all his jokes and thought about him all the time. They began a sexual relationship, but Maria refused to have intercourse. Her Catholic upbringing and parents’ rules made her fear she would go to Hell if she had sex before marriage. So Matt taught her how to give oral sex, and he expected it any time he took her to dinner, a movie, or even to run an errand. He wanted oral sex all the time. Maria hated it, but never refused. In fact, she recalls learning how to swallow so that she wouldn’t taste his ejaculate.

Maria’s traumatic attachment with her parents set her up for painful relationship patterns. Her family relationships didn’t provide a safe place for relationship bonding or for nurturing a developing mind. Yet a child must bond in order to feel safe in the world, and so Maria bonded to dangerous parents and learned that love, danger, fear, and pain go together. She also developed a damaging belief—that deep inside, she must be bad to be treated this way. She must not deserve love.

As a result, she was painfully vulnerable to needing validation from others in order to feel worthwhile. Sexual attention felt like love. Her early fantasy life programmed her to think sexual attention from boys might be love. Even though she didn’t like sex, she needed the relationship to feel worthwhile. So she used sex to feel lovable.

Grateful for Matt’s attention, Maria masked her confusion and shame about her sexual behavior for three years. But she felt different from other girls. She felt dirty. At school, she was student council president, maintained high grades, and tried to be a “good” girl. But she was secretive, lonely, and sad. None of her peers seemed to share her need for sexual attention. Her shame and anger began to grow along with her feelings of being “bad.”

When Maria was seventeen, she suddenly “fell out of love” with Matt and found a new boyfriend. She turned off her feelings just like she had done before. This relationship, however, was different. Her new boyfriend didn’t want to be sexual each time they were together. This confused and frustrated Maria. She was programmed to be sexual. She didn’t know how to “be” with him without sex, so she ended the relationship.

In college, Maria’s need for sexual attention escalated. She craved attention from men, but never trusted them. She alienated men early in the relationships with her flirtatious behavior that could be directed at any guy any time. She had unpredictable mood swings. Maria was still hanging on to her virginity, but growing increasingly reckless with her emotional and sexual behavior. By her sophomore year, she was alone and suicidal, depressed, overweight, drinking too much, and failing in one relationship after another.

Maria’s out-of-control sexual behavior led her to a bar one night where she encountered a stranger and was raped. She told no one. She blamed herself for losing her protected virginity. When she called her mother to talk about her suicidal feelings, her mother’s lack of interest drove her further into isolation.

Full of shame and self-hatred, Maria decided to have sex without worrying about the religious consequences. She began a sexual relationship with a man named Lee who didn’t attend her school, hoping to keep her sex life separate from her college life. She also chose Lee because he was her friend. She wasn’t particularly attracted to him, so she felt less vulnerable and for once felt safe. She knew he needed her and this gave her a sense of power. Maria had been powerless as a child and in her other relationships. With Lee, she felt strong, independent, and sexual. But she didn’t love or respect him. As she approached her senior year of college, Maria panicked and decided to find someone she could marry.

She broke up with Lee when she met Kevin. Kevin was everything her upbringing trained her to want in a husband. He was intelligent and ambitious. He talked about how he would take care of her and keep her safe. They married after college and began a life together. Maria hoped marriage would fill the emptiness she felt inside. She had always wanted this: a husband, a home, and a family. But early in the marriage, Maria’s sexual desire shut down. She lost attraction for her husband and all interest in sex. After the birth of her first child, the situation grew worse. Maria grew depressed and fearful. Feeling desperate, she left the marriage. Her guilt and shame brought her into therapy. She was confused. Her fantasy of marriage, home, and family had crumbled around her. She explains, “I had to get out. I was dying inside.”

Maria’s story illustrates an addictive switch that is common for abuse survivors. Her sexual behaviors in high school and college had bulimic qualities—she entered relationships quickly and got out when they felt bad. Like a bulimic who takes in large quantities of food and then vomits, Maria entered into a relationship too fast, then pushed it away when it felt toxic. Once she was married, however, the cycle changed and Maria exchanged her compulsive romantic behavior for sexual aversion. Her sexual feelings died. She found herself disgusted with sex, her husband, and her own body. She grew increasingly depressed and withdrawn, confused by her painful isolation. This lasted the remainder of her marriage. When sexual aversion continues for an extended period of time, it can be understood as a form of anorexia: a hatred of sex, denial of vulnerability, and inability to connect intimately in a relationship. Sexual anorexia and sexual addiction exist on a continuum. In Maria’s case, she could either be intensely sexual or completely shut down. There was no middle ground. Maria’s upbringing left her internally scarred, impairing her ability to be intimate with anyone.