any adults who suffered sexual abuse as a child?

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Has anyone else delt with or is currently dealing with past sexual abuse?
I am trying to deal with what happened to me when I was a child, I have aspergers, anorexia, anxiety, and am seeing a psyc in 4 weeks time to try and get my life back on track. Has anyone else out there tackled this issue? and do you have any ideas on how to deal with this?
Thanks.

i'm sorry the only thing I could think of to tell you, is that you will go on with your life and prosper despite the evil acts done to you. I was abused as a child, and I can tell you that although it colors my life, it doesn't dictate [the rest of] my life. my faith enables me to keep walking forward, that the person/s who were bad to me will be called to account in a higher court. in the meantime you can't give 'em the satisfaction of seeing you psychologically crippled by them, they have to become persona non grata in your life, and you must move past them. this is lame advice, I know, but it is the only thing that I was able to do for myself, in addition to finding a counselor to talk to about it- getting it off my chest/venting about it, was therapeutic, as well.

thanks auntblabby, sorry to hear you were abused also. Its not lame advice, it helps just to know someone understands and is listening, so thank you. Im hoping talking to a counselor will help.
The main offender is dead, and the others I don't know where they are.
Thank you again for your thoughtful reply.

/raises hand shyly

Um, well, I didn't really start dealing with it until recently. I shoved it into the back of my head for my entire life. It's caused a lot of issues.

Yes. I was a stupid, gullible girl. Molested at age 13 by 21 year old (I was a willing participant but I was told that doesn't matter). Sexually exploited twice at age 14-15, once by a 35-year old married man, another time by a man who thought I could be a "model" and gave me an "audition". "Date raped" again at 17 by a stranger who was even better at convincing me I could be a "model". Drugged and sexually assaulted at 17 (this man was prosecuted) when I was looking into an apartment share situation. Nearly sexually attacked in my apartment at age 27 by a man I thought was only a friend.

Yes, I guess I should have been smarter in many of the above situations. I thought I was in control of what I was doing, but I was terribly naive and gullible, thinking these things wouldn't happen to me, that I was smart, that I knew what I was doing, that nobody would really want to hurt me because they could see I was a good person, and why would anyone want to hurt a good person? I learned these things the hard way.

It took me many years of therapy and self-help books to undo the damage. The flashbacks can still can creep up on me even now in my marriage.

Good luck with the road ahead. You will get through it. You sound young and have time ahead of you. Work on the anorexia in therapy too as that could be a lifelong battle. I have struggled with bulimia since age 14 and am currently in recovery but 80% of the last 25 years has been a battle with disordered eating.

I hope you get a lot of good, safe hugs along the way, that is if you like hugs--they really do help.

Yes.

I'm sorry you had to deal with this.

For many years, I looked at the pattern of abuse, being taken advantage of, etc in my life and wondered why it kept happening and why I couldn't ever see it coming and prevent it. Now that I know people who are looking for victims will target people on the spectrum, it makes more sense and helps me understand how it was not my fault.

I also went to therapy for many years which, among other things, helped me deal with the negative reactions of people in my life (like my mother being angry and me and denying the childhood abuse by a babysitter's husband).

I hope you can find a way to reach some peace with this. It is so unfair that the people who do these things hurt us physically with the initial acts, but then can continue to hurt us many years after they are gone from our lives.

Yes, also. Sometimes I cry, but the past is the past. I don't know what else to say.

Yes but I'm done dealing with it. I'm tired. It was long ago and far away. I refried it and refried it over and over again. I decided to just live my life and forget. This alone tells me I've won. My better, current life is what is real to me now. The past is finally put to rest.

Yes. I was sexually abused by a close relative, constantly, from 11 to 15. Finally came out about it at 17, and the entire family rallied around my abuser. Went to court, and he walked free. Cut off my entire family, because I don't need that kind of sickness in my life.

I've moved past it, for the most part, but definitely have trust issues, especially when it comes to anything physical. Hard to know if my issues with touch are in relation to Asperger's, or because of the abuse in my past. I would guess that it's a result of both. I have to have complete trust in the person that I am with, or it just won't work, and I won't want to be touched at all. Thankfully, this doesn't seem to apply to my children, as they are very cuddly! (Although, I admit that after a day where they are extremely needy and want to be held and on me constantly, I do my best, but get sort of "touched out" and overwhelmed by it by the end of the day.)

I think that abuse is the sort of thing that you can learn to move on from. You will never forget. We, as humans, like it or not, are shaped by our experiences--it will always be a part of who you are, of how you came to become the person you are. But that doesn't have to be bad. You may be more caring, more loving, more in tune to other's pain, because you went through it yourself. Again, you will never forget, but you can get to a place where it no longer hurts you.

My abuse happened from before I can remember to when I was around 9 years old. I didn't remember it until I was much older and so it was never discussed and I never confronted my abuser, who is a relative. I'm trying to just deal with it/get past it on my own. I'm in the stage where I'm realizing how much it affected things in my life.

I was physically and mentally abused until I was an adult so I think my brain couldn't handle with more stress. It blocked out most of what happened and I still only remember bits and pieces (thankfully).

Thanks to another thread on this forum, I realized I probably have Avoidant Personality Disorder because of things that happened. It's a relief to know this. My psych didn't test me for it when I went in for Aspergers. She only tested me for Schizotypal, which I don't have.

Anyway, I'm 31 and looking forward to the day when this doesn't affect me so much. I am exponentially better than I was 10 years ago, so the future should follow the same pattern.

I'll never forget it and I'll never pretend my mother is a good person. But after confronting her and confronting my past in therapy and talking it out, I feel like I've worked through the burden it put on me.

Like I'm still always moving past it by not letting it get to me anymore or feeling bad about it.

I will definitely tell someone to screw off if they're insensitive about it or (without knowledge of my life) like "How can you not love your mother? You're lying!" I will just blatantly say she's a pedophile and she wrecked a great portion of my developmental years.

And people use it as an example that "women can be abusers too!" and question how I can be a feminist. Which is a clear example of why I'm a feminist. Feminism honestly brought me a lot of peace.

It's different for everyone. Trying to deal with it is the beginning of a long process. But we all progress at our own speed and you've just got to try to find what works for you.

Funny. As a kid, I used to think that other kids who claimed to love their mothers were lying. I thought they only said it (like I did) because it was expected of them. I thought, no way they could be serious, because EVERYone really hates their mothers!

I honestly don't understand what it's like to have a family and "love" your family members. The entire concept makes me ill. But it's because I never had it.

Yes, many people have tried to demonize me for not loving my parents. Especially because our Asian society is huge on filial piety. Well, they wouldn't be able to love my parents, either. They also forgot that filial piety was originally a two-way street and assumed that the parents where doing everything good for their child and nurturing them to be a "good Confucian citizen." My parents voided that contract.

my abuser is in a bad state now. or at least an ungood state. as long as I am away from him, that is all I care about.

I wasn't abused to the point that most of you were. But a boyfriend of my mother used to fondle my breasts when we were alone, and once laid down on me (I was fully-dressed and just lying on my bed watching television) and dry-humped me to his orgasm. And a much older (I was about 8, he about 15) locked me in a shed with him and then he demanded I show him my "boobies" (I didn't) then he exposed himself to me. Still unsavory business however, and it colored me to an extent, although I'm not sure how. What affected me more was when I told my mother about her guy feeling me up, she accused me of making it up in order to break them up. She and I have never resolved that, even though I've tried. Otherwise my mom is a wonderful woman and is a great mother. We just have this little problem that comes up from time to time.

wow that sounds like a complicated relationship. I don't know how i'd handle that if it happened to me like that.