Ruby26Senior Contributor
Trauma and social skills
Has anyone found that childhood trauma impacted their ability to learn new social skills? What happened to you socially and what has helped you cope?
FORUMS
Connect with people who understand what you are going through, seek advice and surround yourself with support. We're free, anonymous, and professionally moderated 24/7.
- 47,612Members
- 1,358,869Posts
- 1,400,000Visitors
Trauma and social skills
25 replies
In response to: Trauma and social skills
Ruby26Senior Contributor
Re: Trauma and social skills
@J_Oz thanks for your support. I need to do a lot of work on my identity. How did you forge your identity?
In response to: Re: Trauma and social skills
J_1nOzContributor
Re: Trauma and social skills
Hi @Ruby26
I can tell the main points of my story that I think may have some relevance to you.
The heart of my quest wasn't clear to me at the time, but in hindsight, it can be summed up as making my "public persona" as unified to my internal identity as much as possible.
The initial set-up to my life was being born into a broken marriage between a conservative mother that was belittled and physically abused as a child, and a father that was raised under the fear of his father. These participants were themselves raised by couples coming out of world war 2, whereby through the social crucible of wartime trauma, people that wouldn't normally marry did. It had major ramifications: loss of faith, loss of family connections and emotional instability.
My parents broke up and my mother raised me and my younger brother. We were the type of kids that never had friends over, and never had role models that resembled the one the television. Since my mother was unemployed, we were the poorest in any school we attended.
Trigger warning: child abuse
Content/trigger warning
The first paedophile was an uncle that my mother got to babysit us as she worked her first job. From our perspective, the molestation was "affectionate" and the grooming was easy to absorb. After a little time, I attempted to molest my little brother. But when I attempted, he looked so scared. His stare was askance and he had the look of fear that an animal has when they are about to be hit my a moving car. He was frozen in panic. I was horrified and remember distinctly being so physiologically distressed, that my vision of the scene looked like i was floating into the ceiling and was looking down from a great height. I stopped and the next time my uncle started to molest me, I responded as my brother did to my advances. My uncle immediately left the country and travelled to Saudi Arabia for four years.
My response to that experience was subtle, but it included becoming very insular and rejecting any form of being touched. My brother and I didn't play with each other anymore and I started just watching television in silence
The next paedophile came around five years later, but I rejected any advances. Although I was present with my brother and the paedophile, I was drugged and slept through most of their sexual activities.
I was at an age where I didn't see any resemblance of my kind in any peer group or positive public narrative, but was very conscious of an impending doom that I would become a paedophile. Times in Australia were different to the current day, where children are given messages that they can speak out if they are being abused. The alternate message that I absorbed was one that I had heard that made the argument that male paedophiles were molested as children. Since I had already attempted that on my brother, I took that as my fate. I would get some reprieve as I awaited this fate by testing myself occasionally: I would imagine molesting a random child on the school bus which gave me a sense of repulsion.
However, the side effect of all this meant that I was socially isolated and my sense of self was just one of shame. I had no dialogue worthy of expression. In fact, I was so out of touch with healthy social connection, that I only saw one event in person within the first two decades that resembled a healthy social engagement. This event was due to a quirk of fate: the entire year 6 class that I was part of was invited to a sleep over. It was like coming across a different species when I snuck to the top of a stairwell in the middle of the night and discovered a dozen adults looking happy in one another's company. I was entranced...
Consequently, every attempt of social engagement was flawed. I just didn't have any experience and I had no p7blic voice. I attempted to mimic what I thought was a healthy person, but it was impossible to maintain. And the effects of failure were draining and depressing. For instance, I was studying science at uni and to my dismay, I was the only person that didn't have someone to talk to in the lecture hall. Even though I had always been an outsider, and although my grades were very high, that moment I stood up and quit that course. And this type of stop-start trajectory that was being driven by my internal narrative was essentially my life.
Eventually, everything fell apart. I left my partner at the time, left my job, and my flatmate interceded in my poor state by suggesting my problem was that I was a paedophile. His conclusion made perfect sense. I felt calm for the first time that I could remember. I went off to a state psychologist and told them that I was a paedophile. She told me that I needed to attend a group meeting fir survivors of child abuse. To be honest, my response was total confusion. I even had my arms raised thinking that the next door police station would be informed and they would shackle me. So I really didn't know what to do when I was shown the door.
But being at the group taught me a lot. I heard for the first time the voices and personal narratives of men like me. And the more I allowed myself to embody each part of my fears instead of trying to contain them, the more I could breath. It was like the experience of them lessened the anxiety. Additionally, it provided a place where I could start to practice expressing my narrative and taking ownership of it.
That was an empowering experience.
There was more, but essentially those parts of my story are much more indirectly the side effects of paedophilia than the points made above.
Taking hold of the shadowed parts of the psyche and giving them a voice is the only way I have found that reunites my fractured mind. I like myself now. It was counter-intuitive at the time, but the parts of the psyche that have hidden gold and strength were all the parts that were encaged by defence mechanisms internal to myself. But once I started to find the first taste of peace on pursuing any pain inside, the faster and more intrigued I became.
That is my story.
Sorry it was a bit of a ramble.
Kind regards
J.
In response to: Re: Trauma and social skills
Ruby26Senior Contributor
Re: Trauma and social skills
@J_1nOz wow, thank you so much for sharing that with me. I'm very sorry for everything that you went through and I'm glad you have found healing. I am also finding healing in support groups. I think I understand how to give shadowed parts of myself a voice, but I'm not ready yet to cope with the level of emotional work required. Thank you for giving me some hope.
In response to: Re: Trauma and social skills
J_1nOzContributor
Re: Trauma and social skills
Hi @Ruby26
Thank you for listening to my story. I'm very happy you are in support groups. I am wishing with all my heart the healing you deserve and a firm sense of being that will be one of pride.
Best of luck on your journey.
Kind regards
J.
In response to: Re: Trauma and social skills
Ruby26Senior Contributor
Re: Trauma and social skills
@J_1nOz thank you for your beautiful well wishes, likewise.
