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Anna's testimonial

resilient childhood sexual trauma

10/11/2016

I was 49 years old, I had been married for 20 years, the relationship with my husband was stable, reassuring but also stamped with inaffectivity, therefore not very satisfactory. I was questioning my relationship, my eldest daughter had left home for a long trip abroad when suddenly my life changed.

 

It was two years ago.

I fell in love with a man I knew (almost) well since he was a work colleague with whom I had worked for at least 7 years. He didn't really pay court to me, but gave me a hand. It was very tempting especially since in the years that had passed he was the only man for whom I felt an intense desire at times. So I bowed to the desire that inflamed me. Our first nights were magical. I rediscovered my sensuality, he took me on board with his ardor that I sometimes tried to curb. He was the fire, I was the water. I was touched by his flame, he left the marital home after 1 month of our relationship. He was incredibly sincere and profound.

You will find this story in the third person, which allows me to distance myself from my experience and my emotions. The character (me in real life) is called Anna. His name is Esteban.

Silence, Henri Fuselli

Anna listens to him talk, talk about him, talk about his love for her, their luminous encounter, their love initiation but he doesn't see her. She tries to be but still he's surprised, he doesn't expect her to exist/be real. Anna is sad but she herself does not do the same ? She is captivated by his dense and intense presence, by his dark blue gaze, his long and slender hands of an artist or pianist. Can she love him in his reality ? But above all how to give him one when fantasy and blind spots take over, when illusion puts distorting glasses on the nose of each of the lovers ? Esteban and Anna are fools without being. They talk about it and would like their knowledge to ward off fate, but life is stronger than their reasoned hope, the heart and its passions are the greatest strength. Their will can do nothing about it, they feel their powerlessness to counter forces that are beyond them and seek to manifest a meaning. They probably have to give up on each other, as much as possible of a couple, so that each finds his own way. Anna tries to reassure herself, it is not possible to part after having lived this exchange of soul to soul embodied in the flesh of each one. Words have no power to describe this incarnation where they brushed against the divine and deployed their child's heart, naked. Esteban reassures Anna. Let her go on a quiet hike with friends, he will stop grabbing her ; that she is going to Sweden with her husband and children as planned, after all that they have only been lovers for a month. He will try to work on his conflicts, he accepts his remarks, seems to question himself in front of his exacerbated possessiveness.

And at nightfall on a June day, a venomous voice swells above him, coming out of the night like a monster. Anna can't believe it, she's petrified. His breathing is panting and almost weak. Her legs are shaking, she hears him speak and the words pierce her :

“  Make a choice, you don't know how to make a choice, I can no longer live in secret. I can't stand your husband being near you, leave him. I can't stand your holidays, your friends ” and contradiction : “  Don't do it for me._cc7581905 -3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_» Anna gasps and thinks he has no right. She no longer recognizes him. He is tough and ruthless. Is it his desire or is it his shadow ? Inside herself, the interior that had become serene again shatters. Other words are pronounced, harsh and chilling. These words she will never forget, they erase the most beautiful, the sweetest he has ever spoken. A night passes. She must not forget that it is mental abuse, that she spent the night on the verge of implosion between anguish, panic and pain, almost in apnea. The interior was totally threatened. She didn't even have access to her desire anymore. He imposed his, she had to submit, she was painted, repainted with the black spray that came out of her mouth, a torrent of thick lava, a torrent of insatiable and devouring hatred. The worst thing is that Anna thought he was right, a little anyway, surely. She was not up to it, her self-esteem was totally destroyed, undermined. The anguish was so strong that the thought was vanished, absent, no more support, just the breathing of a tired little dog to take a little air and survive like a woman drowned in the beyond, like a puppet, disarticulated, drained of energy, staggering and tottering. She knows that she must find her sanctuary to deploy what radiates within, to regain her confidence, her accuracy. She knew then that she had to leave him. At night, if only the night could be restorative, but at night monsters come out, suddenly dreams arose. She sees herself as small, she rushes against her father's body to listen to his heart ; she smiles at an angel, at a God. She forgets what she loves, she forgets who she is, he wants her little arms trying to embrace her, he wants her kisses on her face. She's afraid of a gesture of annoyance, she's all honey, she's afraid he'll turn away so she promises her body, sticks to him, it's her who takes his hand, it's her who's guiding him, his body doesn't matter, she doesn't feel it anymore, she's anesthetized, so much the better. She doesn't move, doesn't say anything, anyway she doesn't exist, it can't hurt her for very long. She forgets, pays no attention to it, it's a daily banality ; she protects herself as best she can by seeing a God there, it is her way of protecting herself : idealizing. She does not recognize the threat, she does not recognize the danger : she is dissociated. If she started to SEE then she would crumble in pain.

The day, the day and the serenity still flee her, the dread does not leave her, her mind is monopolized by the dread constantly, she can no longer be available to the present despite the years of yoga and inner journey , despite the psychoanalysis she started 8 years ago.

Anna leaves Esteban, not for long. He begs her to come back, he's going to change, he's just going through a difficult time in his life. They resume and everything begins again in the darkest confusion. He calls, she falls into his arms, his soft voice charms her, night of fusion and enchantment, of erotic tenderness. Then two days later, in professional life she sees it, her body stiffens, tenses. Fear returns, she no longer has confidence. What should she listen to ? The psychoanalyst advises him to listen to his body which says " I can't, I can't anymore " but " l' state of love ”   is here. She cannot manage to detach herself from the one who fascinates her, subjugates her.

Their relationship is not fulfilling, it is deadly. But there is this attraction, this magnetism. She is in a terrible conflict : She is reluctantly in the reality of everyday life, but the power of her words overwhelms her. His melancholy : the song of the sirens.

La nuit : Anna goes slowly towards the bedroom, she lays her body on Esteban's. She's sad but doesn't even know it. She arches her back under his strong and powerful body, her hands try to penetrate his flesh, she is sad but does not know it ; soft light ; the hollows and bumps of his collarbones, the grain of his skin so fine so light, she drinks from his eyes, from his eager and wet lips, she nibbles on him, she bites with pleasure without hurting. She is sad but does not know it. She doesn't remember anymore, she doesn't want to remember that outside of this room, he doesn't like his reality, which is so simple. He blames her for everything, especially for being herself. She turns around, he takes her in his arms, she stretches out under his delicate pianist's hands, so long, so beautiful. She says yes she calls him, she feels the excitement and pleasure rising in waves in them. She is sad and abused but she doesn't know it, she preferred to cut herself off. She split to enjoy, to enjoy again and not to separate, not to be alone, to retain him again. May he never leave. Eleria, Her name is Eleria that night. " she (is) nothing ". She's calm, she's sweet. She loves his dark gaze, she shivers. She's calm, she's sweet. He misses his cry. He lacks his cry against offense.

During the day Anna notices a strange behavior : She who especially did not want this extra marital relationship to be known, she   suddenly no longer hides it. She accompanies him for a coffee, She smiles at him, spends every break  avec lui : she finds herself doing the opposite of what she _cc781905-5cde- 3194-bb3b-136bad5cf58d_wanted to do. She doesn't understand why she is doing this. She does what he wants her to do.

She senses a threat. When she sees him at work, he looks at her with a hard, cold look. Hardness, icy gaze. It exudes terrible violence. Anna feels she has to cut the tie. She needs to free herself from this feeling of threat. She writes a breakup letter and sends it to him. A crushing guilt nails her, but she doesn't go back. Relief too, she will be able to regain her joy of living. A salvo of SMS ensues, she does not answer. He threatens to come and tell her husband everything. They meet at work, he accuses her of being in contempt while she is in TERROR. She dreams of the psychoanalyst, who is also his own psychotherapist. This psychoanalyst, whom she asked a few weeks earlier   if it was healthy for him to continue to follow two patients who know each other, who are living a story of which no one knows the outcome, e and where intimacy and sexuality will necessarily be revealed. He assures her that it is quite possible to follow Anna and Esteban, that he will know how to remain neutral and detached. But in reality   himself is fooled. The dream that the psychoanalyst is excited, that he has a hard-on and tries to spy on their sexual relations with twin girls. She wakes up, she doesn't know where she is anymore. Is the psychoanalyst not   sinking into the dark side of voyeurism ? She feels that she can't even count on him anymore.

Esteban continues to send text messages, the discussion resumes, there is a bombardment of text messages, the fatigue is extreme, her psychic resistance begins to crack, she is on the verge of decompensation : it doesn't only 3 months this whole story but it's a devastation. She feels that the interiority is completely disintegrated, that she no longer has any resources or internal security. She is drowned in contradictory messages but can no longer distinguish what is clear from what is confused, she lacks critical thinking : emotions take over all the time, terror kills the mind. And his psychoanalyst is of no help to him.

 

At that time in my life, everything is too violent, too brutal and these bizarre dreams continue. Dreams... Smells of semen, crumpled sheets, my paralyzed legs that can't free themselves, a water lily growing in my lungs, my body like a metallic carcass being shaken, no face, no face but the texture my father's hair. I sink at night, I sink in the day. My spirit will die if this continues. Why am I going through all this at 50 ? This is nonsense to me. On the verge of implosion, on the verge of drowning, I was fished out by my sister who advised me to consult a psychotherapist specializing in power relations. I leave my psychoanalyst who tells me, contrite, that I am making a wise decision. I then begin an in-depth work. I reread my dreams, written down in a notebook for 9 years. There are many references to Boris Vian. I look for. Looking at his face in a photo  makes me melt with tenderness, why ? Who does he look like ? To my father. And why the water lily in my lungs ? I reread L'écume Des Jours, l'Arrache Coeur andI see this same climate of incestuality. Where I thought I saw tenderness was maternal greed, or that of my grandmother,   break-in, coldness, caresses that are not tender but sexual caresses, they want me captive,   it's a bottomless pit. And I remember my mother a few years ago taking her bath, her little children, very young around her. They came back to us saying " Grand-mother  takes a bath she showed us her breasts, she wants us to touch her breasts_cc781905-5cde-3194 -bb3b-136bad5cf58d_»   and we, his daughters, didn't know what to say so much we were under the influence. 

 

That same year, 8 years ago, I was diagnosed with Lyme disease. What a strange disease : a parasite drains you of your energy, of your substance without you noticing the tick bite. A disease that many patients try to make their entourage understand because they are often told that they imagine their suffering, their symptoms. Even doctors do not take these patients seriously since in the laboratory tests nothing is found. Dreams : an army of insects is descending on me, engines of war climb along the walls of my house and spy on my every move. A sink faucet and spaghetti like worms   coming out of it.   At that moment of the analytic therapy I discovered that my mother is " tordue " but it will take me years to put myself in touch with the suffering it has caused, and through it. That year, I cling to my father, as always. I feel like he's a shield, someone I can rely on.   In fact, he is afraid of his wife and always minimizes her actions. My father is charming, charming, helpful, he never gets angry. Everyone adores him.   Me too. He is my Prince Charming. And then one day, during a vacation we're all spending together, I realize that I'm afraid he'll come into my room. However, I was over 40 at the time. What's wrong with me ?   Nothing rises from the Unconscious to the Conscious yet, just a fear.   My father died the following year and left us in a very complicated financial situation. Analytical work stalls. My psychic evolution seems blocked. Then suddenly this extra-marital affair comes to shake the whole building. And the idealized image of my father crumbles. Nightmares follow one after another. I am asked to keep the secret, to say nothing, feeling of nothingness, my soul escapes to the ceiling, goes out into the garden and goes to see the grasshopper which is in the grass so that I do not see the face which is above mine. But there is the thick black hair, my little arms that surround this man with all their childlike tenderness. He is so unhappy. This woman, my mother, who does not know how to give him   affection. The smell of semen, the sheets crumpling, my body slipping and my thighs paralyzing. I will die.

 

But I'm lucky. I discover the compassion of a woman,  whose job and mission is to heal the wounded soul. She listens to me, a space opens up where my distress is heard and taken seriously. This true, real compassion frees me little by little from the sexual trauma of my childhood, which remained buried, well buried despite psychoanalysis. Then I understand the meaning of what is happening to me. I hadn't seen anything because they were scattered puzzle pieces that had to be put together. Finally, I trust my feelings, my intuition. I find secrets and traumas in my ancestors in a genealogical quest of several months. My father was educated with the Jesuits in this same school that the media talked about this year. Would he also have been a victim   of these pedophile murderers ? Most likely : In a 2 year old dream my father, a little boy, is crouching on a sidewalk and walking backwards towards the Moiltor Pool. I learned later that indeed the students of this Jesuit school were taken there. Did something happen there ? In my professional and personal life, I still experienced moments of distress each time I met my ex-lover at the bend of a hallway. Luckily, he left the scene and my traumatic memory doesn't light up as much anymore. I also experienced moments of grace because I felt myself coming back to life. It sparkled under my skin, the heat was coming back. Today I am no longer frozen or frozen. I feel that my soul, too bruised and lost until now, is coming back into my body. I am more in touch with my emotions when I was completely cut off from them for years. A future opens before me. This is finally the time for hope. The hope of becoming what I deeply am and from which I have been separated for so long. I advance.

 

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