(Remember that every survivor is different, not all may apply to you, identify those that do and pay attention to how they play out in your life. How do you lead your life from your conditioned beliefs? 

I am also sharing what may have been our reasoning as children as we formed these beliefs. 

The way you reasoned as a child may not be by specifically thinking the words I will share here, although many of us have said these exact words.  For many of us they became a general understanding of our world based on what was happening to us.

I am bad. 

Our reasoning as children: 

I must be bad because bad things happen to me, because mommy or daddy always say it is my fault, because I am always in trouble, because I feel bad, because I “let” them do things to me. Other girls are not like me, they don’t do what I do, they are good girls and I am a bad girl.

I am dirty. 

Our reasoning as children:

I must be dirty because my abuser told me so, because it feels good and sometimes I like it, because I seek my abusers attention (especially true if the abuser is someone you love), because I have “sex” with my abuser (many of us believed we were having sex with our abuser, when in fact we were being raped)

I am unworthy and undeserving

Our reasoning as children:

I must not be worthy since I don’t receive good things, my mommy or daddy do not love me, so I must not be deserving of their love, there must be something wrong with me. It can’t be them because they are adults and they are always right.  My mommy doesn’t treat me like other mommies treat their children.  Every time I try to show her I am a good girl, she yells at me and I get in trouble. No matter what I do it just isn’t good enough, I can’t make her love me.

I’m unlovable, I am not good enough

Our reasoning as children:

No matter what I do, they don’t love me, no one is saving me, not God, not my other parent. I am not good enough to be rescued. If I was lovable, then they would love me.  If I was loveable they wouldn’t hurt me.

Something is wrong with me, I am not normal, I am not like other people. 

Our reasoning as children:

I feel so different; no one else seems to be experiencing what I am experiencing. There must be something wrong with me that bad things keep happening.  Why do men keep molesting me?  I must not be like other girls.  I don’t fit in anywhere. (because we feel so different and ashamed inside, this is the face we can’t help but project to the world.  It affects how we interact with others, how we walk, what we say.  Traumatized children are usually not happy go lucky, although some may use this facade to survive.  They tend not to be social and many tend to hold their heads down.  This body language, which as children we are not in control of, tends to make us easy prey for bullies at school and other perpetrators)

Sex is bad, anything of a sexual nature is bad

Sex equals love and attention. 

Sex and sexual acts make me feel close to the people I love (in it’s extreme, this can become a sexual addiction)

Our reasoning as children:

When they touch me, I feel bad, I don’t like it, it hurts, if anyone found out I would be in trouble.

When they touch me it feels good, I feel good, I feel like someone is paying attention to me, like I am important, like someone likes me, loves me.  I make my Daddy happy when I am close to him. No one pays attention to me except him.   

Note:  As adults this conditioning often comes up in the body and not necessarily as a thought.  The body can react by recoiling and avoiding if your conditioning linked the sexual violations with something negative.  On the other hand if your conditioning was more linked to pleasure, love and attention, you may use sex to get those needs met.  For some of us it may become a sexual addiction. 

Back to Conditioning

 

 

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