Hopeless
Posted: November 6th, 2012, 6:55 pm
I'm having a less than great day. I was going through expert testimony and medical records of a murder and rape case involving a victim coerced into compliance, and there were questions about how guilty she was of the acts that she had assisted her husband with. The team of therapists evaluating her compared her mental state to that of a concentration camp survivor, the victim of a sexual sadists typical brainwashing tactics that works through a mixture of isolation and physical, sexual, and psychological torture. The law isn't really well codified to deal with something like that. We have the principle of duress, but we don't really have encoded duress into situations where the source of it isn't present anywhere else but in the mind of the victim, and so, in the end, she wasn't treated like a victim, but as a perpetrator. That's very annoying to me, as all species of "blaming the victim" annoy me. It upset me, but it's not what really is at the top of my mind right now.
I'm a sexual sadist. And I don't mean that in a "how about we try to play with a little bit of pain" kind of way you might find in BDSM. I'm talking about the real deal. That's my mental disorder. I've been fighting it for many, many, many years now. And I would like to think that I am ok, that I have shown myself to be ok in very tempting or triggering situations where the predatory instincts flared up like a nova, but I did not act, I did not lose myself, and most importantly, that I will be ok. That I won't lose myself to this. When you read the literature something you come across inevitably is that for the adult, criminal, sexual sadist there is no treatment. Now, all those words are important. Adult, and criminal. The way I always took this was that after the break, they remain broken beyond repair, to dangerous to let them back into society. I didn't take it as the break being unavoidable. You also read that it's degenerative, getting worse over time. That worries me, but it didn't take away my hope. What I didn't know until today is that apparently self awareness of ones condition as a sexual sadist and a pro-active approach is extremely common, that many seek therapy or other means of self regulation in order to prevent the break, and that in every single recorded case they have failed. That scares the crap out of me, and it ... takes me close to resignation today. I'm only 30. I have ten years time before I'm in the age bracket where the break usually occurs. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to get devoured by the beast within. My compassion, my empathy, my moral code, anything that means anything to me... how can it be that this will fade. For 12 years I've invested an incredible amount of energy in trying to fix, get rid, compartmentalize, cope, channel, dealt with shame, fear, - of self, of others, -, history of abuse, anything that might be a cause. So much energy, so much time, so much painful growth. And to read that there is no point to it all, and that there is no hope, and no path, ...
What am I supposed to do with that information, that there is nobody who can help, and that there is no real hope, and that despite any effort, I am, and remain, a ticking time bomb. To me, that's a death sentence.
I'm a sexual sadist. And I don't mean that in a "how about we try to play with a little bit of pain" kind of way you might find in BDSM. I'm talking about the real deal. That's my mental disorder. I've been fighting it for many, many, many years now. And I would like to think that I am ok, that I have shown myself to be ok in very tempting or triggering situations where the predatory instincts flared up like a nova, but I did not act, I did not lose myself, and most importantly, that I will be ok. That I won't lose myself to this. When you read the literature something you come across inevitably is that for the adult, criminal, sexual sadist there is no treatment. Now, all those words are important. Adult, and criminal. The way I always took this was that after the break, they remain broken beyond repair, to dangerous to let them back into society. I didn't take it as the break being unavoidable. You also read that it's degenerative, getting worse over time. That worries me, but it didn't take away my hope. What I didn't know until today is that apparently self awareness of ones condition as a sexual sadist and a pro-active approach is extremely common, that many seek therapy or other means of self regulation in order to prevent the break, and that in every single recorded case they have failed. That scares the crap out of me, and it ... takes me close to resignation today. I'm only 30. I have ten years time before I'm in the age bracket where the break usually occurs. I don't want that to happen. I don't want to get devoured by the beast within. My compassion, my empathy, my moral code, anything that means anything to me... how can it be that this will fade. For 12 years I've invested an incredible amount of energy in trying to fix, get rid, compartmentalize, cope, channel, dealt with shame, fear, - of self, of others, -, history of abuse, anything that might be a cause. So much energy, so much time, so much painful growth. And to read that there is no point to it all, and that there is no hope, and no path, ...
What am I supposed to do with that information, that there is nobody who can help, and that there is no real hope, and that despite any effort, I am, and remain, a ticking time bomb. To me, that's a death sentence.