Counselling worries

[Otter]

I am recently married and this is my first long-term sexual relationship. All of a sudden I am having very disturbing flashbacks and feelings of a very scary incident in my childhood every time my husband and I make love.

 

It's very hard for me to want to have sex now since I keep having panic attacks every time my husband and I start to become intimate. I went to a rape crisis counsellor to talk about the childhood incident and she told me she didn't have the knowledge to help me--she only counselled recently raped victims. We don't have any money for me to go to a trained therapist or we would have done that long ago, when this started happening.

 

Is there anything I can do? My husband is very frustrated since I've lost all desire for sex and we fight a lot because of it. I want to please him but these feelings of fear are too strong for me to handle. Does anyone know of anything I can do?

[Ed]

From what you described, I think you do need the help of a trained therapist or counselor.

 

When it comes to your health, mental or otherwise, you have to find a way to get help. I guess coming here is one way of looking for help. Good for you. But, I'm sure you would agree that this issue can't be solved on-line.

 

Money is a concern for everyone trying to make ends meet. There are a number of therapists and counselors that will see you on a sliding fee scale (they will charge you based on your income). Call every crisis center and counselor in your phone book to find one that will see you on this basis. If there are not any in your town, call the ones in the next town and so forth until you find somebody.

 

The longer you put this off, the greater the risk to your marriage. If you are going to have a reasonably normal and acceptable marriage with anyone, you are going to have to get some relief from this previous scar. Try your best to salvage the marriage you have now by getting help now. Your husband will just have to be understanding and patient with you on this. He probably needs to talk to a counselor too, to get a better understanding of what you are going through.

 

Good luck to you.

[Tony T]

Obsessive thoughts are easily controlled with a combination of will power and a great prescription medication called Anafranil. Go to your doctor and have him prescribe this for you. It is widely used for the control of obsessive thoughts, among other things. Once you've taken the proper dose for a couple of weeks and your blood level gets to the right place, these thoughts should not be a problem.

 

If you'd like to read more about Anafranil, go to: http://www.psyweb.com/Drughtm/anafranil.html

 

Good luck and good sex!

[:(]

This woman's problem isn't obsessive thoughts. It seems clear to me that she was sexually abused/molested as a child and has painful issues that she's never dealt with or resolved. Will power and pills aren't going to get at the root of her problems. Perhaps I read wrong, maybe she wasn't molested, I guess she was raped. Popping pills isn't going to "fix" a rape victim. They need professional counseling, possibly even the help of a psychiatrist or at least, a psychologist.

 

Will power isn't going to help erase her memories of havinb been violated in the past. You make it sound like you just flip a switch, cross your fingers and toes and you can forget being raped. No offense but obviously you've never been raped. I can speak from experience.

 

She needs to contact her local Crisis Line and see if they can direct her to someone who specializes in Rape counselling. There very well may be some group out there in the community that provides this free of service. If not, she should go to her family doctor and request a referral to a psychiatrist or psychologist. Her health insurance, if she has any, should cover this if it's ordered by her family doctor I would think.

 

Popping pills is not the answer to dealing with ghosts from the past. She's not having obsessive thoughts, she's having flashbacks from her rape of years past. This is very common for victims of rape. And the frustration her husband is feeling is common too because it's often hard for a husband to understand what his wife is going through, although I sense from her post that her husband is being selfish and caring only about his sexual needs and little about the fact that the love of his life is dealing with painful ghosts. Though maybe he doesn't know how to help her but making her feel pressured to "get better and get on with it" will do her no good but make her feel even worse.

 

There are FREE hotlines that this poster can call, to speak with someone about her past sexual assault. They can also put her in touch with the appropriate resources in her area:

 

Rape, Abuse, Incest National Network/click here (1-800-656-HOPE)

 

Rape Recovery Help and Information Site

 

From the site above, here is a link that provides that contact info to Rape Crisis Centers throughout the U.S.:

 

Crisis Center Contact Info

 

This link is from the site above...a page that gives links to various ONLINE COUNSELLING Services (free), pertaining to Victims/Survivors of Rape: Online Counselling Links

 

To respond by saying the solution to her problem is a "piece of cake" is offensive and insensitive and totally trivializing her pain and struggles. Rape victims can most often require years of counseling and support to properly deal with their past and all of the emotions associated with it. It often requires, too, that their partners and spouses seek counseling too, so that they can better understand what their partner is going through. Being a survivor of rape and dealing with relationships following, including sex (even within the confines of a marriage) is anything but a piece of cake.

 

Obsessive thoughts are easily controlled with a combination of will power and a great prescription medication called Anafranil. Go to your doctor and have him prescribe this for you. It is widely used for the control of obsessive thoughts, among other things. Once you've taken the proper dose for a couple of weeks and your blood level gets to the right place, these thoughts should not be a problem. If you'd like to read more about Anafranil, go to: http://www.psyweb.com/Drughtm/anafranil.html

 

Good luck and good sex!

[Tony T]

Your advice to me here is excellent and well received. However, I was not the one posting for advice. Let's hope the person who seeks help understands that, except for the criticism aimed at me, the infomation above is for her.

 

This forum is not for criticism of other people's advice, although there's nothing wrong with that. It is for helping people with their problems. Most often people get the most help from the totality of posts, taking what they need from all the advice.

 

You have brought up some excellent material here and I'm glad you did.

 

She clearly stated she went to a rape counsellor who couldn't help her. She also clearly stated she didn't have the money for extensive counselling. I personally felt that with that information in mind, the medication might be a more direct approach. Maybe it's not and you have given her additional direction.

 

The first poster, Ed, went over a lot of material relative to seeing a counsellor and I saw no reason to repeat that. It was a good post and I gave the person seeking advice credit for being able to digest that information and take what she needed from it.

 

I appreciate that it may make you feel good to put other posters down and if it does, I am happy to oblige as a target. But I hope we can all remember that our objective here is to help people, not to cut others down.

 

The immaturity of a post like this demeans the message you desire to transmit. By omitting the put-downs and sticking to information helpful to the poster, your credibility is increased 100 fold and the poster has a much warmer feeling about the possibility you may be a pro who knows what he or she is talking about.

 

My total intention was to help this lady, regardless of the content. I do not think that was your total intention in your post above, a lot of which was to make your ownself happy by putting my post down. Why aren't you happy?

 

By the way, your new nickname is a cute one.

[Tony T]

I know I'm trying to change the spots on a leopard here. No matter what I write here there will be a serious rebuttal because that is your nature. I won't participate further.

 

However, I hope you will consider in the future that if you find it totally necessary to criticize another person's post that you do so in a more positive way. One line is sufficient...such as: "Tony is way off here, in my opinion, and I'd like to give you some things that may be a lot more helpful to you."

 

That you become obsessed with critcizing some people's posts and some of the answers that follow really takes a lot from the very important, accurate, and helpful things you have to say. And it does further damage when the topic is of such a serious and sensitive nature as rape.

 

If you want to make yourself feel better by tearing someone apart, do it on a piece of paper and then toss it. You really do take away from what you have to say and give by taking the low road at times.

[:(]

Tony I can't even keep track of the number of times you've criticized or debated the advice given by other people here. If you don't agree with advice that someone has given, you have no qualms about expressing your disagreement.

 

I think what gets you here is that someone dared to disagree with "your" advice. How dare someone, right? To respond to someone who's had the courage to admit that a past rape is affecting their marriage with "piece of cake", making it sound like their problem is a walk in the park and can be solved in 1.3 seconds, to me, if offensive and not very sensitive.

 

Furthermore, you're not a doctor as far as I'm aware so I think you're out of line by tossing out the names of medications and asking complete strangers who you don't know their medical history, to go to their doctor and ask for these medications. Wouldn't the doctor get a laugh when said person says "some guy on the internet told me to ask for this."

 

i have all the right in the world to criticize your advice if I feel that it's not good advice. Have you ever been raped? No, i didn't think so. I have.

 

Just because this woman says that a rape counselor told her that she needs to seek help elsewhere, and the fact that she says she can't afford professional help, that doesn't mean there aren't other options for her in terms of counselling. You make it sound like the trauma and scars of rape can simply be washed away from one's mind, simply by having will power and some pills. That's arrogant and wrongly simplistic advice. I'm sorry that you're so offended by my disagreement but I'll not back down on how I feel. I know you think you own this board and that you're the only one who can give good advice. It must be a real threat to your pride and ego when someone dares to disagree with you. That is unfortunate but you should try to not take these things so personally. As well as this being a relationship forum, it's also a discussion forum.

 

If you're so outraged by the fact that I, as someone who's had to live half of my life being a survivor of rape, didn't feel your advise was very sensitive to this woman's needs or situation, and that i was so out of line for expressing so, then I guess from this point on we shall never see you (again) dissing other people's advice, right? Not even sure how you as a man can even give advice on dealing with rape. Anyway, have a nice day and try to take a deep breath and relax.

Your advice to me here is excellent and well received. However, I was not the one posting for advice. Let's hope the person who seeks help understands that, except for the criticism aimed at me, the infomation above is for her. This forum is not for criticism of other people's advice, although there's nothing wrong with that. It is for helping people with their problems. Most often people get the most help from the totality of posts, taking what they need from all the advice. You have brought up some excellent material here and I'm glad you did. She clearly stated she went to a rape counsellor who couldn't help her. She also clearly stated she didn't have the money for extensive counselling. I personally felt that with that information in mind, the medication might be a more direct approach. Maybe it's not and you have given her additional direction. The first poster, Ed, went over a lot of material relative to seeing a counsellor and I saw no reason to repeat that. It was a good post and I gave the person seeking advice credit for being able to digest that information and take what she needed from it. I appreciate that it may make you feel good to put other posters down and if it does, I am happy to oblige as a target. But I hope we can all remember that our objective here is to help people, not to cut others down. The immaturity of a post like this demeans the message you desire to transmit. By omitting the put-downs and sticking to information helpful to the poster, your credibility is increased 100 fold and the poster has a much warmer feeling about the possibility you may be a pro who knows what he or she is talking about. My total intention was to help this lady, regardless of the content. I do not think that was your total intention in your post above, a lot of which was to make your ownself happy by putting my post down. Why aren't you happy? By the way, your new nickname is a cute one.

 

[:(]

"And it does further damage when the topic is of such a serious and sensitive nature as rape."

 

You are absolutely correct. It is a very serious and sensitive subject, and one deserving of a more sensitive and serious response than something to the effect that having will power and taking antidepressants will fix everything. The scars of rape run very, very deep and all the will power in the world cannot make the flashbacks and scars go away. I'm sure thousands of rape victims each day wish it were that simple, that they could just will themselves to forget the tragedy that was forced upon them.

 

I'm sorry that you're making such a big deal out of someone disagreeing with your advice. Your overreaction here might suggest that you feel your advice is so 100% correct all the time that nobody should dare disagree. I'd say that is something you might want to work on. I've yet to see someone react this way, to someone disagreeing with their advice. I can see I hit a nerve, sorry about that. Maybe you just some will power to keep from getting this distressed in the future. Take care.

[Tony T]

OK. You get the final word here.