Guest Post: The Ghosts That Come Between Us – Bulbul Bahuguna

Today Bulbul Bahuguna stops by to share a guest post and an excerpt from her book, The Ghosts That Come Between Us. 

Guest Post: Complex Emotions in a Survivor of Sexual Abuse

While each survivor is different and his or her own unique story of abuse and victimization, there are several common themes in their clinical presentation.

Symptoms in sexual abuse victims vary depending on the age of the victim at the time of the sexual assault, age of abuser, relationship with perpetrator, concomitant verbal, physical and emotional abuse or threats, family constellation and dynamics, level of education, intensity, extent, frequency and duration of the abuse, and finally, access to a support system or mental health professionals. Usually, the perpetrator is not a stranger and is well-known to the victim.

Most emotions are experienced very intensely and the victim feels “out of control” during repeated emotional crises. He is often tormented by vivid dreams or nightmares that can wake him up in the middle of the night. Appetite changes can range from restricting behaviors to obsession with food that can cause significant weight gain, literally using body fat to push people away to “feel safe.”  The victim can feel immobilized and trapped owing to learned helplessness, yet hysterical reactions are not uncommon. Panic attacks can occur, sometimes triggered by a memory and at other times totally unprovoked, accompanied by intense anxiety and “out of body” experiences. Obsessive thoughts, fears and phobias can also occur, as well as a myriad of addictions including an addiction to dysfunctional relationships.

The victim can easily compartmentalize his thinking and block out certain memories, which often leads to “feelings of emptiness.” He is often obsessed with issues of fairness and justice, sometimes culminating in fantasies of revenge and retribution. Self-mutilation to ‘numb’ oneself, and issues related to intimacy, gender identity and sexuality are also prevalent.

Feelings of guilt, shame and self-blame, hopelessness and helplessness, and self-loathing are frequent in a victim of sexual abuse. Sometimes he is unable to verbalize any emotions or self-soothe. Feelings of loss and betrayal can lead to thoughts and images of self-harm, and plans to hurt oneself or those who caused and perpetuated the trauma.

The victim has a strong desire to be believed that is pervasive and universally defines his persona. Often, he has an intense need to feel “perfect,” needed and loved. He may have difficulty being assertive and can easily get enmeshed and codependent. Sometimes, this can result in poor management of boundaries with others and repeated self-sabotaging relationships. Feeling judged by others and an inability to trust is common. While he has great difficulty being controlled by others, the victim can also experience an intense need to feel special.

De-personalization and de-realization can also occur. Often the victim describes this as “zoning out” feeling “fragmented,” or “being in a haze.” Dissociation is fairly prevalent, when the victim feels he is literally out of his own body and watching himself from another place. He often complains about flashbacks of abuse. These are intrusive thoughts of being re-victimized that are often repetitive, and appear so real that the victim feels as if the trauma is happening all over again. Body memories can be very intrusive and threatening, and the victim vacillates between hyper-arousal and hyper-vigilance to disorientation and numbing. Startle reaction is not uncommon. When this happens, the victim can be taken totally unawares and feel vulnerable and unsafe all over again.

Sexual abuse is a lifelong trauma to the body, psyche and soul. It is important to stress that the first step in helping a victim of sexual abuse is to believe him. He needs to feel safe in order to begin the process of healing.

I would like to end on a hopeful note: recovery is possible. But it does take work. So please get help and be patient.

Excerpt from The Ghosts That Come Between Us

“It was quite late when we got back home. As usual, I crept between both my parents in bed.

I remember Daddy rubbing my back as usual, as I faced away from where he lay beside me, feeling his rapid breath behind me, his body warm against mine. And as usual, it felt so good. So relaxing. For a while he continued to massage my shoulders. Then he moved his soothing hands purposefully, to rub the nape of my neck. Also, just as usual.

But what was about to happen next was not just as usual. His hands started to move forward. Then he began to fondle the front of my chest, gently playing with and titillating my budding breasts. Or whatever they were supposed to be called at the time. He was stroking them tenderly, one at a time, circling my nipples with his long tapering fingers. This felt strangely odd and novel, fun but scary, good and bad, all at once.

I was feeling sensations that I did not know until then even existed. Then it happened again. And again. I kept my eyes closed throughout.

When I close my eyes, I cease to be. When I can’t see anything, it’s not happening to me. It’s actually happening to someone else, I imagined.

I remember feeling there was something wrong about the whole thing. But for some reason, it still felt exciting and special. Then it was all over as suddenly as it had begun and we both went to sleep.

My first thought the next morning was, Mummy should never know. She would surely automatically assume that I’m a bad girl. That it’s all my fault. Nobody should ever know. This is something between just Daddy and me.

It’ll never happen again, I told myself. It must never happen again. It’s just possible, that it never even happened in the first place. Maybe, it was just a bad dream.”

The Ghosts That Come Between Us (2013)The Ghosts That Come Between Us is a first-person narrative that follows the life journey of a girl named Nargis. The story starts in the Himalayas in postindependence India, spans through Communist Russia, and ends in a Chicago suburb in the United States. While the book recounts delightful memories of childhood in the sixties and colorful anecdotes of family travels through young urban and feudal rural India, finding love behind the impervious Iron Curtain, and the adventure and challenge of immigrating to the United States, the book in the main is about Nargis’s struggle to escape the confusing relationship with her father, Brigadier Yadav, and forgo the special status she thrived and in which she enjoyed growing up. The closure Nargis strives for, she painfully realizes, has to come from within. Nargis’s journey combines the daring straightforwardness of innocent childhood with the poetic eloquence of an adult engaged in hazy reflection.

 

Amazon USAmazon UKGoodreads About Bulbul BahugunaBahuguna was born and raised in Northern India. She began her studies in medicine at the prestigious All India Institute of Medicine and finished them in the Soviet Union, funded by a full merit scholarship.  For the last 22 years, she has been a psychiatrist practicing in Chicago. She is a national trustee of non-profit the American India Foundation, which advances the ties between the US and India.

Guest Post: The Ghosts That Come Between Us – Bulbul Bahuguna | Thank you for reading Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave