In Dashs case, his father was a high-functioning alcoholic while his mother struggled with life-long poor body image and eating disorders. Though there may be little to no direct sexual activity, these overly enmeshed relationships have a sexualized undertone, with the parent expressing overly graphic verbal interest in the childs physical development and sexual characteristics and/or betraying the childs boundaries via voyeurism, exhibitionism, sexualized conversations, and inappropriate sharing of intimate stories and/or images.Ĭovert incest often occurs when the parents have distanced themselves from one another both physically and emotionally, and/or when one or both of the parents are addicted to a substance or behavior. In this way, a child is used for emotional fulfillment, forced to support the adult by serving as a trusted confidante and/or an emotional spouse. In contrast to overt sexual abuse, which involves hands-on sexual contact, covert abuse involves less direct forms of sexuality – sexuality that is emotionally implied or suggested rather than overtly acted out. Ultimately we identified and addressed the covert incest perpetrated by his mother as a key component underlying his sexual addiction.Ĭovert incest, also known as emotional incest (and sometimes as psychic incest), is the surreptitious, indirect, sexualized emotional use/abuse of a child by a parent, step-parent, or any other long-term caregiver. Eventually he was able to identify the parts of his maternal attachment that were damaging. (It is equally typical for covert incest survivors to enter therapy viewing their special relationship with a parent as a cherished privilege.) Though Dash initially resisted the notion that hed been abused by his mothers needfulness and emotional demands, over time, as he became more educated about family dynamics and looked more deeply into his adult problems, he came to reinterpret much of what he had believed about his mother. Still, by the time I was 15 or 16, just being in the same room with her made my skin crawl.Īs is typical with covert incest survivors, Dash entered therapy relatively unaware of the long-term, adult-life effects of his mothers behavior – how her turning to him rather than her husband for emotional intimacy and sexualized closeness left him feeling icky and wrong even as an adult. What makes me crazy even now is that she never actually touched me sexually. All I really wanted was for her to leave me alone. Even if I was in my room with the door locked she could be right outside, listening and asking me through the closed door what I was doing, was I OK, did I need her for anything. Sometimes shed walk into the bathroom when I was in the shower to put away towels or some stupid thing that could easily have waited until I was done and dressed. She always seemed to sit a little too close to me, and she commented on my body all the time, especially when I was a teenager. I liked skipping school and eating out and getting see to movies that other kids didnt, but at the same time I always felt a little bit weird with her. My dad was always working or drinking, and she didnt have many women friends, so I was her fill-in. Sometimes she would take me to the movies with her – not kid movies but grown-up stuff. I would just get dragged along while she shopped, and then wed have lunch somewhere, with me listening to her talking about her life with my dad and how she was feeling about their relationship. When I was a kid my mom would pull me out of school some days, not for any reason other than she seemed to want my company. Over time, we discussed his family of origin, and what repeatedly stood out, as it does with many male sex addicts, was the often inappropriate, boundary-less, and covertly sexualized relationship Dash had with his mother. As part of his assessment and early treatment, I walked him through an extensive sexual, romantic, and relationship history, and from that it was clear that his patterns of problematic sexual behavior began relatively early, in his mid-teens, when he started viewing online porn and engaging in webcam sex. Nevertheless, his treatment motivation was high, even though he was hoping to not give up the escapist and highly compulsive sexual intensity that ruled his life. Unsurprisingly, he was in deep denial about his sexual problems – justifying, minimizing, blaming, and deflecting like a seasoned addict. Dash was also using adult friend finder apps, primarily Ashley Madison and Tinder, to seek out casual sexual encounters and prostitutes. In our initial assessment, Dash told me his sexual behavior had spiraled out of control, resulting in a string of reprimands at work (for downloading porn on company owned equipment) and eventually the loss of his job. Dashiell, a 29-year-old CPA, first came to see me after his self-described healthy sexual appetite went from fun to over-the-edge to addiction.
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