The Creepy Ass Smile of Sexual Predators

[trenton]

This is one of the things that bothered me for a long time after being sexually abused on multiple occasions. This included sex trafficking with my father and his gang, sexual assault, nightmares of being molested by my Uncle, and ultimate my mother teaching me that I am irredeemable bastard who is unworthy of existence. For example, my father seemed proud of the fact that he was offered 600 dollars to have me molested by his drug lord. It was as if he felt special as part of his badass gangster identity for being involved in a gang full of child molesters. I have seen this creepy ass smile multiple times with predators smiling in your face as they violate you. It is like they are trying to minimize what is happening while pretending it is about sexual gratification when really they just like degrading people to make them feel beneath them.

These sorts of experiences tend to cause me a lot of cognitive dissonance. It makes me feel even more conflicted about my sexuality while I struggle to comprehend and process these sorts of things. I seem to typically respond to this by withdrawing and isolating myself and not talking to anybody. On top of that these kinds of incidents seem to compound the original trauma in which I became suicidal due to my mother treating me as if I were a sexual predator. It is almost like in some twisted way I deserve this kind of treatment because I repeated the behaviors I was exposed to with my sister when I was six and she was four. I now feel tainted and unclean. It is like I now become hypervigilant about anything about myself which might seem immoral and thus contribute to the sense of dirtiness again. At least I logically understand that sexual abuse is never justice and it never makes anything better, so in that sense nobody deserves this kind of treatment even if I feel like an irredeemable bastard unworthy of life.

I do recall that this creepy smile that sexual predators often have are not limited to them, but also narcissistic family systems. My mother and sister are narcissists who often take sadistic pleasure in degrading me and weaponizing my trauma against me. Sometimes they will yell enough at me with their rage attacks to make me cry, and then they will start to give me these apologies while they are still smiling. They will even laugh when I try to take responsibility and use my admissions as tools to degrade me further while keeping approval permanently out of reach. For example, when I was young my mother came to me and told me that I was a bastard. She acted like it was a matter of fact statement because my parents were not married, but really she is a transgression seeker and she likes looking for ways to degrade others under the guise of honesty. The proof of this is that she is also the kind of person who likes to trigger people with the n word as if she is just being honest when really she is looking for ways to transgress and violate others because she finds pleasure in causing harm to others. This kind of behavior reveals her motives when she told me things like I was a bastard and as she weaponized morality against me to make me feel irredeemable and permanently unworthy of love. She likes to use morality to degrade others as well such as when she tries to guilt trip her children, shows disproportionate anger responses, and threatens suicide only to call such things little tiffs.

Despite all of these things I constantly made excuses for my mother and father. Instead I believed the things they said about me even though these are the kinds of people who don't value truth and they really should not be trusted. I knew this as a child when I witnessed their criminal activities, but I still internalized what they said about me anyway. If they do not value truth and they prioritize causing harm to others, then this should apply to their judgement of me as well because they are completely wrong about who I am anyway.

It seems the common factor between sexual predators and narcissists is that they take a sadistic pleasure in degrading others. It is just that one is through psychological means and the other is through sexual means. I have been working with a trauma therapist. It seems to be causing more insights to emerge around this trauma while I discover that my defense mechanism was intellectual distance. With these defenses falling away I am left with the raw emotional impact of these things. Of course this is accompanied by suicidal thoughts because I have been feeling this way for a long time. It is likely the case that I still do not grasp the full significance of the things that happened to me the weight of these kinds of feelings that have become normalized. I also notice that as I understand and grasp the significance of the things that happened to me, I seem to become more hesitant to approach these kinds of thoughts due to the feelings revealed without the intellectual distance and logic that I typically use to cope with these things by disassociating with my experience.

At the same time, I cannot afford to go to the hospital. I have been misdiagnosed with depression when really I likely have bipolar disorder. The pills they game me made my internal state even more chaotic, leading to repeated hospitalizations and medical debt for ineffective treatment that ultimately caused me to lose my job while making me unable to attend college, leaving me with even more debt for no reward. The pills have caused me too much damage and I don't know why I should ever trust doctors when they start throwing pills at me again.

What are your thoughts on this?

[theleelajoker]

Quote

What are your thoughts on this?

What kind of feedback are you looking for?

[trenton]

@theleelajoker I'm looking for help in processing sexual abuse. My ability to cope was overwhelmed no matter what I tried. I don't know that people here would have any advice other than therapy. The problem is that I am unable to access my therapist at this time so I needed to find some other why to handle this kind of material. One of the things that stuck with me was the twisted and perverted smiles of such creeps.

Any advice for processing these things outside of try to endure the unbearable while waiting for therapy?

[theleelajoker]

OK so I can't say for your particular case of sexual abuse. 

Don't know if it's helpful if I just say what helps/ helped me to deal with difficult experiences/ trauma?

[- Adam -]

You might find resonance in this powerful account
 

 

[Basman]

In western societies, we tend to put happiness on a pedestal. We treat happiness as the end goal of life, more or less. So, are you ashamed of being unhappy/stressed? Because if you are, then that would be just added stress. 

[trenton]

32 minutes ago, Basman said:

In western societies, we tend to put happiness on a pedestal. We treat happiness as the end goal of life, more or less. So, are you ashamed of being unhappy/stressed? Because if you are, then that would be just added stress. 

@Basman this is brilliant. Yes. I have been conditioned with the belief that I should be happy and I should love myself. I have had this seared into my brain since I was a young child. I felt that the fact that I was unable to love myself because of these things were further proof of my failure and inadequacy. This is also likely why I put purpose on a pedestal as it has to do with being self made and successful as if it would make me happy.

I never actually managed to undo these kinds of beliefs and dispositions. I guess I can try to talk about these more openly as they tie into some of my existential problems and questions which ultimately led me to actualized.org.

Why do I believe I need to be happy? Why do I believe unhappiness makes me inadequate? What does success mean to me? Why do I believe being successful will make me adequate?

Starting out, the belief that I needed to be happy seems to have started when I went to the doctor with my mom as a young child. The doctors started asking me if I was happy. I didn't know why they were asking these questions. Apparently they knew I was at a higher risk of suicide because of my father abandoning me. When asked these questions I would pause and seem confused. I wasn't sure what it meant to be happy. Part of me felt deeply uncomfortable and didn't want to tell them no. Therefore I ended up just smiling and laughing and then saying "well I'm happy now. So now what?"

They ended up accepting this answer. Now that I think about it, they were completely full of shit because it should be obvious that something is up here if the child is hesitant and unclear as to what is meant by happiness. Basically they were teaching me to mask. At the same time it made me think along the lines of them wanting me to feel satisfied in life in general, but they never told me what that would look like. They probably didn't want to tell me that satisfaction in life would be having a loving and present father along with my mother. That would make me happy in life, but I never had that. At the same time I got the impression like I was supposed to be happy because they wanted me to. They never told me what I should be looking for in a happy life. It left me with this sense that being unhappy was somehow unacceptable but they never told me why they suspected I would be unhappy, so I was deeply confused by this. I never had the experience of a present and loving father, so how would I know that that is what I wanted and needed? I thought it was normal for fathers to abandon their kids and leave them with single mothers given the example I saw in my parents.

But the belief that I should be happy seemed to stem from this. It was a means of denying my misery of my father's abandonment. They knew from the beginning that I was a higher risk of suicide but did not tell me anything about what they were getting at, leaving me lost and confused as to what happiness means. To me happiness means having present and loving parents who respect each other and set a good example for their children so I can grow up to be like them rather than being lost in life by being forced to figure out everything myself. I had no real guidance and I am so fucking tired of trying to figure out everything myself without the guidance of a close decent human being who I can trust.

This would then tie into why I think unhappiness makes me inadequate. I was left with the impression that my mom wanted me to happy and that it was somehow wrong if I was unhappy. They never told me why though. It was likely because they knew I would be more likely to die by suicide because of this. Therefore, the reason I cannot be unhappy is because it means that I would have no reason to live and I would be suffering to the point that I would be better off dying by suicide. Unhappiness to me means suicidal depression. I think it is fair to say that I don't want to live my life with this depression and unhappiness. This would be unacceptable to my mother because it would make her unhappy which in turn might make her angry with me leading to punishment or negative consequences.

At the same time, the reality is that I cannot have happiness in the form of a loving family to be present for me. Therefore I need to invent some other form of happiness that doesn't involve my family. I was also afraid of starting a family because I felt that I was unworthy of existence and people would not love me if they knew who I was on the inside. I was afraid that my mother might abandon me as well like my father.

To me I start to crave intimacy and connection but I simultaneously avoid it because I feel that I would not be wanted. I repeated the inappropriate sexual behavior my uncle did with children when I was six with my sister once I was exposed to it and I felt it made me unworthy of love as my mom thought I was an irredeemable bastard. I felt I was stupid for not knowing better and repeating this behavior. I felt that I was fundamentally a bad person who needed redemption even though it was already decided to be impossible.

I can never be happy in life because I am not wanted. To this day I want a romantic partner who will be there for me and see me for who I am. However I doubt I would be wanted because of my mental health problems like bipolar disorder, PTSD, and others. I now lost my job and struggle to maintain consistent income. I tried getting medical help but the medical system exploited me with ineffective treatment and drained my money. I try to redeem myself through life purpose but it is impossible.

Therefore I want to kill myself.

What are your thoughts?

[Basman]

1 hour ago, trenton said:

What are your thoughts?

Keep in mind that I'm no psychologist. My knowledge doesn't extend further than a general interest in psychology, philosophy and self-help, so take what I say with a grain of salt. 

First of all, it seems like your mind is juts very cluttered, with overlaying stressors and internalized feelings of believing you are unworthy of love. Feeling like your inherently unlovable seems to be a recurring theme, between fatherly abandonment, feeling like nobody supports you and generally being lonely. This could explain why you are hung up on your mother scolding you for molesting your younger sibling, even though it would be normal to freak out over that kind of sibling abuse, objectively speaking. It's an old wound. 

It might be worth going through and explicating what is objectively your fault VS what is theirs for each issue you've had for every major relationship you've had in a kind of list style.

• A = incident
• B = what your responsible for in this incident
• C = what they are responsible for in this incident

This way you can make it clear in your mind what is theirs and what is yours in a more objective manner. The truth is that a lot of abuse is not about you anymore than the fact that you where vulnerable at that moment and the abusers very own psychology.

You also seem to tend to interpret things in a very negative way. Like with the example of your mom scolding you earlier. It is a fact that she freaked out. It is a subjective interpretation that that means your inherently unworthy of love. I believe it is a symptom of BPD to ruminate and catastrophize. This tendency towards a negative and implicitly self-defeating thinking could be contributing to your feelings of suicidality, which is in my understanding the consequence of prolonged distress and not being able to see a way out. Suicide is a symptom of not being able to imagine a way out of distress.

One technique you could try, if you feel so inclined, is softening your language. Softening one's language lets you negotiate with negative thinking. For example, you recently experienced a bunch of set-backs, like losing your job, losing money, drugs not working, etc. The first obvious example is to think of these as set-backs as opposed to failures. Or another example, "the medical system exploited me" to "they don't know what they are doing". Or "life is really hard" to "life is challenging". However you choose to interpret a situation, you'll be right. It's not about gas lighting yourself but dialing how you interpret events. In reality, this events don't actually mean anything. Your mind creates meaning in order to deal with this situations in order to survive, but one's interpretations aren't always constructive and solution-oriented. 

 

[trenton]

5 hours ago, Basman said:

You also seem to tend to interpret things in a very negative way. Like with the example of your mom scolding you earlier. It is a fact that she freaked out. It is a subjective interpretation that that means your inherently unworthy of love. I believe it is a symptom of BPD to ruminate and catastrophize. This tendency towards a negative and implicitly self-defeating thinking could be contributing to your feelings of suicidality, which is in my understanding the consequence of prolonged distress and not being able to see a way out. Suicide is a symptom of not being able to imagine a way out of distress.

@Basman You actually make a good point here. When I was young especially, due to autism. I experience the world very differently from the people around me. People often thought I was weird and it made me feel isolated. People with autism are also extremely prone to PTSD due to emotional and psychological abuse, about ten times compared to the general population due to sensory overload. This is actually very important, and I am glad you noticed this. It might be a combination of autism and bipolar disorder and depression and PTSD and other things.

I swear I never chose to be this way. This may be how my brain is wired, but thanks for that. I don't buy everything you said, but this piece is actually good and I am happy that you cared enough to respond and put some thought into this.

6 hours ago, Basman said:

One technique you could try, if you feel so inclined, is softening your language. Softening one's language lets you negotiate with negative thinking. For example, you recently experienced a bunch of set-backs, like losing your job, losing money, drugs not working, etc. The first obvious example is to think of these as set-backs as opposed to failures. Or another example, "the medical system exploited me" to "they don't know what they are doing". Or "life is really hard" to "life is challenging".

Part of my confusion is not that I am stuck in one interpretation. I am actually aware of many interpretations and it can be overwhelming and confusing. In this case I believe multiple things are true simultaneously. For example, the medical system exploited me because it is a for profit system full of insurance scams that don't cover shit. If you don't live in America, you might not know this. It is also true that the people often don't realize what they are doing. Society is full of people who don't fully see their role in the system and how they contribute to the dysfunction. The doctors themselves are not necessarily acting out of malice, but even in ignorance they may perpetuate some of the problems.

I feel like people misinterpret this about me a lot. The reason I am so lost and confused is not because I am stuck in one interpretation and I believe it is absolutely true no matter what. It is because I am overwhelmed by tons of different interpretations. It makes me confused and it causes me to get lost. It leads to rumination because of my struggle to understand the world from this level of complexity. I am using a lot of mental space to hold these interpretations even around very challenging issues. It is just that part of how trauma works is that sometimes it fucks with the actual neurology of your brain and it makes it hard to get these things out and make them stop.

Don't get stuck in the interpretation that I am stuck in one interpretation. Others may not be open to multiple interpretations including the possibility that I am open to multiple interpretations. This feels like a projection to me under many circumstances when people assume I am close-minded even though open-mindedness is one of my core values in life since I was a child. I saw the horrors of religious fundamentalism and political violence when people assumed that their interpretation was the one true perspective. I would not want to be like them. At the same time the paradox I grapple with is that I also need some kind of ground to stand on so I can actually move through life. It is like a psychological need to have a stable sense of reality, but for me this is constantly being undermined. For me this is a difficult paradox to navigate because their really are a lot of interpretations, but this also makes it very hard to function when it overwhelms me.

I should probably mention that I also get annoyed by the self-help platitudes around mindset because it becomes unfalsifiable. Literally anything I say could be framed as me not having success with personal development because of a mindset problem. A similar unfalsifiable position would be if you tried to improve yourself by devoting your life to Christ, discovered it didn't work, and then the church tells you that you just need more faith. In this situation your mindset is the problem and that is why you are miserable. This mindset argument is personal development's built in mechanism for dismissing failures as individual problems rather than as potentially a problem with self-help itself. Religion would do exactly the same thing, but they will call it faith instead of mindset when it does not work.

Seriously think about this. How would I prove you wrong if you just told me that I had a mindset problem? You would likely assume that forever. If ever I succeed it is because I now had the right mindset and personal development was right from the beginning with no mistake or flaw whatsoever in these assumptions and interpretations of the situation. Framing things as a mindset problem is one interpretation of the situation. Once again, I am open to the possibility, but people assume that because I see the potential flaw in this, that I automatically believe this interpretation is the one true one as if I am a fundamentalist who thinks my one interpretation is always correct in this situation. The assumption is again that I am close-minded therefore I don't succeed in personal development. Obviously, I am not stupid and I know that mindset is a factor and a possibility, but self-help wants to assume this is everything that is wrong with the situation in the event that I do not succeed. How would I prove to you that I do not have a mindset problem? Are people just assuming that they know how my mind actually works? This is mind reading and it is often wrong. Nevertheless, personal development insists that it can read my mind in this situation and I am just stuck in one interpretation. It is possible that I am overwhelmed by all the possible interpretations and this is my mental and sensory overload as someone with autism. It makes me chaotic because I struggle to establish a stable sense of reality. Obviously I am open-minded to the possibility that I hallucinated all of my trauma including the existence of other human beings and family. Why else would I be listening to people like Leo talk about this kind of stuff? Why is not considered that I could be grappling with the paradox that there are so many interpretations, yet I need a way to function through some kind of stable sense of reality? Why are people so stuck in this one interpretation and then calling me the close-minded one who can't see the other interpretations? This is insane and people are not open-minded to these possibilities so they make all these assumptions about how I actually think and function. This makes me feel isolated and alone because clearly people do not see me for who I am and many times they genuinely do not care or everything I say just goes over their head.

I hope you understand some of this frustration. Thanks for your support.

[Basman]

5 hours ago, trenton said:

I feel like people misinterpret this about me a lot. The reason I am so lost and confused is not because I am stuck in one interpretation and I believe it is absolutely true no matter what. It is because I am overwhelmed by tons of different interpretations. It makes me confused and it causes me to get lost. It leads to rumination because of my struggle to understand the world from this level of complexity. I am using a lot of mental space to hold these interpretations even around very challenging issues. It is just that part of how trauma works is that sometimes it fucks with the actual neurology of your brain and it makes it hard to get these things out and make them stop.

Rumination and an unquiet mind seem to be characteristic of bipolar disorder and your distress in a broad sense. I would assume professional help would be the most constructive approach but there might be techniques you can find online that could help you find more inner peace. 

6 hours ago, trenton said:

Seriously think about this. How would I prove you wrong if you just told me that I had a mindset problem?

Self-help doesn't rely on other people's opinions. It's not required. If something doesn't work for you then just discard it.

The point of positive thinking is that it is more solution-oriented and takes you out of a victim mentality. It is not meant to gaslight you, but the truth is that you have a lot of room for how you interpret any situation. It is often no more true to see something in a positive light as it is seeing it in a negative light. But you gain more from being positive, so you might as well. That is my thinking at least. Negative thinking in its extreme is creating one's own hell distinct from actual reality. There's a huge difference for instance between thinking that the world is conspiring for you as opposed to thinking that the world is against you, not only in how it makes you feel but also what actions you end up taking down the line. Though how it makes you feel is probably the most significant part. 

[trenton]

I think what seems to be helping me is keeping interpretation to a minimal. I want to focus as much as possible on just what I observed. I notice that interpretations seem to open the door for all kinds of self-deception because there are many competing explanations which then depends on your biases. If I state just what I observed, then I feel much more grounded and less confused. This is what I am doing for things like the sex trafficking incident. I called the sexual assault hotline and they are trying to get me into a free program for people like me. They will call back in a couple of days.

Staying grounded in direct experience rather than the thought of what it all means seems to avoid a lot of self deception because the possibilities are endless and it leads to constant confusion.