Difficult past events from shadow work.

[robertAyuda]

I am following a spiritual path as I have always been unhappy and was/am a binge eater and had various substance abuse problems.

I believe my father was emotionally unavailable and my mother was quite submissive, holding the peace in the family.

From my home life I developed a lot of worthlessness, self esteem issues etc (my dad basically passed these on).

Anyway...

I recently started really going into my self seriously (24/7) and trying to find out just what was making me tick, what am I, and the nature of my being.

I began finding out a lot. Negative traits here and there and also experienced a lot of blissful feelings, oneness and peace (for the first time ever).

With the work I've been doing I went straight to an event I know has been lurking in my mind for a long time.

The event was my first 'sexual' experience with my brother at around age 11-12. We would touch and jerk each others penises a bit, mostly with boxers on. Poke each other in the bum with boxers on and he also gave me oral sex with my boxers on.

My brother was 2 years older than me and this was entirely consensual from both sides.

The sexual bit was in apostrophes as it didn't really feel arousing. Overall it just felt like exploration and curiosity.

Lol so anyway that was an event that always lurked around and resurfaced from time to time but I thought I had already dealt with it. 

Going even deeper into my self I found something worse which I had never really brought into my awareness before other than just kind of thinking of it as curiosity.

Around the same time or a year after, I was playing with my cousins (all were younger than me) as we normally would. For some reason I touched my cousin's clothed backside and sort of grabbed it.

I don't know why I did this. It seemed to come out of nowhere. I believe it was just curiosity. I never really thought about it again or did anything like it again.

20 years on this all resurfaces.

I don't want to make myself out like a victim but I have been going through pure hell working through all of this. So many layers of emotions coming and going. Suicidal thoughts have been pondering but I don't think I would actually act. I feel as though I do have hope as a human being. Albeit this is difficult to accept.

I am finally beginning to accept what I did but I just don't know where I stand.

I have only ever been attracted to females of a similar age to myself.

Do I tell my family? I don't think this is a good idea. It will cause unnecessary pain and confusion. Surely?

I don't think this has affected my cousin's life but still I abused my position of power essentially. I don't know if she was even aware (not that that makes it okay) but it was so quick.

Looking at this from a shadow perspective; I have always done certain things that showed a complete lack of care for other people, albeit nothing like this, however things such as keeping quiet occasionally when things are to be paid for as a group, eating more than my fair share when sharing meals with people, completely ignoring people I go out with to talk to some stranger, pulling my good friend off a swing so he landed on his face. These might sound pale in comparison but there have been many more events like this. Essentially it seems a part of me is completely arrogant, maybe somewhat narcissistic, also cowardly and scared.

If anyone can just give me their opinion it would really help. I am in complete turmoil. Dreams of drowning. Constant headaches. I am reaching out to therapists, forums just to have this out in the open. How do I actually integrate this experience into my character and move forward as a 'whole' person? It seems somewhat unforgivable. There must have been some form of attraction for me to grab my cousin's backside but really I see it as curiosity, and the shadow acting out. This has been deeply repressed and never faced seriously. I was working on my self so much, in an effort to help others in the future but now it feels as though there is no coming back. How can I help others if I can't be honest with myself and others? Ie, it feels as though I would need to explain this to people that want to know me well in the future.

Just to outline here. My sexual preference has always been females of a similar age. I have never been attracted to anything else. Sure, the odd homo fantasy pops up now and again but romantically it has always been females.

I have a lot of obsessive thoughts as well (something I've only recently begun to see the depths of) and I was even googling things like 'help for pedofiles' only to read website testimonies to realise that that is not me at all. I feel as though the anxiety of that as a possibility was created through this act, or possibly before (it is difficult to tell - I have always had anxiety, obsessive thinking, worthlessness, and an underlying 'poor me' attitude.) Perhaps this thought process just wanted attention. The shadow wanted space to run its course. I seemingly have a lot more work to do.

Here are some other examples of anxiety/obsessive thinking which are like elephant in the room scenarios:

• Sometimes meeting people of different races and/or of different sexual preferences (I can sometimes favour them in conversation as if I am cool to chill with them or almost 'doing them a favour' because I am white/straight).
• If someone is overweight, nerdy, ugly etc (basically someone who my ego sees as 'lower' than me or others) I sometimes give these people more attention to make them feel better about themselves. Okay so this has good intentions but there's still an arrogant basis here, ie, I made the perception that I am somewhat above them and can help them. Almost like a predator spotting its prey for egoic masturbation. This may sound silly but it develops into when/if this person starts speaking and acting more open and normally, I shut off from them and usually don't want to speak to them much anymore. From this point things feel forced.

I can't think of anymore really but I am just trying to give examples of my thought processes. It's the same with meeting new people. I love doing this, but then once the 'new person' feel wears off things go a bit dull for me and I'm just like whatever - as if I've gotten what I wanted from that person and now I want another newbie. Contrary to this. Sometimes if my ego takes a battering, self inflicted of course, I will retreat back to people who I snubbed off before and engage in very basic conversation to get my confidence levels back up and to return to feeling 'normal'.

Seems very tricky but I know it is still early days. I have been crying a lot and my body is in constant pain. Either way I am wanting to face this head on and figure everything out.

If anyone can just offer me some reflections that would be much appreciated.

I actually feel better now. Well to be honest, I have a headache still and it feels as though I have just shutdown on all of the emotions that were emerging as a kind of psychological vacation. I can definitely feel that I have automatically run away from this again, but I will dig it back up soon.

It was just very difficult, almost like a sick joke, to do all of this self work just to come back to something horrible like this. Again, this seems to go back to victimizing myself and not wanting to deal with this!