Dear Dr love:i have a question that has been bothering me for a couple of years now. first off my name is ashley, i am 19 years old i have been with the same man for the past 4 years we recently got married june 2 1998 very happy.we have had unprotected sex for 4 years and i have had unprotected sex for a couple of years before him. with alot of men. (not bragging) i will have a cou[ple of questions when i am done telling you my story if you dont mind i have been raped 4 times 2 severe beating really bad hosptilized, i have done drugs since i was nine till sixteen, i swallowed alot of crank, alcohol, acid, mushrooms, pot. real heavey for years.i have picked abusive relationships 1 for 3 years bad bad, i ask you now if maybe you can answer these questions?# 1: why havent i became pregnant? i do want to. and have tried.# 2: why am i angry with my husband all the time? been to counciling didnt help. prozac didnt either.# 3: why do i still think about my rapes? my drug years? why do i relive them?if you have any advise i would love to hear it, please i want my marriage to survive i dont want him running out cause im mean, or depressed, or so damn moody. i do love my husband wouldnt trade him with a million dollar man. please help me please. if you cant its understandable.
When I read your story, I felt like you are a soldier who survived a war. You have been battered, raped and beaten so many times that it’s astounding that you have lived through all this.When a person finds him or herself in such abusive situations, 99% of the time it’s because you were abused as a child. And, as you know, we humans are creatures of habit. We gravitate to relationships that feel’at home.’ No mattter how much the familiar hurts, we still prefer familiar pain to the pain of the unknown.Keep in mind that most abused kids think that they deserve the abuse they receive. This is called the narcisstic defense. Here’s how this goes. When a kid is abused, it is normal to feel enraged at the abuser. But, since children confuse feelings and actions (called magical thinking), they think that if they allow themselves to feel the anger toward the abusive parent that their thoughts will actually harm the parent (if I think angry thoughts my mother or father will die). So, the child learns to bury the anger. When anger is buried it must go somewhere (it can’t fall out your ear). And, buried rage gets turned back on the self. This pattern of turning rage back on the self is not something that we outgrow. In fact, the pattern follows us in adulthood. In adulthood, the pattern of turning anger back on the self can take many forms. Depression, anxiety, choosing partners that abuse us, being promiscuous, mistreating ourselves by abusing alcohol or drugs, taking risks that put us in physical danger, breakin g the law so that we can be punished, as well as overt suicide attempts.I speak about the pattern of turning anger back on the self because this applies to you. You have historically found men that battered you in various ways. And, you even battered yourself with the drugs and the promiscuous sex. And, now, your unconscious mind has found another way to get you punished. By being pissy and mean to your husband, your unconscious mind is arranging to have his anger dumped on you. In other words, your mind is still seeing to it that you will be punished for all your anger. If you continue giving your husband such grief, you will receive the ultimate punishment, he will leave, which is what you are afraid of.So, here’s the deal. You are carrying a poop load of rage for the abuse you suffered as a kid, and at the hands of these men. The reason why you can’t stop the flashbacks is because the feelings need to be given air time. Apparently, your previous therapy didn’t help you to work-through this old rage.So, let’s start by saying that you need to accept your rage, learn that the feelings themselves are harmless, and learn how to discharge the feelings in a way that is healthy for you and him. What is the healthy way of dealing with the rage? Feel it, talk about it, describe it, discuss the memories attached to it, but do not act it out by being bitchy, moody and/or dumping or your husband.You must not continue behaving in ways that are going to get you punished.Just because you got nowhere with your previous therapy doesn’t mean that therapy can’t help you with this. Find another therapist, preferrably a modern psychoanalyst.You need to be able to learn to accept your rage, and discharge it in a way that is healthy for you and for him. I don’t think you can accomplish such a tall task alone.In answer to the question, why can’t you get pregnant. You may have been injured during one of the rapes. You could have also contracted a sexually transmitted disease (STD) that made you infertile. Only a gynecological exam can answer this question. So make an appointment today, just to make sure. If your fallopian tubes are scarred, oftentimes they can be fixed. So, check it out.And, above all. Stop arranging to be beaten on and punished. You have suffered enough. Feeling murderous rage is the normal consequence of what you have been through. Once you accept and make peace with your rage, and learn to discharge it in healthy ways, you won’t need to keep punishing yourself for your feelings.I also suggest that whenever you feel the urge to dump on your hubby, hear me talking to you and saying. ‘Don’t do or say something that’s going to hurt him and get you hurt in the end.’Good luck.