This Tuesday in "Without appointment", the health program of Europe 1, the sexologist Catherine Blanc returns to the difficulty of overcoming a sexual trauma.
She reacts to the question of a listener victim of sexual violence in her youth, who no longer manages to have relations or to project herself into a relationship.
After being a victim of sexual violence, how can we rebuild ourselves and overcome this trauma? What barriers must the victim overcome before learning to live with this event? This Tuesday in "Without appointment", the health program of Europe 1, the sex therapist Catherine Blanc responds to a listener who can no longer have sex or project with someone else, after have been the victim of violence.
Filipina's question, 21
"I was sexually abused when I was younger. I am now 21 but it is inconceivable for me to have sex or even imagine myself in a relationship. I don't know what to do to fix it. Is it normal to feel that way? "
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Catherine Blanc's response
“In reality, the question is what we do with our trauma. And the answer to the question of knowing if it is normal that it could have this echo, is that yes, it is obviously normal. , there is no question that this event defines it and that is the whole difficulty It is all the stake of a psychological work.
It is allowing oneself to put history back to history and not to feel guilty, because the victims often feel guilty, in the name of their non-defense, of their completely unconscious participation, or of forbidding themselves to be touched.
Either we cannot be touched because we reduce ourselves to the position of victim and we punish ourselves, or because it is our way of finally being in the "no" affirmed thanks to this impossibility of being precisely touched. .
How can we live with it? Does it go through the conviction of the person responsible? By a letter of apology from the latter? Tell the loved ones around us? Is there a way to fix it?
I believe that everyone's path is different. I actually believe that being able to get out of this closed room between oneself and one's attacker in a certain way, that is to say that only he and I know it, is important in order to be able to peacefully convey his feelings to those close to him. It is sometimes interesting to even imagine family consultations so that the word can be redistributed and avoid the victim being under the obligation of silence so as not to annoy his family.
Sometimes it is also confronting the person who attacked and confronting them with the reality of their act of justice.
And then, of course, it's a job of reconstruction and repair.
It is important not to be reduced to an event in our history.
It is a whole path of reconstruction that can go through psychotherapy, hypnosis or other techniques.
When dealing with justice, you have to be careful to do it when you feel able to face it because there is no question of finding yourself again a victim, this time of justice which, to protect you, exposes you.
Why does she even refuse the idea of just having a romantic relationship, of falling in love, of having a spouse?
It is a bit what we find in another framework which is not for once traumatic. We find it in a woman who has no desire and who does not accept that her husband touches her shoulder or hugs her. Simply because she tells herself that if he touches her shoulder, if he takes her in his arms, his hands will go down and it will become sexual.
It's actually a way of putting a stop to the situation very early on. This is the best way to protect yourself. Often patients tell me 'you don't understand Catherine, I was turned on' when they didn't want to. And so, in order not to be excited, you really have to take the initiative very far upstream so as not to risk being betrayed by your own body. This is often what victims of such violence fear. "