I Know Why I Sleep on My Stomach

It was back to EMDR today. I had not gone there in so long that I had almost forgotten how to do it...but a session was necessary.

I started out with the image and the feeling of my STBX hugging me just to say hello or goodbye but then pressing his erection against me. An image, of course, leads to a memory and a memory leads to another. Inevitably, I ended up as a child in my bedroom trying to hide and protect myself from my stepfather. The memory was visceral, and I felt both fear and disgust like an electrical current all across the front of me including my genital area.

I know why I sleep on my stomach, I thought, and I was suddenly angry. Not at my stepfather or even STBX. I was angry at the chiropractor who made the recommendations that I recently read in an article online. It frowned upon stomach sleeping. The article itself was completely benign and intended to help people improve their posture and relieve neck and back pain. But during this morning's session, I remembered the article and I thought angrily, how dare you? How can you tell people not to sleep on their stomachs, if you don't know why they sleep on their stomachs in the first place?!

I know why I sleep on my stomach! I need to feel protected and safe! I need to cover myself...I need to keep my stepfather away. I thought he couldn't touch me if I was rolled over on my stomach...but he found me anyway...he touched me anyway, He always did. There was nothing that I could do to keep him away...NOTHING.

So during my session, he did find me, and he did come in, and he did touch me and roll me over. And during my session, I didn't want to know what he was doing...but now I know what he was doing. I just don't know if it's better to say or not say. There is nothing I can do about that scene anymore. I will never undo it. I can never even ask him why...what the fuck possessed him? He licked my genitals like I was his fucking tramp on the side. There, I said it, but I don't know if it's any better. But he acted like he was offering me some of the good things in life. He proceeded as though he were teaching me the facts of life. He was doing me a favor...enriching me. I was to see him as my teacher and not my abuser. I think I'm still confused.

Can you see why I didn't want my husband's face in my vagina?