Episode 131: Overcoming Sexual Trauma in Later Life

Suzanne Noble: I'm very excited to welcome our new sponsor, Higher Nature, who have created Rekindle, which I'm currently trying out and is working a treat. A 100% natural libido-enhancing supplement for women, which contains clinically backed ingredients to give your sex life a boost. And who doesn't want that? Hi, this is Suzanne Noble, and you are listening to Sex Advice for Seniors. And today I brought back on the show Erika Shershon, who is based in San Francisco, I believe, while I'm now living in Spain. So we're very, very thousands of miles apart, but, you know, through the wonders of Riverside recording, it's like, it's like we're just next door to each each other, isn't it? And Erica works predominantly with people about healing sexual trauma. And we spoke a lot about that in the last episode that we did together about, about sexual trauma. So welcome to the show, Erica.

Yeah, so nice to be back, Suzanne Noble.

And I mean, obviously now It seems incredibly relevant that we're talking about this particular subject in light of the Gisele Pellicot trial, because back when we were speaking, that hadn't happened. Nobody really spoke about sexual trauma, and suddenly this was propelled into the news, and we were all fixated on this trial for months. And I know subsequent to that as well that I've read some of what happened to her daughter. So it wasn't even just her. There was also familial abuse and, oh, it's just, I mean, the whole thing is just horrible. But I know that, you know, we spoke about that. And what's your view about it all?

So it's shocking to realize how rape culture is still so prevalent in our societies, uh, pretty much throughout the world. And, um, the French news media ended up labeling the 50 convicted men Mr. Everyman because of how varied and ordinary they appeared. So people still have this misconception that rapists are men, the men hiding in the alley. They tend to make the assumption that they're men of color, um, and that they're not known to the, the victim. But the majority of rapists or assailants are known to the victim.

Yeah.

It's somewhere around 90 to 95%. It's a pretty high number. And then, you know, another really shocking piece to it was her age and the fact that she was— it started when she was around 60 and continued until she was about 70 and would have still been going on if he wasn't caught. And, you know, we tend to think by the time we hit that age range that it's no longer a threat. But it's certainly not the first case I've heard of a woman who's in that older range for sexual assault to be assaulted. And it's true that the majority of the most vulnerable time for people, young people, is between about 17 and 25. That's when most— that's the most common age for a sexual assault. But you still have to take precautions even at 60 and 70. Yeah, yeah. So, um, it's— I think, I think a lot of people were thrown off by that and really surprised by, by that fact to learn that. Um, yeah, it just, it really does speak to how prevalent rape culture is, how much, um, the abuse of power goes on, and, um, how much misogyny still exists. And, you know, I don't know if I mentioned it last time, but my workbook, the Healing Sexual Trauma Workbook, was banned in Michigan.

No.

School districts in Michigan in the 2022-2023 school year. So it's still banned to the best of my knowledge. And, you know, what does that say about our culture that they would ban a book to help survivors of any gender, heal from sexual trauma, to help empower them. Yeah, it says so much about certain people in power not wanting others to be empowered.

Yeah, well, we know that from the recent inauguration. So, you know, it carries on and already we're starting to see that women's reproductive rights and everything are being stripped away. But besides that, going back to Giselle Pellicot, I think one of the most interesting things as well was the fact that, as you acknowledged, some of the assailants said it wasn't rape because had I chosen to rape a woman, I wouldn't have chosen to rape an older woman.

Oh, really? Yeah.

Yeah. There was actually a quote from, from somebody there who said that. So it was sort of this lack of recognition that everyone, you know, that if you, if you take away a woman's sexual agency, and there's no consent involved, that, that somehow still, it's allowable to have sex with this person who is lying there, you know, basically unconscious. There was another, there was another really interesting article I read on Substack, of a woman who posed the, the question of how many women would rape an unconscious man and what the, what the number would be. But I think what's really distressing for me about the whole thing, aside from the fact, of course, that, as you acknowledge, many of these men don't consider that they actually raped this woman when clearly she had no consent, she had no agency, and she wasn't you know, there was no way that she was saying yes to any of this, is the fact that there have been so few men who have come out and stood beside women and said, we want to know how we can do better, right? We want to know how we can step up so that stuff like this doesn't happen anymore. And there's been a huge uproar from women saying, all men and look at these normal men in the village that were doing all of this. But there's been very few men who have stood up and said, yeah, it wasn't right and we can do better and how can we do better? And, and as you said, that speaks to the prevalence of rape culture. It speaks to this lack of acknowledgment that, you know, doesn't matter whether you're 17 or a 70-year-old, that people are still, you know, out there, keen to have sex with you without your consent, right?

Yeah, they tried to say it was a Sleeping Beauty fantasy. So, you know, absurd that the person would clearly be unconscious, which is not the same as sleep. And Just horrific. I mean, I, first of all, I wasn't familiar with that fantasy. I've never met a woman who has that fantasy. I don't know if you have. I think that's a drummed-up fantasy made by, conveniently made by, um, assailants. But, um, yeah, there were a lot of men who wouldn't admit it was rape. And there were some that did apologize and show some form of remorse. But what, what was also shocking was, you know, the damage that did to her, that she was being drugged for that many years, and her children thought she had Alzheimer's possibly, or would have a brain disorder of some sort happening. And Yeah. And she was having other symptoms and he got 20 years. And there are men that got 4 years and there were men that got time served. Yeah.

Yeah.

Again, that speaks to how this isn't taken seriously enough in our society because he— in the French society, because he really He also admitted to raping a woman years ago, and he's being looked at for the murder of another woman in a rape. And, um, it just— it's amazing that these men got 4 years, 2 years for, uh, you know, taking part in this, um, and even 20 years in this case because he really did a lot of damage to her and raped others as well, and also photographed his daughter, who he put in lingerie, and his daughter-in-law's— photographed them without consent. So, uh, just, just shocking, honestly, that this is still going on. And as you mentioned, um, what's going on in the United States, I mean, we have a a president now in office who's been found liable for sexually abusing and defaming a woman, and we have two Supreme Court, uh, justices that have been accused of sexual misconduct. And this president that we now have has tried to surround himself with others accused of sexual assault. And various other forms of sexual misconduct as though it's all just perfectly fine. Um, it's almost like a badge of honor for these people. So, um, I don't know if there's much more to say about it at the moment, but it's a sad state of things.

It's really depressing, you know. I mean, in looking at the whole situation and the, you know, the recent events in US politics, and I'm just seeing that all of our rights as women are being stripped away. But, you know, we have to be hopeful. I always think we have to be hopeful. I mean, the fact that Gisele Pellicott actually, you know, this man was actually caught is— well, there's something to be said for that, because as you said, had he not been caught, he'd still be doing it, right? I mean, this is the shocking thing, is that these people do live amongst us, and they— he got away with it for over a decade with no recognition from his wife, his family, and those around him who thought that anything was wrong. That's what I find particularly horrifying, to be honest about the whole thing, is that, you know, this was like the local butcher, the local baker, the local, you know, these local people who were not, you know, they weren't recognized walking around the streets as monsters. But clearly that's exactly what they were.

And that's what most all rape is and sexual assault. That is the majority of it. Yeah, there are the, the, you know, the stereotypes do. I mean, there, there are the random stranger rapes for sure, but there's, there's so— the numbers are so small compared to just the regular guy.

Yeah.

And there are not enough people that are willing to speak out, as you were saying earlier, and do something about changing this culture.

So I know that you, you know, most of your work, or certainly a significant part of your work, is in actually helping trauma survivors to heal. And what are the therapeutic techniques that you think are the most effective? Because It can't be easy when you've gone through trauma of this significance.

Yeah. So I use a combination of techniques or modalities. My training was somatic. Yeah. And so that's the foundation of my work. However, I bring in EMDR and I bring in self-compassion, mindfulness. I bring in some energy. Work for healing trapped emotions in the body. Um, the EMDR is wonderful integrating the trauma and, um, also creating memory reconsolidation so that the deep-rooted negative beliefs that the survivor takes on about why this happened to them, so that those on a deep subconscious level are turned around. Those are beliefs that when someone is feeling really good, uh, or what we refer to as resourced, those beliefs, they know they're not true. But when they get triggered, which happens a lot until the trauma has been integrated, they those beliefs will come up. So their nervous system's dysregulated at that point, and those dark beliefs come up where they're the shame, the blame, the self-blame, which, you know, none of it is actually true, but people tend to take those beliefs on. So So the memory reconsolidation is really important along with the integration of the trauma.

And I know that sometimes people must come to you who maybe perhaps don't realize there's been some trauma in their, in their past and are exhibiting different behaviors that suggest that things might not have been, you know, quite as happy as they thought they were. How do you recognize when people might have experienced some degree of trauma? Are there signals?

Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of them. So I have a blog post on healingsexualtrauma.com that is about trauma symptoms. It's all about trauma symptoms and And what I did is I divided the symptoms into 6 categories and, you know, talk about, about that. And do you want me to tell you the categories?

Yes, please.

So there's hyperarousal, which are things like heightened startle response, frequently scanning the environment for danger or watching for trauma reminders. Feeling on edge or having feelings of anxiety. Those are a few. I can go on, but I'm going to go ahead and tell you the next category. Re-experiencing the trauma. So distressing thoughts and feelings about the trauma, emotional distress after being triggered by a reminder of the trauma, physical responses after being triggered, flashbacks. They can be sensory, auditory, or visual. Nightmares, unconsciously reenacting the trauma in hopes of a better outcome, which is Freud called repetition compulsion. So that can show up for quite a few survivors. And I just want to make it clear that oftentimes kind of what you were suggesting is people haven't put together what happened, especially if it happened to them as a young child. Hmm. They may not have a clear memory of it, but their body remembers, which is why they're triggered. Because we remember implicitly. So it's stored. Saying the body remembers simply refers to it being stored in sensation memory and emotional memory. So say there was a loud ticking clock in the room when it happened and the person was a child, a young child, they have no memory of it because of how trauma memory works. They get around a loud ticking clock, they can get triggered and they don't know what's going on. Why am I suddenly being thrown into this state of fear and/or panic? And, you know, there's a lot of things that can happen when we're triggered, but it happens so fast. And you don't feel like you have any control over it. So that's what I'm talking about with triggers. And then there's avoidance of trauma reminders. So, you know, avoidance of people, places, or things related to the traumas. And again, that couldn't be happening unconsciously. And repetition compulsion that I mentioned, that's completely unconscious when that's happening. So So there's all kinds of avoidance that can take place and suppressing of thoughts related to the trauma. That's really common. Substance abuse, again, addictions of all types. And then we've got negative thoughts or feelings, so excessive blame toward oneself, intense mood swings, loss of memory related to the traumas. Loss of interest in activities. So there's more there. Again, like, you can check out the blog to read all of them. And then physical health issues. So, um, and those last four— the last three of the groupings I mentioned, they can all include dissociation. So then the physical health issues, um, that often take a little longer to develop can— so childhood bedwetting can, can be one that doesn't take longer to develop, but immune system problems show up for a lot of people that are survivors of sexual trauma. There can be asthma, endocrine problems such as thyroid malfunction, and environmental sensitivities. Chronic pelvic pain and vaginismus. Um, uterine cancer is higher for survivors, and that's likely due to avoidance of GYN exams because of getting triggered during the exam.

Yeah.

If so, I always recommend that people see a trauma-informed OB-GYN. All right. And let them know, and they, they should be very gentle and talk the person through and stop as needed. Hmm. Erectile dysfunction and sexual dysfunction. And then serious difficulty hearing is higher— found to be higher in male survivors, as well as HIV and AIDS. Digestive problems are really common, such as IBS, SIBO. And chronic pain, chronic fatigue, or fibromyalgia, and then the mental health conditions and disorders. So post-traumatic stress is very common. Um, I think the number 75%, um, develop it right after, and then, um, it can go away quickly. However, there's many who develop it much later. So it might not show up right away, but as, um, the, the trauma stays buried, and eventually the body will start to intensify the symptoms. And yes, I see it as the body's way of screaming for support. It's time to get help. It's time to address this. And you're You know, often it's they just weren't ready, they weren't resourced enough at the time when it happened to get that, you know, the healing support that they needed. So there's, you know, again, like a long list under the mental health conditions and disorders that can show up. So a lot of times people come to me, they don't realize that A lot of these symptoms are related to the sexual trauma that they've experienced.

Yeah.

And, and, you know, it can be a relief to realize that these symptoms are actually going to— many of them are going to go away or they're going to lessen significantly as they do the work of healing.

And what are some of the common misconceptions about trauma and healing?

Um, I think one common misconception is that it takes years and years. It doesn't have to take years and years. I see people on average for one year if it's one trauma. Okay. One big T. Sexual assault is considered a big T trauma, which means that it— it's— big T traumas are life-threatening. Mm-hmm. Or seeing someone else in a life-threatening situation or losing their life. So it does fall into that range, even though a lot of people don't realize it was life-threatening because it was someone they knew often. But it's not hard for it to develop into that. If they fight enough. So they often, you know, their nervous system in its attempt to keep them alive will often bring them into a freeze mode. And, and so many survivors have developed shame because of that, unfortunately. But I'm sorry, what was the question?

No, it's about the misconceptions that people have about, like you said, that it's going to take years. And, you know, I suspect that maybe it's never going to go away.

And it does go away. So PTSD goes away. You don't— it's not a life sentence. And I hear therapists who, you know, I read something a therapist wrote recently who said I have PTSD from years ago, and I'm wondering, okay, why haven't you healed it? You're a therapist. Like, um, you know, I think some people consider it to be a lifelong condition. So that, um, so many of my clients are relieved to hear that. And CPTSD is also really common, although it's, it's not recognized, unfortunately, yet by the DSM-5, which is the standard in the United States for diagnostic codes. It's complex PTSD, and it, it doesn't have to include a big T life threat trauma. It's a series of lots of traumas over and over again. If you think of oppression, That's a typical complex trauma. So I'd say the majority of the people I work with have CPTSD, but we, you know, I have to put down PTSD for their insurance. Oh, I see. That option to put down CPTSD is in there. So that takes a little longer and, to, to heal because there's this series of many, many traumas and, and often they're early childhood relational traumas that were not related to the sexual assault as well, that we go through and work on after we clear up and integrate the sexual trauma.

Ah, interesting. And what advice would you give someone who's hesitant to seek help for their trauma?

Well, you know, that symptom list that I read, um, I think to, to know that you can get help with these things, you know, I'm not saying there can't be any other factor in any of those, but, uh, I, I see the reduction of symptoms when, when I help people to clear the sexual trauma more so than anything else. Yeah, we think it really— it's such a wound of every aspect of a person's being. Yeah, it's really at the root of a lot of people's symptoms. And usually in my work, I'll clear that first. So people who are hesitant, you asked about that, often we'll start in a more gentle approach where we'll clear other things first. And then once we've cleared some of their other issues that they want to work on, then, then we'll move into the sexual trauma. So I can go either way with it. Before we get into that, though, we work on just, you know, making sure they're stabilized and that they are able to feel a sense of safety, that they're able to connect with that. In their body and in their environment. So sometimes the word safety is too much for a person. So to connect with just a sense of presence. And speaking of that, I have the first chapter of the workbook on the healingsexualtrauma.com website. And that's all about connecting with safety. And there's a practice that I teach all of my clients. At the end of that chapter to cultivate that. So, so that always needs to be the starting place with trauma.

So speaking of, you've got a new book coming out.

Yes.

So tell me what it is and how we can help people find out about it.

Yeah. Thank you for asking. The new book is The Healing Sexual Trauma Guided Journal. And so it's similar to the workbook. It has some overlap, but it also has things that are not in the workbook. And the workbook is filled with more practices than, than the journal, which can be both good and can also feel I think a little overwhelming for some people who might not know what to prioritize. So in the journal, I did put some practices in it because again, trauma is— it infects the entire being, not just the brain. So we have to work with the body as well. And so I included 5 foundational practices and a few others. So it made it really clear, like, these are the things that are super important for you to prioritize. And they don't take a lot of time to do them. And then of course it's filled with lots of writing prompts. Great. Yeah. And there's just a lot of research on how journaling is healing, including autoimmune disorders, but a lot of other things as well. So there's a lot of benefits to journaling and it flows in a way that the workbook doesn't flow. So it, it feels like a more gentle approach to me, um, and it just really flowed as I was writing it as well. So it's been a very positive experience.

Great. And it's out on the 1st of March, which is very exciting, and we will post a link in the Substack summary. So Thanks so much for talking to me again. And so glad that we could catch up. I know it's been a while and lots of stuff has happened since then, unfortunately, in the world. But, you know, we live in hope. We live in hope.

Yes. Yes. Things will swing the other direction soon enough. Well, maybe not soon enough. It's bound to happen, but thank you, Suzanne, for having me back. It was a pleasure to speak with you, and I'm grateful for the work you're doing. Thank you. Thanks.