Nightmares and sleep disturbances are common. Shame, humiliation, and embarrassment are characteristic. Memory may be temporarily impaired. Victims should be encouraged but not forced to express themselves. This stage can last up to a week, but many of its features may carry over into later stages.
Personal boundaries are confused, and relationships chaotic and conflicted.
Again, some of these symptoms may persist into later stages. The survivor in such a situation is torn between two compelling but contradictory impulses. On the one hand, he feels a deep revulsion against his situation which urges him to rebel against his yoke and reclaim his manhood, and underneath the revulsion lies a volcanic reservoir of rage. On the other hand, he has learned that to survive he must go along with the imposed submissive role, and that a tenuous feeling of security and protection, which he desperately needs, can only be found in playing that despised role to the satisfaction of his master. Thus survival requires him to fight the psychic need to revolt.