How can I become more sex positive and embrace sexuality after trauma?
June 13, 2017 7:34 PM Subscribe
This year I realized that I've somehow become quite threatened by sex, nudity and a lot of "sex positive" things. I started embracing a more radical so-called "sex negative" approach and I'm starting to think it was largely due to a traumatic long-term relationship that ended last year.
Thinking back to when I was single and just starting college, I remember being really open-minded and always considered myself a "sex positive" person. The friends I made in school opened me up to those sorts of discussions and a friend even gave me Jessica Valenti's "The Purity Myth" after I expressed to her how I was embarrassed about still being a virgin at 18. I took a class on the history of sexuality, watched porn/used tumblr and the internet to discover my own sexuality. It felt good! I hadn't been with anyone at the time but being confident and non-judgmental about myself and others.
I'm now realizing a lot of that is gone, and I'm not necessarily trying to get it all back as I appreciate the growing I've done over the years, but I'm finding myself increasingly triggered and threatened by sex positivity when I see it. I didn't realize it until after the relationship ended, but my 4 year relationship with my ex was not sexually healthy at all. I think he took advantage of my sex positivity and confidence in a way - and I probably need to figure this out with a therapist soon - but from the get-go, he made me feel like an idiot for asking him to use a condom and lied to me about getting tested in order to sleep with me and "take" my virginity. It really sucked. Sex was painful the first time and every other time after. I started hating it, but he'd sulk if I didn't want to do it. He'd want to do things he saw in porn and would somehow convince me to say yes after a while. More than once he came inside me after I told him not to, and would tell me it wasn't a big deal because I was on birth control. I had to buy Plan B several times because I would get anxious about getting pregnant, and it would always temporarily mess with my cycle/body while I was in class. He also cheated on me twice, the first time he had an ongoing thing with a woman he worked with before we had ever had sex so he justified it and I stupidly took him back, and then he did it again before we broke up, with another coworker. He also lied repeatedly, about the smallest things, and would constantly invalidate my feelings and gas light me, to the point where I've had nightmares about those situations happening to me again but with my new boyfriend. I'm a little angry just typing it out, but I really think the way he treated me and made me feel like a sex object really impacted the way I view sex and intimacy now, especially since it was my first and only relationship.
My boyfriend has been sweet and kind and understanding, and I wish I didn't have this baggage to deal with because it's exhausting. I sometimes get triggered by the smallest things and immediately become defensive, like if we're watching something and someone makes a stupid sexist or rape joke, or there's a rape scene (e.g. Game of Thrones), rather than rolling my eyes at the stupidity or not taking it too seriously, I end up feeling threatened and anxious. It can really be the smallest thing. The bad memories from that relationship are brought back and I get scared that I'll go through the same thing again. I get stuck in a loop of negative thoughts and feelings and have started fights with my boyfriend over it. I know the thoughts are irrational. I'm trying to work on controlling them and changing my perspective so I don't feel threatened, but I'm not sure how to do it outside of starting therapy, which I'm hoping to do soon.
I also recognize that I'm not 100% wrong to feel this way, not just because of the trauma but also because of the way I was raised and I can't fault myself for feeling certain thing, so I'm not trying to change that completely. My view on porn, while it's shifted since I was younger, is still mixed because I can certainly see the appeal of certain types of pornography and I know it's not all black and white, so I'm not trying to be 100% pro-porn and dismiss all the problems I have with it. But I do want to be okay with some parts of it because I know I used to enjoy it and can see myself enjoying things like erotic stories and art, pornographic comics, gifs, homemade porn etc. A big part of me wants to embrace those things because I feel like I could possibly enjoy them again without shame or jealousy, and share that part of myself with my boyfriend. My current stance on it feels strict and grounded in my insecurities and lack of self-esteem more than anything, since the idea of him enjoying those things makes me feel insecure and threatened, like it's a form of infidelity. We've discussed this topic extensively, and maybe it's not something I can or need to change about myself, but he's been understanding and okay with with it. I guess I want make sure it's not just rooted in the trauma from my ex, so I can figure out what I really am and am not okay with! I want to be able to explore sex, kinks, etc without feeling triggered to the point that I feel like a hopeless freak.
Are there any good resources (books, videos, etc) on this matter? Has anyone dealt with something similar? I'm not sure how much sense my post makes, but I really don't want to feel threatened or afraid like this anymore. I'm really interested (and somewhat envious of) in couples who are secure/confident in their relationships and sexuality that they don't feel threatened by the things I'm threatened by. So far, I've been reading threads about sex online and looking at sexy webcomics, which kind of soothe my anxiety in a weird way. The things I find to make me feel worse though are when people say "just get over it, it's how men/people are" because it makes me feel like a freak, so I'm trying to avoid that line of thinking and accept myself as I currently am.
Thinking back to when I was single and just starting college, I remember being really open-minded and always considered myself a "sex positive" person. The friends I made in school opened me up to those sorts of discussions and a friend even gave me Jessica Valenti's "The Purity Myth" after I expressed to her how I was embarrassed about still being a virgin at 18. I took a class on the history of sexuality, watched porn/used tumblr and the internet to discover my own sexuality. It felt good! I hadn't been with anyone at the time but being confident and non-judgmental about myself and others.
I'm now realizing a lot of that is gone, and I'm not necessarily trying to get it all back as I appreciate the growing I've done over the years, but I'm finding myself increasingly triggered and threatened by sex positivity when I see it. I didn't realize it until after the relationship ended, but my 4 year relationship with my ex was not sexually healthy at all. I think he took advantage of my sex positivity and confidence in a way - and I probably need to figure this out with a therapist soon - but from the get-go, he made me feel like an idiot for asking him to use a condom and lied to me about getting tested in order to sleep with me and "take" my virginity. It really sucked. Sex was painful the first time and every other time after. I started hating it, but he'd sulk if I didn't want to do it. He'd want to do things he saw in porn and would somehow convince me to say yes after a while. More than once he came inside me after I told him not to, and would tell me it wasn't a big deal because I was on birth control. I had to buy Plan B several times because I would get anxious about getting pregnant, and it would always temporarily mess with my cycle/body while I was in class. He also cheated on me twice, the first time he had an ongoing thing with a woman he worked with before we had ever had sex so he justified it and I stupidly took him back, and then he did it again before we broke up, with another coworker. He also lied repeatedly, about the smallest things, and would constantly invalidate my feelings and gas light me, to the point where I've had nightmares about those situations happening to me again but with my new boyfriend. I'm a little angry just typing it out, but I really think the way he treated me and made me feel like a sex object really impacted the way I view sex and intimacy now, especially since it was my first and only relationship.
My boyfriend has been sweet and kind and understanding, and I wish I didn't have this baggage to deal with because it's exhausting. I sometimes get triggered by the smallest things and immediately become defensive, like if we're watching something and someone makes a stupid sexist or rape joke, or there's a rape scene (e.g. Game of Thrones), rather than rolling my eyes at the stupidity or not taking it too seriously, I end up feeling threatened and anxious. It can really be the smallest thing. The bad memories from that relationship are brought back and I get scared that I'll go through the same thing again. I get stuck in a loop of negative thoughts and feelings and have started fights with my boyfriend over it. I know the thoughts are irrational. I'm trying to work on controlling them and changing my perspective so I don't feel threatened, but I'm not sure how to do it outside of starting therapy, which I'm hoping to do soon.
I also recognize that I'm not 100% wrong to feel this way, not just because of the trauma but also because of the way I was raised and I can't fault myself for feeling certain thing, so I'm not trying to change that completely. My view on porn, while it's shifted since I was younger, is still mixed because I can certainly see the appeal of certain types of pornography and I know it's not all black and white, so I'm not trying to be 100% pro-porn and dismiss all the problems I have with it. But I do want to be okay with some parts of it because I know I used to enjoy it and can see myself enjoying things like erotic stories and art, pornographic comics, gifs, homemade porn etc. A big part of me wants to embrace those things because I feel like I could possibly enjoy them again without shame or jealousy, and share that part of myself with my boyfriend. My current stance on it feels strict and grounded in my insecurities and lack of self-esteem more than anything, since the idea of him enjoying those things makes me feel insecure and threatened, like it's a form of infidelity. We've discussed this topic extensively, and maybe it's not something I can or need to change about myself, but he's been understanding and okay with with it. I guess I want make sure it's not just rooted in the trauma from my ex, so I can figure out what I really am and am not okay with! I want to be able to explore sex, kinks, etc without feeling triggered to the point that I feel like a hopeless freak.
Are there any good resources (books, videos, etc) on this matter? Has anyone dealt with something similar? I'm not sure how much sense my post makes, but I really don't want to feel threatened or afraid like this anymore. I'm really interested (and somewhat envious of) in couples who are secure/confident in their relationships and sexuality that they don't feel threatened by the things I'm threatened by. So far, I've been reading threads about sex online and looking at sexy webcomics, which kind of soothe my anxiety in a weird way. The things I find to make me feel worse though are when people say "just get over it, it's how men/people are" because it makes me feel like a freak, so I'm trying to avoid that line of thinking and accept myself as I currently am.
Best answer: I had this. For me it helped me a lot to frame that relationship as abusive (it was, so so so abusive) and the sex as assault. This may not be helpful for you but it helped me. It helped me distance myself from the things that happened to me in bed with that guy a lot, to see that they were not my fault but they were things that happened to me. And that I could develop skills to help me figure out how to hopefully prevent that intimate partner violence from happening to me again. I read a lot of books and did a lot of therapy. I found EMDR to be very helpful. It's a type of therapy for PTSD and trauma.
Best of luck and I'm sorry you're going through this.
posted by sockermom at 9:25 PM on June 13, 2017
Best of luck and I'm sorry you're going through this.
posted by sockermom at 9:25 PM on June 13, 2017
Best answer: sometimes get triggered by the smallest things and immediately become defensive, like if we're watching something and someone makes a stupid sexist or rape joke, or there's a rape scene (e.g. Game of Thrones), rather than rolling my eyes at the stupidity or not taking it too seriously, I end up feeling threatened and anxious.
Everyone is going to (correctly) recommend therapy to help you recover from your last relationship (you feel threatened and afraid in considerable part because you were abused by your last partner!), so I'm going to unpack the ideological side a little.
It sounds to me like you are still carrying around a lot of pressure to be "the cool girl," the one who doesn't mind sexual misbehavior around her because she's just that "strong." In fact, it is perfectly understandable to feel threatened and anxious when someone makes casual reference to sexual violence around you. You may want to figure out how to manage those feelings better with therapy, but I just want to underline that it is 100% okay to want to exist in a rape-joke-free zone and to demand that from your friends. A rape joke is not a "small thing," particularly if it bothers you, and when you surround yourself with people who get that, your life will be better.
Like everything else, when rape culture gets its hands on an idea like sex-positivity, it immediately befouls it. Sex-positivity is about trying, doing, and enjoying what you want, not submitting to yourself to the whims of others who don't care about your well-being because you don't want to be negative. When recast in the latter way, it becomes just another excuse for exploitation. It may be helpful to reject the binary of "sex-positive" or "sex-negative." If you want to do something with a partner, it's not because you're just soooo sex-positive and cool and liberated that you're down for anything, it's because you want to do something and you're comfortable with your own desires. Similarly, if you don't want to do something, it's not because you're some uptight prude sex-negative type, it's because you don't happen to enjoy or feel like doing that thing that day, and you have every right to feel that way, and insist that your feelings be respected.
Are there particular TV shows or movies you like, particular actors you find hot? I ask because fanfic can be a relatively gentle (re)introduction to erotic fiction. A lot of it is extensively labelled in advance, so you can get an idea of how explicit it is and if there's some content that is likely to bother you, and, while there is certainly a VERY VERY wide spectrum in terms of graphicness and kinkiness, and I don't like to be reductionist about such matters, I think it's fair to say that the substantial majority of stories, being written by women, treats its subjects with more fundamental respect and understanding than porn by and for men.
posted by praemunire at 10:21 PM on June 13, 2017 [23 favorites]
Everyone is going to (correctly) recommend therapy to help you recover from your last relationship (you feel threatened and afraid in considerable part because you were abused by your last partner!), so I'm going to unpack the ideological side a little.
It sounds to me like you are still carrying around a lot of pressure to be "the cool girl," the one who doesn't mind sexual misbehavior around her because she's just that "strong." In fact, it is perfectly understandable to feel threatened and anxious when someone makes casual reference to sexual violence around you. You may want to figure out how to manage those feelings better with therapy, but I just want to underline that it is 100% okay to want to exist in a rape-joke-free zone and to demand that from your friends. A rape joke is not a "small thing," particularly if it bothers you, and when you surround yourself with people who get that, your life will be better.
Like everything else, when rape culture gets its hands on an idea like sex-positivity, it immediately befouls it. Sex-positivity is about trying, doing, and enjoying what you want, not submitting to yourself to the whims of others who don't care about your well-being because you don't want to be negative. When recast in the latter way, it becomes just another excuse for exploitation. It may be helpful to reject the binary of "sex-positive" or "sex-negative." If you want to do something with a partner, it's not because you're just soooo sex-positive and cool and liberated that you're down for anything, it's because you want to do something and you're comfortable with your own desires. Similarly, if you don't want to do something, it's not because you're some uptight prude sex-negative type, it's because you don't happen to enjoy or feel like doing that thing that day, and you have every right to feel that way, and insist that your feelings be respected.
Are there particular TV shows or movies you like, particular actors you find hot? I ask because fanfic can be a relatively gentle (re)introduction to erotic fiction. A lot of it is extensively labelled in advance, so you can get an idea of how explicit it is and if there's some content that is likely to bother you, and, while there is certainly a VERY VERY wide spectrum in terms of graphicness and kinkiness, and I don't like to be reductionist about such matters, I think it's fair to say that the substantial majority of stories, being written by women, treats its subjects with more fundamental respect and understanding than porn by and for men.
posted by praemunire at 10:21 PM on June 13, 2017 [23 favorites]
Best answer: I think the way you are feeling is 100% correct. "sex-positivity" in our culture is a very loaded concept which often means "you are not supposed to have boundaries around sex". It is used to normalize porn (which in many cases is very aggressive and demeaning towards women - seriously look at what's out there, look how violent and rapey it is) and "kinks" that are about violence and degradation, especially male violence against women. Not that these can't be part of a consensual experience. But they can also be very unhealthy, as you discovered with your ex, and an accusation of being sex-negative can be used as a weapon to erode your common sense and self-preservation instincts. Notice especially how gendered it is. How women are the ones expected to be sex positive, so that they will do things for men and how "vanilla" is used as an insult. You are not wrong to feel freaked out by this. I think a healthy sexually does involve bristling at rape jokes, finding Game of Thrones appaling and disgusting, and distancing yourself from such influences - because they arr part of rape culture, which says you should not have boundaries, which says you dont deserve safety. Healthy sexuality is about respect. Connection grows from a feeling of safety. Safety comes from knowing your boundaries will be respected. A lot of stuff out there that talks a out sex positivity is not about this. It is about the opposite, about having fewer boundaries, which means is is really about the normalization of violence. The concept is seriously contaminated.
I recommend the book "The Sexual Healing Journey". Best wishes.
posted by PercussivePaul at 11:24 PM on June 13, 2017 [17 favorites]
I recommend the book "The Sexual Healing Journey". Best wishes.
posted by PercussivePaul at 11:24 PM on June 13, 2017 [17 favorites]
Best answer: I sometimes get triggered by the smallest things and immediately become defensive, like if we're watching something and someone makes a stupid sexist or rape joke, or there's a rape scene (e.g. Game of Thrones), rather than rolling my eyes at the stupidity or not taking it too seriously, I end up feeling threatened and anxious.
These aren't small things. You know that "stupid" things like sexual abuse and coercion are serious things, you detailed them with an apparent calmness and detachment that are upsetting in their own way. though not as upsetting as what happened to you.
You're not wrong, I'm not telling you you're wrong. Rape and sexism are stupid. Rape and sexism are so fucking stupid. Call them stupid all you want. Get as mad as you want about men's demands that you take them seriously because if you don't, they can punish you. But treating them as stupid, petty, silly, meaningless little things that you don't take seriously is your revenge, your choice, if it makes you feel better; your right: never your obligation. It can equally be your choice to take them seriously in all their vileness, to refuse to smile and laugh like a good girl, to shut representations of them out of your life absolutely. You're entitled.
Repeated trauma has an effect. It's real. The specific effect you're bothered about is real; your rejection of violent rage about what happened to you is real too.
but since your question was not about whether and how and at whom to express anger, but rather how to get back in touch with your sexuality, my recommendation there is to read and look at exclusively female -authored material. meaning, writing and art about any kinds of people and activities you want, but no photographs and no live-action videos and nothing by men. because no matter what the sexual material is about -- and it doesn't have to be peaceful or 'positive' content unless you like that anyway -- you can be completely free from any fear or anxiety that women were harmed or coerced in its production, and very importantly, you don't have to think at all, you don't have to know, about anything men enjoy sexually. Any and all men in your erotic material will be solely the imaginative productions and projections of women: you can think about men while holding yourself in absolute privacy from them and shielding yourself from anything that goes on in their minds that you might not want to know about or see right now, or ever. This is deeply helpful for a lot of people with or without extreme misogynist mistreatment in their personal history, because of the world we live in, etc.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:35 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
These aren't small things. You know that "stupid" things like sexual abuse and coercion are serious things, you detailed them with an apparent calmness and detachment that are upsetting in their own way. though not as upsetting as what happened to you.
You're not wrong, I'm not telling you you're wrong. Rape and sexism are stupid. Rape and sexism are so fucking stupid. Call them stupid all you want. Get as mad as you want about men's demands that you take them seriously because if you don't, they can punish you. But treating them as stupid, petty, silly, meaningless little things that you don't take seriously is your revenge, your choice, if it makes you feel better; your right: never your obligation. It can equally be your choice to take them seriously in all their vileness, to refuse to smile and laugh like a good girl, to shut representations of them out of your life absolutely. You're entitled.
Repeated trauma has an effect. It's real. The specific effect you're bothered about is real; your rejection of violent rage about what happened to you is real too.
but since your question was not about whether and how and at whom to express anger, but rather how to get back in touch with your sexuality, my recommendation there is to read and look at exclusively female -authored material. meaning, writing and art about any kinds of people and activities you want, but no photographs and no live-action videos and nothing by men. because no matter what the sexual material is about -- and it doesn't have to be peaceful or 'positive' content unless you like that anyway -- you can be completely free from any fear or anxiety that women were harmed or coerced in its production, and very importantly, you don't have to think at all, you don't have to know, about anything men enjoy sexually. Any and all men in your erotic material will be solely the imaginative productions and projections of women: you can think about men while holding yourself in absolute privacy from them and shielding yourself from anything that goes on in their minds that you might not want to know about or see right now, or ever. This is deeply helpful for a lot of people with or without extreme misogynist mistreatment in their personal history, because of the world we live in, etc.
posted by queenofbithynia at 7:35 PM on June 14, 2017 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I just want to add that this is absolutely not "the way men are." Trusting the person you're with to respect your feelings if you ever want to say "no" to something, and trusting yourself to speak up if that happens, are essential.
Sex positivity, to me, is about saying yes to what you want to say yes to. It exists (in my view) to counteract Puritan views, to say that sex isn't "dirty," that women who like sex aren't "sluts." Saying yes to what you want to say yes to, I think, goes hand in hand with saying no to what you want to say no to. It sounds like your no has gotten a lot louder and more impassioned. I think that's going to take awhile to quiet down and might never disappear completely.
I want to say "maybe knowing that you have such good anti-rape alarm bells can let you feel safe to embrace the sex that you do want." But I know that vigilance is exhausting and not really emotionally compatible with feeling sexy. I hope that over time you'll get to a place where you trust the environment you've created and find people whom you really trust so that you can get back to that. I'm really sorry about your last relationship and the reactions you're continuing to have. Getting over a bad relationship is a process, and it kinda helps if you can really be on your own side and have detached curiosity and patience toward the healing process.
posted by salvia at 10:08 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
Sex positivity, to me, is about saying yes to what you want to say yes to. It exists (in my view) to counteract Puritan views, to say that sex isn't "dirty," that women who like sex aren't "sluts." Saying yes to what you want to say yes to, I think, goes hand in hand with saying no to what you want to say no to. It sounds like your no has gotten a lot louder and more impassioned. I think that's going to take awhile to quiet down and might never disappear completely.
I want to say "maybe knowing that you have such good anti-rape alarm bells can let you feel safe to embrace the sex that you do want." But I know that vigilance is exhausting and not really emotionally compatible with feeling sexy. I hope that over time you'll get to a place where you trust the environment you've created and find people whom you really trust so that you can get back to that. I'm really sorry about your last relationship and the reactions you're continuing to have. Getting over a bad relationship is a process, and it kinda helps if you can really be on your own side and have detached curiosity and patience toward the healing process.
posted by salvia at 10:08 PM on June 14, 2017 [2 favorites]
Best answer: This is something I am also very, very much dealing with right now. Here's a question I recently asked about it and another relevant recent question. Maybe this one too.
I'm working on this. It's hard. I guess the thing is, as I've gotten older, I've started to realize that so much of what I considered my "sex-positivity" in the past was just parroting the ideas I'd heard about sex in liberal circles in order to feel more liberated and to be more attractive to men. And so, unconsciously, I associated "sex-positivity" as a thing that was basically for men. So much of my relationship with my sexuality was about pleasing other people and feeling normal. I see a little of that in this part of your post:
I sometimes get triggered by the smallest things and immediately become defensive, like if we're watching something and someone makes a stupid sexist or rape joke, or there's a rape scene (e.g. Game of Thrones), rather than rolling my eyes at the stupidity or not taking it too seriously, I end up feeling threatened and anxious. It can really be the smallest thing. The bad memories from that relationship are brought back and I get scared that I'll go through the same thing again.
You're not taking it too seriously. Your feelings are never wrong. It's impossible for feelings to be wrong. They're not thoughts or ideas. If you have a strong bodily emotional response of disgust and anger at a rape joke or a rape scene, it's not because there's something wrong with you and you're taking things too seriously. There are reasons you are the way you are. You don't have to model your behavior around other people's expectations of your sexuality and your boundaries. I know that this is kind of a frightening idea--or at least, it is for me. If there was some sort of special hack or cognitive strategy I could use so that I would stop getting upset and triggered at rape scenes and rape jokes and well, my memories of my own rape, that would be awesome. But there isn't any--and my personal experience is that denying your feelings and immediate emotional responses or dismissing them as irrational and needing to be fixed will cause you more pain and shame than just acknowledging the anger and the fear and the anxiety and understanding why it exists and just letting it be.
posted by armadillo1224 at 8:39 AM on June 15, 2017
I'm working on this. It's hard. I guess the thing is, as I've gotten older, I've started to realize that so much of what I considered my "sex-positivity" in the past was just parroting the ideas I'd heard about sex in liberal circles in order to feel more liberated and to be more attractive to men. And so, unconsciously, I associated "sex-positivity" as a thing that was basically for men. So much of my relationship with my sexuality was about pleasing other people and feeling normal. I see a little of that in this part of your post:
I sometimes get triggered by the smallest things and immediately become defensive, like if we're watching something and someone makes a stupid sexist or rape joke, or there's a rape scene (e.g. Game of Thrones), rather than rolling my eyes at the stupidity or not taking it too seriously, I end up feeling threatened and anxious. It can really be the smallest thing. The bad memories from that relationship are brought back and I get scared that I'll go through the same thing again.
You're not taking it too seriously. Your feelings are never wrong. It's impossible for feelings to be wrong. They're not thoughts or ideas. If you have a strong bodily emotional response of disgust and anger at a rape joke or a rape scene, it's not because there's something wrong with you and you're taking things too seriously. There are reasons you are the way you are. You don't have to model your behavior around other people's expectations of your sexuality and your boundaries. I know that this is kind of a frightening idea--or at least, it is for me. If there was some sort of special hack or cognitive strategy I could use so that I would stop getting upset and triggered at rape scenes and rape jokes and well, my memories of my own rape, that would be awesome. But there isn't any--and my personal experience is that denying your feelings and immediate emotional responses or dismissing them as irrational and needing to be fixed will cause you more pain and shame than just acknowledging the anger and the fear and the anxiety and understanding why it exists and just letting it be.
posted by armadillo1224 at 8:39 AM on June 15, 2017
This thread is closed to new comments.
It took me a long, long time to recover from this. I had a dry spell of almost three years. In that time I had dreams where he was coming to get me, and flashbacks.
I started to recover by parsing various self-help books and reading anything and everything on how good relationships are supposed to work. I got into a relationship with a guy who was very undemanding and very respectful of condom use, and that taught me that yes, partners do exist who respect those things. This helped me get over the feeling I carried around for some time, that I didn't like my own body. I also got a good job, and had some stability because of that, which helped with my overall confidence.
Give yourself time, do some reading, and get therapy. Teach yourself what kind of relationship YOU want, and go for it. If you slip up here and there that's normal. What matters is that you decide for yourself what you will or will not tolerate in a relationship, and act on it. That should help to diminish, if not eliminate, the triggering you discussed above.
posted by Crystal Fox at 8:28 PM on June 13, 2017 [2 favorites]