Trigger Warning

Learning how to be intimate after abuse is hard. It's something you have to work on every single day. It's having to ask yourself constantly, "is this okay?" or "does this hurt me?" It's having the be explicit with your partner(s) about where you like and don't like being touched.

Some days it's easier and you can have intimate moments without any issues. Other days are quite messy and you can't be intimate if your life depended on it.

The messy days are the worst, because your mind replays the memories like move flashbacks. You can hear their voice telling you to, "shut the hell up." You feel their hands pushing in on places and forming bruises like flowers finally sprouting up from the ground.

It shouldn't be like this, but it is. You shouldn't feel 100% okay with intimacy one day and quiver in fear of it the next. Nobody wants to play the victim card, but when you're touched just a second too long in a particular spot and your mind sees their face and hears their voice, it is not your fault.

You didn't want nor did you plan for any of this to happen. Nobody wants to fear someone's hand on their side or the way one might whisper into your ear. No one ever asks to be afraid of intimacy, because this isn't something anyone wants to have to deal with. Nobody wants to burden their partner with the gravity and weight of this.

But for some reason, an asshole wakes up and they decide that their, "pleasure," is valued at much higher a cost than your sanity. They decide your well-being is of less importance than their orgasm, and that fact alone can fuck a human being up.

They take away and get, "bragging rights," from friends and what do you get? Something that looks and feels a lot like drowning. The sinking feeling of feeling, "less than," and pain. You get physical, emotional, mental pain. Pain that for some can only be masked with drugs, alcohol, self-harm, or other toxicities.

They say it was, "15 minutes of action," and that you should ignore it. Trying to ignore that it happened feels a lot like trying to ignore the rain while driving. You simply can't do it.

Learning to be intimate after abuse is hard, and the first step to doing so is accepting it for what it is and knowing there is no one way to do it. Do not place expectations on yourself to be able to do certain things by certain dates, because that is simply added pressure. You will heal, you will be okay, and the sooner you realize that, the sooner you can begin that process.