My repeated childhood sexual assault has (unknowingly to me) impacted my adult sex life

I’m not sure if this is the correct sub so if it’s not, please point me in the right direction.

From the age of 5-8 I was sexually assaulted by two teenage neighbors whose parents use to babysit me when my parents were away. I feel my parents didn’t notice anything wrong due to my sibling being in/out of the hospital a lot during this time. If they did notice, they may have attributed it to my sibling’s hospitalization or our frequent moving (military family). I didn’t tell anyone and I honestly can’t remember how I lived my life throughout elementary school. I feel like I maybe didn’t understand what was happening and I just...logged it away in my mind. Maybe there is something to the theory that your mind protects you from certain things. It wasn’t until 6th grade when I had my first boyfriend and he tried to kiss me did I experience that fear again. My fear doesn’t come in panic though or tears. I feel it comes as compliance and numbness. The same way I responded to the sexual assaults at that age.

I had another boyfriend in 9th grade who had to wait 2 months into the relationship before I’d let him hold my hand and 4 before he could kiss me. We broke up a year later and I didn’t have another boyfriend until college.

I willingly had sex for the first time when I was 20. It wasn’t because I loved him. It was to show myself that I could do this, that I could have sex like everyone else and to my surprise I could. I was so thrilled that I could that I did it often.

I knew parts of my personality and behaviors came from the trauma. I have anxiety and my mom said to me a while back “you’ve had anxiety since you were 4-5”. I don’t necessarily like being touched (no hugs, handshaking, touching my face usually) and I get uncomfortable with male attention. I don’t like comments on my body and in high school I’d wear oversized hoodies to hide it. I also dropped from a size 11 in 9th grade to a size 3 over the summer due to not eating.

Fast forward to today. I’m not in a relationship yet I have male friends who I’m sexually intimate with. I was speaking to one about favorite sex positions and I listed my top 4. In that list I realized that in every single position, I’m looking away from the guy. Digging deeper, I realized that those positions don’t feel good to me yet I know they feel great to the guys. I’ve only orgasmed once in my life and I scream and start to cry and fight them off of me if I get close to it. I tell them that I like it hard and fast yet that’s because it means they finish faster and I don’t have to have sex anymore.

I had an incident with one of these friends where we were drinking and went back home to have sex. He wanted oral and I moved my head away. He did it again, not forcefully and I moved my head elsewhere. He asked me if I was okay and I told him “yeah” and just faced the wall and cried. He knows the details of my past and held me. We both cried.

I’m unsure what I’m asking and I’m unsure of what advice I’m seeking yet I just started to realize these things after fighting it for so long. Maybe I’m just looking for someone to relate? And maybe tell me how they became comfortable with sex to actually enjoy it rather than just going through the motions and trying to make your partner happy?

Submitted April 13, 2019 at 02:08AM

I’m not sure if this is the correct sub so if it’s not, please point me in the right direction.From the age of 5-8 I was sexually assaulted by two teenage neighbors whose parents use to babysit me when my parents were away. I feel my parents didn’t notice anything wrong due to my sibling being in/out of the hospital a lot during this time. If they did notice, they may have attributed it to my sibling’s hospitalization or our frequent moving (military family). I didn’t tell anyone and I honestly can’t remember how I lived my life throughout elementary school. I feel like I maybe didn’t understand what was happening and I just...logged it away in my mind. Maybe there is something to the theory that your mind protects you from certain things. It wasn’t until 6th grade when I had my first boyfriend and he tried to kiss me did I experience that fear again. My fear doesn’t come in panic though or tears. I feel it comes as compliance and numbness. The same way I responded to the sexual assaults at that age.I had another boyfriend in 9th grade who had to wait 2 months into the relationship before I’d let him hold my hand and 4 before he could kiss me. We broke up a year later and I didn’t have another boyfriend until college.I willingly had sex for the first time when I was 20. It wasn’t because I loved him. It was to show myself that I could do this, that I could have sex like everyone else and to my surprise I could. I was so thrilled that I could that I did it often.I knew parts of my personality and behaviors came from the trauma. I have anxiety and my mom said to me a while back “you’ve had anxiety since you were 4-5”. I don’t necessarily like being touched (no hugs, handshaking, touching my face usually) and I get uncomfortable with male attention. I don’t like comments on my body and in high school I’d wear oversized hoodies to hide it. I also dropped from a size 11 in 9th grade to a size 3 over the summer due to not eating.Fast forward to today. I’m not in a relationship yet I have male friends who I’m sexually intimate with. I was speaking to one about favorite sex positions and I listed my top 4. In that list I realized that in every single position, I’m looking away from the guy. Digging deeper, I realized that those positions don’t feel good to me yet I know they feel great to the guys. I’ve only orgasmed once in my life and I scream and start to cry and fight them off of me if I get close to it. I tell them that I like it hard and fast yet that’s because it means they finish faster and I don’t have to have sex anymore.I had an incident with one of these friends where we were drinking and went back home to have sex. He wanted oral and I moved my head away. He did it again, not forcefully and I moved my head elsewhere. He asked me if I was okay and I told him “yeah” and just faced the wall and cried. He knows the details of my past and held me. We both cried.I’m unsure what I’m asking and I’m unsure of what advice I’m seeking yet I just started to realize these things after fighting it for so long. Maybe I’m just looking for someone to relate? And maybe tell me how they became comfortable with sex to actually enjoy it rather than just going through the motions and trying to make your partner happy?