u/Realistic_Load_5369

A major thing I'm currently trying to work on in therapy is intimacy/sexuality. In therapy, I've realised that I've basically only been having sex out of perceived duty for over a decade. I'm in a long-term loving relationship and my husband has been nothing but respectful and loving. Ever since I told him this, we've paused all intimacy and haven't slept together for months now. He's told me he'd give me as much time as I needed to heal and he really hasn't pushed me or even suggested sex once.

My therapist says that I should gradually start pushing my limits bit by bit, as I told him my goal is to restart intimacy but in a healthier way, like when I actually want to have sex, not feel like I should. However, the desire is simply not coming. It's not that I think the sex would be awful and I couldn't bear it, but I just feel like the whole point was to resume intimacy once I felt a genuine desire for it, and I just don't. So when does this gentle therapeutic push become just my "good old" fawning habit? How can I tell the difference? And will I ever be able to feel actual desire, like I did when we started dating (my husband was my first real relationship and sexual partner)?

I want to try it as a complement to psychotherapy. Hoping it will help me reconnect with my body in ways that CBT possibly can't.

For context, I am a woman in early 30s, diagnosed with CPTSD and OCD.

Whenever I look in the mirror while I'm topless (which I don't do often), it's like my brain experiences this huge surprise/shock to see my breasts on my chest. I feel quite uncomfortable while looking at myself in the mirror naked, but also while wearing a T-shirt and seeing myself from the side, with my curves visible. However, I don't think I'm trans, as I don't hate the idea of being a woman and it doesn't cause me distress, I just don't like having breasts.

I wonder if this could be a symptom of CPTSD. For possibly useful context, throughout my whole life, my father made frequent comments on womens' (and even young - 11-12yo - girls') bodies and showed some other predatory behaviours, too, including ones targeting me. I learned to hide my body, especially once I hit puberty. I still dress and present in a very "manly" way, but this thing with my breasts just baffles me. What is it? Some sort of trauma-induced body dysmorphia or dissociation (I do have dissociative symptoms in other areas of life)? Or what else could it be? I feel like my breasts don't belong to me. Is there a way to "connect" to this part of my body and accept it as mine?

It seems that I can't live my life without seeing my blood every single day. I always cause myself minor injuries (scratches with nails or nail scissors - I have a "rule" that I will never use a razor/knife etc. -, minor burns (like letting my hand touch a hot stove), various scrapes (I will often scrape my hands on rough surfaces), and so on) and then I pick on the scabs repeatedly, making the wound worse and worse. Currently, I have some scabs from injuries I caused back in January.

I feel like I can't stop myself. I'm addicted not so much to the feeling (pain), but more to the look of these injuries. My therapist thinks I cause them because I told him I found it dangerous to be perceived as attractive/feminine. I don't know if that's it, but I can't come with anything better. I think I like looking a bit rough.

My dad came to stay with us yesterday and he triggered me with his stupid rage after about 1 hour of being here. I had to leave my own house because my heart rate went up drastically, I was shaking and I felt like I was going to explode.

Today in the morning, I told him that I'd been diagnosed with CPTSD and that because of all the terror I had to live through with him, my nervous system was the same as the nervous system of a WWII veteran. I told him he made me feel cripplingly unsafe as a woman.

He just cried and apologised again and again, said he had no idea (abuse included death+arson threats to family and other people, suicide threats, grooming me, including filming me naked and zooming in on my genitals, dangerous road rages, frequent anger outbursts, etc.). At one point, he tried to hug me and I just jumped aside and shouted "Don't touch me!" I told him I wasn't going to contact him until I genuinely felt like I wanted to speak with him, but that if he wanted, he could occasionally call and I'd pick up.

I feel like shit. I know that's probably normal, but it doesn't change anything about me feeling like shit, knowing he's probably crying somewhere right now.

Not sure this is really a victory, but it feels like one to me. My brain's been doing overtime since I started therapy to protect my father at all cost, despite all the realisations I've made about him, including his covert sexual abuse of me, but also all the other traumatic shit such as death/suicide threats and other horrible shit. Always trying to justify that he didn't mean it, blablabla. Well, yesterday, finally realised I do have a memory which is simply unforgivable, namely one where he got into a road rage and tried to kill us on the highway, going 120 kmph in the wrong direction. It feels almost liberating, despite it giving me a lifelong fear of being in a car with other people as drivers. Fuck you, dad! You're a fucking asshole.

My therapist has told me repeatedly that I show all the symptoms of a survivor of (C)SA. I see his point, I have some extreme reptilian brain reactions to situations of intimacy, even though consciously I know I'm with my safe and respectful, loving husband.

My father crossed a lot of boundaries in my childhood. He made me live in a highly sexualized environment. He made me share a bed with him until mid-teens. He often filmed me naked when I was in pre-school age, and encouraged my nudity on camera. He exposed me to his jail mates. He asked me inappropriate, pervy questions about masturbation and keenly shared details of his own sex life. These are just some of the things he did. But... he never abused me (as far as I can remember and I'm pretty confident). And because of that, and the fact that he's always loved me, I can't seem to go no or even low contact with him. My heart is fighting with my brain so much in trying to protect him at all cost.

So quite often - and I beg you all for forgiveness because it's such a fucked up thing to say and I truly mean no disrespect to survivors of (C)SA - all I'm left thinking is... I wish he'd just raped me instead.

For me, it was my half-sister casually talking to her dad about her pediod (asking if he could buy her pads when he goes to the shop or something like that). When I got my period and had to spend time with my father, I would only ever change my pads in those brief moments when he was busy with something, always fake coughing to cover all the noises associated with changing pads, and then I'd sneak into the kitchen and dug my hand deep down in the disgusting waste bin to bury the used pad in it, so that he would never find out I was already menstruating.

Did anyone else do this? And what other normal things struck you about other people's interactions?

Whenever there's a draft or for some other reason I accidentally shut a door too loudly, so it sounds like I slammed it, I then open it and close it slowly and quietly again 😅 I think I do it so that other people in the house don't think I'm angry.

Yesterday, while watching Netflix in bed with my husband, I suddenly felt a desire to cuddle and while cuddling, I even navigated his hands down my pants and let him "play". For the last few months, this has been inconceivable and for a decade prior to that, I only engaged in intimacy out of perceived duty (I'm the fawning type), though he never once forced me into anything.

I fell asleep so happy that I was genuinely able to desire his touch. Yet when I woke up today, I realised immediately that I felt like utter shit (emotionally) and it's been like that all day, but I don't understand why.

Does this happen to anyone else and can you explain why?