Am I damaged goods?

Archwinger · 2014-08-06T18:48:05+00:00

Everything about you is a piece of a larger whole. I'm not going to blow smoke up your ass. A past sexual trauma, despite the fact that it's totally not your fault, can have a deep and lasting impact on you. It's a negative. If a guy could choose between you and a carbon-copy of you, identical in every way, just without the past sexual assault, he'd go with the copy.

But like I said, that's just one piece of the whole. And it sounds like you addressed the issue early, have coped with it just fine, have a clean bill of health from a mental health professional, and are ready to live your life.

If you're also in great shape, respectful, a good conversationalist, skilled at a lot of useful things, sexually pretty normal despite your past trauma, and all-in-all, a really great catch for a guy, that will more than outweigh anything negative associated with something some messed up shithead who likes four-year-old girls did to you over a decade ago. I mean, fuck, my little girl's almost three and a half, and tall for her age. Thinking about things like this really turns my stomach.

You sound like you know better than to hide your past, and you sound like you've dealt with it quite well. So really, as long as you're worth a shit, I don't think this is going to hold you back significantly.

It's those entitled princesses with eternal victim mentalities, that spend their entire adult lives playing the past abuse card to excuse any of their questionable sexual choices (and questionable choices as a whole) that give sexual trauma that stigma.

anonlymouse · 2014-08-06T21:05:37+00:00

Yes, but not badly damaged. The problem is you might not come across the issues until you start having sex.

I dated a girl who was pretty much like you, raped by a family member at around that age, as she was older she had a few sexual partners since. Sometimes she'd get flashbacks when we were having sex. Lying naked in bed with a girl who's regressed back to a mental 5 year old who doesn't recognise you and is crying that she wants to go home feels fucking terrible.

She had a separate problem of being unwilling to see a therapist (the reasons varied, but bottom line is she needed to see one and she wouldn't). That was the real issue. I'm willing to give her some breathing room to deal with the problem, but that means she actually has to deal with it.

If you're seeing a therapist, that's good. Your boyfriend can't be your therapist, he's not trained as one. So in that case, you're bringing baggage into the relationship, but you're paying someone else to deal with it for you, making it less of an issue. How much less I couldn't say.

Title	Am I damaged goods?
Author	trp_abuse_throwaway
Upvotes	8
Comments	19
Date	August 6, 2014 6:19 PM UTC (12 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/askTRP
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/asktrp/comments/2ct4ow/am_i_damaged_goods/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/askTRP/am-i-damaged-goods.141203 https://theredarchive.com/post/141203

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