Hypersexuality vs Loneliness

[RubyBlue]

I think I’m losing sight of the difference. Or I’m fighting both. Or my brain is just that screwed up.

Background: CSA for years starting from a very young age. This CSA was twisted and morphed into what I knew to be “love”. A person that touches you clearly loves you that much to risk their life and livelihood to show you there love. A person that doesn’t touch- doesn’t want you. End of story.

As an adult I can realize the fallacy of those statements. I can be logical and read and learn all the material proving them wrong.

So why can’t I FEEL how wrong they were?
Why do I have this constant drive to find love no matter how much therapy I do?
Why are they still the dominant voice?
Why can’t I be like others who have zero interest in being close to another?
Why do I allow insanely low standards in partners?
Why do I seek out the most dangerous situations I can find?
Why can I be in essence raped one night (won’t call it that because I asked for it) and back out the next night looking for just one person to pretend to hold me for awhile?
Why can’t I be satisfied with the human connections that I have and drop this exhausting search for a man?

Feeling all sorts of things tonight. And I don’t know what exactly I’m fighting anymore.

 

[Movingforward10]

I think I’m losing sight of the difference. Or I’m fighting both. Or my brain is just that screwed up.

Background: CSA for years starting from a very young age. This CSA was twisted and morphed into what I knew to be “love”. A person that touches you clearly loves you that much to risk their life and livelihood to show you there love. A person that doesn’t touch- doesn’t want you. End of story.

As an adult I can realize the fallacy of those statements. I can be logical and read and learn all the material proving them wrong.

So why can’t I FEEL how wrong they were?
Why do I have this constant drive to find love no matter how much therapy I do?
Why are they still the dominant voice?
Why can’t I be like others who have zero interest in being close to another?
Why do I allow insanely low standards in partners?
Why do I seek out the most dangerous situations I can find?
Why can I be in essence raped one night (won’t call it that because I asked for it) and back out the next night looking for just one person to pretend to hold me for awhile?
Why can’t I be satisfied with the human connections that I have and drop this exhausting search for a man?

Feeling all sorts of things tonight. And I don’t know what exactly I’m fighting anymore.

I can relate.

I'm sorry you are going through this. It sounds really challenging and I can hear the frustration and confusion in your post.

Do you have a T to talk it through?

Sounds like you are in that middle place of challenging your old narratives (sex = love = validation of you and no sex = no validation) and your new narrative (you are more than a sexual activity : you are a fully rounded and formed person with multi layers that deserves recognition and love for all of you).

I'm sorry I have no answers. But I hear you.

 

[PreciousChild]

I'm sorry to hear about your struggles. CSA is not a major component of my cptsd, though like many girls, there were plenty of brushes with it. I just wanted to post that a strong factor in cptsd that I don't think we talk about often enough is that as children, we need our parents/caregivers just in order to survive. Yes, losing validation and other interpersonal threats are part of it. But what I think makes it a ptsd thing is that pissing off grown-ups feels like risking our lives. For me, that meant that I jumped through every hoop, endured everything, even killing my feelings and needs, because had I not, there was a real threat that I would have ended up alone in the world at 3 years old. No 3 year old, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14 year old could survive on their own. So you keep on doing the thing the grown-up wants from you even if it harms you. Van der Kolk talks about how that was a really good thing we did in order to survive. But as grown-ups, we need to let that go because we no longer need to do that in order to survive.