August
06
Tags
This Is Who I Am
You may remember Sharon her for her piece, The Picture is Only Perfect in Her Head, where she wrote about being the child of a narcissistic mother.
Struggling to define your sexuality is confusing enough in a world that loves to tell you who you are – to do so against the backdrop of abusive relationships can be heartbreaking. Please welcome Sharon back to The Sisterwives as she explores another facet of herself and her identity.
Deep inside, I have known I wasn’t heterosexual since I was in my early teens. I started having crushes on girls when I was 12. I stuffed it into a deep corner of my mind for a long time. I thought I could fit into the heterosexual “norm” for years. I was a late bloomer and had my first boyfriend at 18. It wasn’t a good experience. Then I had my second and third relationships in my early and mid-twenties and things got worse. I started getting intimate and sexual and was pit against emotional, physical and sexual abuse. I had already suffered emotional and physical abuse from my mother since I was a child (and still do to a degree, though things are slowly improving despite her narcissism).
In the heterosexual relationship I was in, I tried to play the more sexual card, including some light BDSM. I even admitted being bisexual, although he hated bisexual women. He was the most abusive person I was involved with and used my struggles as a means to turn me into what he needed by pretending to care about me and gas-lighting me when I confronted him. It lasted a few years and I eventually broke up with him 3 years ago, one of the best decisions in my life. I am grateful we don’t live in the same country, as his harassment continued until earlier this year.
In the past few years, I have realized more and more about me and my sexuality. As much as I feel better about it, knowing who I am, I can’t help feeling screwed for my future.
There have been times I have been drawn toward women, but thought it to be a knee-jerk reaction. I am a bi-romantic and asexual person. I don’t feel happy about this – but this is who I am. For the longest time, I thought that my asexuality was a consequence of my history of abuse, but I am learning that I profoundly don’t care about sex.
The thought of having sex with a man makes me want to throw up. I have always been disgusted any time it happened in the past, no matter the situation. I have also suffered from a sexual dysfunction known as vaginismus for years, which makes intercourse nearly impossible. The thought of penetration, no matter the object, makes me shudder. I also feel like a bad person because I can’t see/touch/think of male genitalia without becoming physically ill (even writing this paragraph is heavy on me), regardless of the person’s gender identification. I am a big LGBTQIA+ supporter and am ashamed of these feeling as I am afraid they could be interpreted as judgmental. I have also done a lot of thinking about this issue with male genitalia and have realized that these feelings pre-date my sexual abuse history.
Being bi-romantic and asexual makes me feel fucked up for my future. It slapped me in the face even more when I recently had my first online attraction a guy in a long while – it made me realize that I am a dead end. How could I possibly hope for someone to accept me when I can’t accept their body, when I can’t even talk about sex? Even if I met a woman, I’m worried that if she is pretty sexual, this would be a deal breaker. I have been doing my best to heal on my own about my abuse history and my body issues (I know I will never have a child via pregnancy because I don’t want to live that but I am excited that one day I may adopt). But I still feel that my asexuality and assorted issues may damn me for the future.
Sadly, I don’t feel optimistic about having a love life, at all.
I am relieved that I know myself at this point of my life. It is a big improvement. I am also proud that I understand and recognize what was abusive in my past so I can avoid it now. It feels better not to be confused about my sexuality. I am progressing on my healing path.
The SisterWives 
Thank you, Sharon, for sharing your story with us. My heart goes out to you. Our sexuality is incredibly complex and can be difficult to define – but I do believe that you own it and are not required to explain yourself to anyone. You are very brave, and I hope that you are able to find the support that you need. ❤
LikeLike
Thank you for having me again. This community is such a supportive and safe place. I wouldn’t be able to speak about my expériences elsewhere and/or Under my real name. Writing it down helps more than I would have first thought possible. ❤
LikeLike
Very powerful post! It takes a lot to figure out our own sexuality when it’s different from the norm, and I’m still trying to figure mine out. I’ve been in a relationship for almost 20 years, and due to my partner’s emotional abuse and personality, I no longer have any attraction for her, and if I were to be on my own, I don’t know that I’d want a relationship. While I have spurts of sexual feelings, I think I’m leaning toward bi-romantic myself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you kindly! It took me almost 2 decades to figure my sexuality out so that’s been a long process. I had ‘epiphanies’ at several key moments though. I’m sorry to hear about your partner’s emotional abuse and personality and send you love.
LikeLike
Sharon, thanks for sharing such a brave post – I’m sorry it was challenging for you to write, but I hope it proved to be cathartic, and that the level of acceptance you can be sure of here, will help to reassure you that it’s okay to be who you are, and to acknowledge and validate that person for yourself, because we all need to #BeReal, and it sounds as though (even if you’re not sure of your future) you’ve taken huge steps towards a place of security in yourself.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you so much! I’m grateful for having found the SisterWives community. I’m still surprised of how cathartic writing it out can be, especially when I tend to bottle everything up and not share what bothers me (that could be a whole other post, frankly). I’ve been improving at being Real in the past years. It’s hard but in a way it’s easier than trying to pretend you are something else, especially long term. I’ve had enough problems and got enough scars trying to conform to this or that expectation that I don’t want to do it anymore.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I feel ya. I’ve done the whole ‘running from yourself’ for so, so many years, and I’ve gotten tired of it. So gradually, in dribs and drabs, I’m showing who and how I really am, and what’s wonderful is that so far not a single person has reviled me…or even been surprised. So that’s awesome.
I think there comes a point which crosses over between being so tired of pretending, and feeling safe enough to actually be real, at which a person eventually unmasks and just…be’s.
I hope you’ll remain a strong part of the SW community, and thanks again for your contribution 🙂
LikeLike
Kudos on your progress!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thank you! ❤
LikeLike
The thought of having sex with a man also makes me want to throw up… I can barely stand talking to them… I know this isn’t helpful at all, but I thought I would throw it up… uh… out there…
LikeLiked by 1 person
Humor can be a good therapy! And your comment made me chuckle. :p
LikeLike
yay… that is really all I ever shoot for…
LikeLike
What is “bi-romantic”?
LikeLike
Bi-romantic means having emotional/affectionate attraction/feelings towards both men and women. The two links below give better explanation than I would:
http://asexualeducation.tumblr.com/post/17396323058/biromantic-heteromantic-homoromantic
http://www.asexuality.org/wiki/index.php?title=Attraction
LikeLike
Thanks for the Links. That’s a lot of slicing and dicing of definitions, concepts, and words! In my day we just said “hey, I’m not feeling that so much” and that was that. Didn’t have so many names and definitions to understand. It’s interesting how sexuality is so uniquely expressed, but when putting it on a “bell”/normal curve, deviation from the mean is considered aberrant. Yet, with the behavior of Friendliness, as a different example, society is more accepting of deviations from the mean.
LikeLike
Hey, there are lots of asexual people out there! There are lots of people who still want a romantic relationship in their life. Some of these people find each other, and some of them find partners that are willing to accept and love their sexuality (or asexuality.)
If you don’t want to be alone, you don’t have to be alone. It just might take some work to find the right person. (Then again, what do you think the rest of the world goes on online dating sites and watches chick flicks with happy endings for? It’s not easy for anybody.)
Please don’t resign yourself! (Then again, if you don’t want a relationship anytime soon, it’s also okay to choose to be alone. For a while or forever. But I think it’s a choice: asexual and alone, or asexual and with a romantic partner. They’re both possible.)
(Also, I’ve been feeling this way myself lately, so please excuse my forceful inner cheerleader. Maybe this comment is more for me than for you: I can’t give up.)
LikeLike
By “this way,” I mean that maybe I will never have a successful relationship or find someone to spend my life with. And I want to.
And it’s all extra wobbly because I have no idea whether I want that person to be male or female or both or some other gender, and I still panic when I think about kissing anyone at all. So it’s been hard to figure it out.
LikeLike
NPR says that a ten second romantic kiss passes 80 million germs. I just read that on their site today.
LikeLike