Part 3: Do You Suffer from Past Trauma (Childhood Abuse, PTSD, Domestic Violence, etc..)?

Please be aware though I will not be going into specifics this could be a trigger for some of you. Read with caution! 

Please remember any abuses that you have suffered were not your fault. You are a survivor! If you were able to survive the abuse, you can survive the emotions that have been left behind. You are not alone. There is someone out there who can help or listen. *hugs*

I think learning to accept love is very hard if you have been abused. People who have been victims of abuse tend to be filled with guilt, shame, self hatred, self blame, low self esteem and they do not usually believe that they deserve to be loved. This is a hard one to understand, especially if that person has a partner that really loves them now. The person who suffered abuse may have doubts all the time, may get clingy, or may try to push the partner away. The abuse cycle hurts everyone involved.

Back to my story a bit and I should stop here to add this is not by any means a complete history. I am just telling the parts that helped me. We all had to go through a lot of messed up and bad times to get to the good ones and to get better. I leave all that out now for several reasons. 1) I don't like to dwell on it. 2) I don't really think its necessary to get my point across. 3) Knowing the bad things that have went down will not really help you out. Lets focus on the positive here.

With the encouragement of my friends that I lived with I decided to go to school for massage. In hindsight this was a very weird choice for me as I hated to be touched. My thoughts were I would be the one touching others and it would be a way to help people. I had a background in Home Health and Childcare so I wanted to do something I could make a difference in. I ended up loving Massage and loving Massage Therapy School. I had wonderful teachers. I learned amazing things. I came out of it with so much more than I thought I would.

You may be asking yourself what does Massage School have to do with any of this?? Well I learned things like boundaries and ethics. I learned that I deserved respect. I learned I didn't have to have sex with people just to get them to like me. Sex had never really had any value to me other than a physical way to connect to others. It was never a big deal to me if I had sex with someone. At one point a friend had even remarked "Is F*cking just how you say hello? Do you have to F*ck everyone you meet?" I had thought about it and told her that I found it to be a good ice breaker. Well learning everything I did about ethics and boundaries and how they applied to massage helped me to figure out a set of them for myself and my life. I had not really had them before. I didn't realize it was something I desperately needed for my self esteem and self worth.

Don't get me wrong though I am not saying this was an overnight change or that I completely stopped having sex. I didn't, I just became choosy and decided what I wanted and what I didn't want. Then I lived by those decisions.  to be continued....