Not sure what else to do.

This is going to be a seriously long post, and I never thought I’d be making it but I’m not sure where else to turn to or who else to ask for advice.

When I was 6 I was sexually assaulted by a teenage boy. Won’t go into the details but since then I’ve had five other incidents of sexual assault/abuse. The incident from when I was 6 was extremely traumatic and up until I was 16 I was strongly disgusted by the thought of sex, penises, and even my own body. After turning 16 though, I went through a lot of confusion and finally confessed to my mom the incident that happened all of those years ago. She took me to counseling, and it helped a little, so I decided to stick my toe in the water and slowly start exploring. Unfortunately, for the next two years after that, I had the other five incidents happen to me. It wasn’t extremely traumatic like my first, but it has definitely affected me emotionally and physically.

When I turned 18 (this year), I decided to finally start actually dating. I’ve been on dates now, I had my first two relationships this year (both crappy, but thankful for the experiences), and I lost my virginity. Granted, I was sore for days and it took him about 15 minutes to get it inside of me, but it happened nonetheless. And even though I had a slight panic attack at the beginning of it, I got through it and didn’t feel as scared as I normally do about the physical contact and the sexual situation. I felt somewhat comfortable, but not satisfied like he was.

Now I’m in my third relationship (first two, like I said, were extremely crappy and very short lived), and he’s wonderful; he is extremely respectful, honest, and patient with me. He knows about what I’ve been through and never pressures me into anything, and I’m thankful for that. However, we’ve tried having sex two times now. Unlike the time when I lost my virginity, where it was going inside me but just really slowly, I can’t even get the tip inside of me. We tried multiple positions, different condom brands, and put a lot of time into attempting it (possibly hours). Nothing has worked for us yet. I discussed it with him, and we both agreed to wait a few months before trying again, and we also discussed about experimenting with lubricants and other condoms and positions in the future.

I also discussed the situation with my mother, who told me about her sexual experiences and how it wasn’t easy at first for her to have sex either. It was nice to be able to have such a personal conversation with my mother and relate to her on these things when I thought I was completely alone.

But ever since my boyfriend and I agreed to wait to try again, all of the physical contact we usually have doesn’t feel the same anymore. Now I feel guilty all the time... guilty about how difficult this is for us and constantly blaming myself for it. I feel extremely uncomfortable whenever he touches me in certain places now, when before it was never an issue. I constantly overthink situations with him and I feel too disgusted to even look at my body anymore. I told him all of these feelings that I’m having, and thankfully he isn’t upset or offended; in fact, he said he wants to help me as much as possible to feel 100% comfortable with him with time, and that I shouldn’t be feeling guilty for this problem that I can’t really control. But despite having this conversation with him, my feelings haven’t gone away. I still feel disgusting, pathetic, and guilty. If someone could give me some advice or suggestions on how I can fix this or feel better , please let me know. I’m absolutely lost and I felt that I should try posting in a community that I’ve seen is extremely supportive and uplifting.

Again, really sorry for it being such a long post; writing this post made me extremely emotional. But I thank anyone who can give me some kind of advice. ❤️

I posted this in another group called “sex and relationships”, but I wanted to post it here as well in case members in this particular group would have different responses.