Hey ladies, Trigger Warning; Rape.

When I was twelve years old, I was serially raped by an older teenage boy. I was raised firmly catholic. It was preached that you shouldn’t even kiss a boy before marrying him. In my catholic education classes it was taught that if you had sex before marriage, you were like a chewed piece of gum and no one would love you. I didn’t know what orgasms were, and I had no sexual desires, since I was only a little girl who had only just gotten her period. When my family found out what happened, they assumed that I wanted it, and made me go to confession. I was officially the bad seed at home and ostracized as a trouble maker. My self worth was botched and I thought no one would ever love me. I tried to kill myself when I was thirteen.

Now, I am twenty one years old and dating a man. I’ve told him everything, and he is insanely sweet to me and understanding. I think he is the one, but even when we get intimate, sometimes I start feeling the way I did when I was a preteen, and I start having a panic attack during sex.

I guess I’m wondering if anyone else has trouble with intimacy due to previous assaults or has any amount of spite for the church. That whole thing damaged my outlook on the church and myself. It has made living difficult.