Please help?

[RainbowVeins202]

'Warning: this might be explicit and/or triggering to some people maybe.

I'm not really sure where to start. I feel really ridiciulous even talking about it, but I'm really not in the best place right now and I can't talk about it to anyone in person. this is going to be long, I'm sorry. I'm just really confused right now. Please forgive me if this story is kind of rambling.


I'm a 20 year old girl and over the past year I've "hooked up" with quite a few guys. Not sex, though, I've only had sex with boys that I dated. But still, too far physically.
When I was 17 and started doing stuff with a guy that I was dating at the time, I would freak out and have a panic attack when it got to anything below the waist. I finally calmed down after a while and would usually just zone out whenever we did anything. The same thing happened with the next boy I dated. I was really close to both of them, they'd both been very good friends for a long time and I dated the second boy for a year and a half. Then last year I started dating a third boy and after a while stopped having panic attacks and felt more comfortable with him, but that took me a while too. The only reason I think I felt comfortable was because he wasn't comfortable with sexual things either so we took things very, very slowly. We broke up and I did stuff with other guys, nothing extreme, boys that I knew and liked and everything (I still feel incredibly guilty for doing it though). I would feel guilty after doing things usually but nothing too terrible. But lately it's been getting really, really bad. I've been talking to this one boy that I actually really like, get along with, and feel comfortable with, but I've had a panic attack after we do stuff. But it isn't like a normal panic attack that I've had since I was 8 years old. It's like flashes of things that I can't really remember. Like my brain is going crazy and I keep seeing things and it gets really hard to control it. I ended up cutting in his bathroom last week because I couldn't stop it. Even talking about it now makes me really anxious but it isn't so bad.
I kind of feel like maybe something happened to me when I was little and I'm blocking it out? Or maybe I'm just making it all up in my head? I don't know why I'd make it up though. And I know that some of the times where I've felt so guilty about doing stuff with boys has been because I rush into it. But this was different. This wasn't guilt, this was something else. We watched The Perks of Being a Wallflower online (great movie!) and there's a scene (not very graphic but still) where you find out that the aunt molested the main character. That almost made me have a panic attack, the boy had to hold me to keep from going and hurting myself.
Am I just being stupid and dramatic? I don't know I don't know. I feel incredibly stupid for talking about this. I feel like anyone that reads this will think I'm just an idiot. I'm just so incredibly confused. I don't know what's happening, I don't know why I feel this way. I'm scared though, it's such a scary, terrible feeling... Is there a chance that it could be something that happened to me as a child or am I just being stupid and dramatic? Looking back I can see signs of it but I don't know if I'm just seeing what I'm looking for...
I can't see a therapist right now, our insurance won't cover anything hardly and I don't have the money. So I'm really sorry for being stupid. I'm just feeling really lost. I finally felt like I was getting everything together, I was feeling happy and normal and then this past few weeks I've been feeling so bad and started hurting myself again and I need to get back on track...

[little.ophelia]

I think there's a lot of reasons sexual things could be scary. Did anyone talk to you about sex, or did you go through a sex ed program? If not, maybe that's contributing somewhat to how you're feeling. Also, sex in general can be a scary thing. It means that you're fully trusting someone with your body, which regardless of past experiences isn't always an easy thing.

I would also think that the fact that the first time it happened, you had a panic attack, clearly didn't enjoy it, and it kept happening anyway (although I assume this was with consent) could contribute to negative feelings about it. Do you think that's a possibility? It sounds like you definitely weren't ready then and maybe still aren't, but that's a personal choice.

That said, I don't know what might or might not have happened to you as a child, and I don't know how you would go about figuring that out, maybe someone else has advice for that. I'm sorry things are hard and I'm around if you want to talk.

[[Awakening]]

Ilana has excellent advice.

In regards to the possibility of uncovering repressed memories, my advice would be 'don't go looking'. If something did happen to you as a child, then those memories are hidden for a reason and will most likely 'surface' at a time when you are better able to cope with them. Trying to uncover these memories, especially without adequate support available, could be really harmful.

xxx