Hi everyone, I’ve posted on here a few times for different reasons but they all pretty much relate back to the fact I experienced sexual abuse as a child.
I have been with my partner for almost 10 years, we have two kids together and we’ve always had a regular and strong sex life. But in April I went through a traumatic event where I was unexpectedly hospitalised with a heart condition and wasn’t allowed to see my family due to covid, I was in ICU and then transferred to a Melbourne hospital. Luckily the procedure was straight forward and although traumatic as I was kept awake and painful it was fixed within a couple of hours. I had severe health anxiety for months afterwards and seeked help from a psychologist. A few months after seeing her I had a trigger surrounding my childhood abuse and I told the psychologist, she referred me to CASA (centre against sexual assault) but it’s taken me a couple of months to actually get the courage to go through with it and I am currently on a wait list.
although once I had my first trigger, intimacy was different and my partner had to accept that we couldn’t do the same things we used to, I could still continue for him and not be too uncomfortable, but the last few weeks I am struggling to be intimate at all, every time we try I have triggers and panic attacks and I was just letting him finish anyways to make at least one of us satisfied but the longer I’m waiting to talk to CASA the harder it is getting to even do that and although my partner is trying to be supportive, he doesn’t understand how we can have a strong sex life for 9+ years to nothing so he does get really frustrated and grumpy toward me and the kids when I can’t go through with it for him. I have tried to tell myself I am safe and he is not going to hurt me but I just get so shaky and anxious and end up having flashbacks or nightmares which is really affecting my coping level. Has anyone found something that works to stop having these triggers every time you even try to be intimate? I can’t help but feel like our relationship is wearing thin because of the lack of intimacy.
