Casual Sex, Flashbacks, and Emotional Disconnectedness

I used casual sex to run away from all the things I was too afraid to feel. I was afraid of rejection,so I had sex with men without wanting a commitment. I suppressed every emotion because I did not want to feel hurt,  I just wanted to feel good. It was  easy to have sex without having a personality, or expectations. I wondered back then, where do all those feelings that I could never experience go?  Currently, I  am in a very confusing place. I cannot trust how I feel because I have not felt in so long.

I admit that I was proud. I thought I was better than the girls that had casual sex and got rejected, because rejection was a rare thing for me. I thought I had a special power and intelligence that they lacked; I had “pussy power.” But now, I think  they were better off having feelings than me who was a shell of a person. Because at 24 I don’t know how to feel properly.

I had a flashback, and I pushed my 195 pound boyfriend off of me all the way to the end of the bed.He turned into someone else, and I just screamed no and  pushed him off. Then I curled up into a ball and all I could go was apologize to him. I could tell by his reaction that he was shocked at my physical strength and by my reaction. I was shocked too, the man I had loved for so long had turned into a faceless man, and something inside me just wanted him out and off of me.

The flashback I had with my boyfriend was not due to casual sex. But the emotional trauma I experience over and over again is in part due to that lifestyle. Sex and love do not partner well with casual sex, and because I slept around so much I understood this at an early age. I practiced emotionless sex for so long that when I did get involved in a relationship with someone that I cared for I could not enjoy the sex. My body and mind cannot connect, and I know it is because I have an emotional attachment to my boyfriend. I did myself an injustice by programming myself not feel any type of emotion or connection during sex.  And now, happily involved with the man that I love I cannot let myself go. I’m guarded physically and he can tell.

I have watched myself having sex so many times, and  so many times my mind was separated from my body. Because of the disassociation that has occured with me during sex in the past  I am  afraid that  when I am with the person I love that I will do the same thing. Before sex  I always need to  be reassured that he loves me, and afterwards. Sex in a monogamous relationship has made me insecure because of my past experience with casual sex.

Sleeping around damaged me emotionally. Every time I have an argument with my boyfriend I feel like he is going to leave me. I worry that maybe he just used me? Was sex all that he wanted? Then I remember, all the uncommitted  sex I had, all the memories of sex with random men and it hurts. I am hurt. I think of all the times I suppressed feeling for myself  and the guys I had sex with, and I feel strange. I remember the painful sex, the loneliness, and the empty feelings. All the emotions I suppressed, all the things I prevented myself from feeling come rushing back to me, and I relive those feelings over and over and over again. I often  ask him, “Why are you doing this to me?,”  and,“ Why are you hurting me like this?” But I realized that its not him I am upset at its the past.

My history of casual sex has written itself on my soul. I have moved on from my past, I have forgiven myself from my past, and my past does not define me but I cannot forget it.