TMI

Sometimes I cry after sex. I’ve tried to narrow down the exact “feeling” lately – the closest I can come up with to describe it though is grief, and that doesn’t really make sense. It’s heavy, and it crushes my chest and burns my throat and strangles me & even if I close my eyes, the tears leak out; I can’t stop it. It overwhelms me, for just a minute or two, my body feels frozen and I just breathe and wait it out.

I always “knew” it was a trauma response to being raped, so I mostly just ignored it. But being in therapy and being curious, I’ve been trying to narrow down exactly what aspect it’s triggered by. I do know it doesn’t happen as long as I can see my husband’s face. And last night I considered that maybe it’s the physical act of him finishing on me (we are irresponsible and use the pull out method because I hate condoms and refuse to put birth control in my body); it’s never consciously bothered me before, but I could feel a bit of degradation there if I focused in on it – so I tried to think of specific memories where I was in that position and feeling degraded, expecting to find it with the artist, because again, that’s what I’ve always assumed was the cause…but what popped into my head was the intrusive images/thoughts I had as a child, that I’ve always just kind of disregarded because, well, they’re insane and they’ve never really made sense to me. I can’t narrow down the exact age, but my guess is maybe 6-8ish? I would have these images play out of men peeing on me – which I know, 100% sounds absurd …but then again… in hindsight, at that age, having no sexual knowledge – what imprinted in my mind as peeing, probably, wasn’t.

I don’t have an explanation for those thoughts, I don’t have memories of actual abuse at that age. But. I know there’s something there that I’m missing. I have to start trusting my body.