Life, While Grieving

⚠️CSA discussion ⚠️

I envy television characters that have innocent, asexual friendships. 

I was sexually assaulted for the first time at 6 months old, then again at 3 years. 

Hypersexuality ruled my childhood, teenage years and early twenties. It was so all-consuming that I couldn't even identify when I didn't want to engage in sex consistently until my thirties. I was literally psychologically unable to give informed consent, and had nobody to protect me. 

Being Autistic and hypersexual and traumatized means I found myself in scary, dangerous situations with strangers and untrustworthy acquaintances so often I'm certain that I can't recall all of them. 

In childhood, I thought it was both normal and exhilarating to want to interact with other kids my own age sexually. I knew it was supposed to be secret, but not much else.

My bio father was often asleep the entire time he had visitation, but he had a book that, in retrospect to my adult eyes, was something like a psychology or medical version of the kama sutra, pictures and all. I read through it several times, not all the way through, when I'd been left unattended for hours at a time. Eventually, it started to bother me so much I hid it behind the bookcase. I was confronted about this, but feigned cluelessness, which is comically silly in retrospect. 

I was not a good liar. I have always hated lying. Lying is no different than betrayal in my mind. It's also cowardly. 

In my teens, I was a dropout who frequently got kicked out of the house. After losing my virginity to an assault, I had my first miscarriage. My mother slapped me across the face and called me a whore, not for the first time, but certainly the most memorable. 

I had a 28 year old boyfriend when I was 14, who had a one year old daughter with a girl who was, then, a year younger than myself. I believed him when he talked about how much he'd loved her and thought it was unfair that her mother had put a restraining order on him. Saying I was naive seems hilariously understated. 

I didn't learn about limerence, a common experience among ADHD and Autistic individuals, until my thirties. I don't know if I experience limerence specifically because of the early assaults, or if I always would've experienced it, but I'm certain that it wouldn't have nearly always included sexual activity if I hadn't experienced that. 

FWIW, limerence is, in my experience, the closest thing possible to having  a person as a special interest or hyperfixation. For me, the dopamine was stronger in limerence than literally any other time or activity. It was stronger than any real love I've ever experienced and was absolutely the highest high I've ever experienced- but it would just end every bit as quickly. I didn't know this wasn't something others experienced, I didn't know it was so uniquely reckless and hurtful. My intentions were always pure, but that means little when I was literally jumping from one dopamine fix to the next like a stone path.

I have certainly hurt a number of other people, many of which I couldn't even recall, if I'm being honest. I've spent many nights crying over this, with all of the shame a body can hold, and still, there's nothing I can do to undo any of it. I've repeatedly taken what I can recall apart down to the metaphorical studs. At this point, I envy the ones who walk through this world indifferent and unashamed of any damage they've caused, but that was never going to be who I am. 

I've been ready for death for days at this point, unable to stop crying for hours at a time. Maybe I do deserve all of the pain and shame and heartbreak I experience. Maybe I do deserve death.