"i get flashbacks or dissociate or just panick if they want to do anything beyond just hold my hand. obviously not the kind of impression i want to be giving anyone, and sharing about my difficult history on a first date is no fun either."

I've written here about my similar experiences, but to repeat:

I had some abuse from my other in a psychological way related to my body which led to one overt incident of SA. It made me a mess when it came to dealing with women/girls.

I couldn't make the moves to be intimate other than very rarely when I was young. I used to literally shake whenever things got close to that, or when it got to that. Being the male, it was mostly sort of more in my hands to start getting physical and I was so afraid I couldn't really do it. I didn't have my first girlfriend of any sorts until I was 27 and then not a "real" girlfriend until I was 29. Even being asked out the once it happened (from a female--I'm straight; gay men used to hit on me when I was young)--I shook in trying to answer. I could reject gay men--usually implied than direct--without a problem.

Sort of flashback stuff on my part, but I didn't recall the SA incident.

You need to take things very slowly it sounds. Avoid the attempts to make physical contact until you feel safe. Maybe many guys won't recognize and respect your needs. Avoid them; they’re not worth the time if they won't. You don't need to talk to them about it, i.e. you don't have to tell them your story, and just let them understand implicitly or tell them you need to go slowly.

"so i'm kind of at this place where i dont think a healthy relationship is ever going to happen for me."

I was the same way--maybe even worse--it will happen.

"there is nothing attractive about me flipping out because a guy initiated something natural and loving, so why would someone want to stick around after that?"

It's not necessarily loving when you're just started getting to know each other. It's not bad, it's just lust. Someone should stick around because not everyone can get physical as soon as other people.

"also, if i really liked the guy, then i would want to protect him - he would deserve better than me and my stupid issues."

Protect him from what? Your issues aren't stupid; being a victim of SA isn't stupid.

"i worry sometimes that i am going to end up alone, and if that is the case, then what is the point in trying."

You try because you can change. You try because you want relationships. You try because you can't hurt another person by sharing the bad things you've experienced.

"in an ideal world, i would want to 'heal' completely before finding someone to share myself with. but i dont think things happen that way…..i wish i was normal, i wish i was normal, i wish i was normal.”

I think everyone in therapy feels the same way about being “completely healed” before beginning relationships. I was/am the same way. Things don’t happen that way. When I was younger I was extraordinarily convinced that I was quasi-modo because of how horribly my mom treated me in ridiculing my appearance. It was very contradictory to the way other people saw me, but it took years of therapy for me to feel that I was at least not the least attractive person in the world. Who knows what other issues girlfriends/women would have thought/think that I have.

Normal is a myth. I could tell tales of how screwed up every woman I’ve had a relationship with is: The stalker (46 at the time), the ones who couldn’t open up, the one (38 at the time) who was extraordinarily passive/aggressive and pathologically unable to talk about her feelings—I had to carry that weight. The one (late 30s) who gave off bizarre sexual signals—even when we were dating—she seemed to have a dual sexual personality. The one (49 at the time) who had a weird sexual history and hadn’t had a relationship that lasted longer than 3 months in the 18 years since she was divorced. The pediatrician (31) who thought that her breast size had driven the course of her whole life. Seriously. She’s a pediatrician, beautiful—a very, very beautiful face and great body (98% of women would trade their looks for hers in a snap), but thought having a 32AA chest meant that no good men would ever date her (thanks Laurie)—that that’s why men abused her, that she suffered from having a bad career because men didn’t want her around—she’s a DOCTOR…how much more successful could she have been? (a waitress might face real harmful to her job discrimination that way, a receptionist might face negative, open abusive comments for guys in her office; a Dr. isn’t about to lose out on a fellowship because she was flat-chested--but that's what she thought.). She was so screwed up because of her paranoia. She said no one knew about her issue with it—not her friends or sister. Begged me to never tell anyone else. It was absolutely pathological. Nothing I could tell her about how attractive she really was would get through to her. If I wanted to rent or watch certain movies she’d accuse me of wanting to do so just because an actress (es) had a big chest. Crazy. She never told me about anything, but I suspect her father abused her somehow and maybe told her no men would want her because of her breasts—or her physical appearance in general. At our breaking-up she told me she'd regretted having had sex every time she'd done it in her life (she hadn't had many relationships and no good ones). When I asked her if that meant she regretted it with me, too, she said yes. I felt like a rapist when she said that. My first real girlfriend was a 29 year old virgin. Women I didn’t end up dating, but got to the point where I tried to kiss them (in context) who absolutely refused to acknowledge that their behavior—our behavior—led us to that natural point. They were in complete denial and acted as if I’d just tried to shoot them or something. Women who vacillate between wanting to be involved or even go on a date to no end. One that I asked out, who kept cancelling on me, then after we went out once, said she wanted to go out again, then kept playing phone tag and cancelling on me and just didn’t show once. I then dropped the effort. She was a friend of my sisters and asked her why I’d quit calling. My sister said she played games with guys “testing” them to see if they’d keep after her for a long time so she could know they were serious. The one with cystic fibrosis who was drop-dead gorgeous but was convinced she was the ugliest woman on earth because of her disease. There are more.

You’d never know these things unless you got close enough to them. The seemed perfectly “normal” to everyone in the world. It would surprise you to find how many people have serious issues relating to intimate relationships—or have major problems at all that can’t be seen but by someone in an intimate relationship.

You are normal. You just know what your issues are that others don't know while not knowing theirs. You're working on them. Not everyone your--or any--age is having the sort of "normal" love and sex lives you see in movies and on TV. We're all walking wounded.