[octoberpumpkin]

I don't know if this type of discussion is allowed and I apologize if it isn't.

I have been feeling very uncomfortable with physical intimacy lately. I feel disgusted with myself, mentally and physically, and I don't want to be intimate.

But I do want to want to be intimate, if that makes sense? I'm not the person I want to be and I feel like my boyfriend suffers because of it, and I don't want to deprive him of physical intimacy on top of that.

HE DOES NOT PRESSURE ME. He is understanding, but I feel bad. I feel like my issues are enough pressure and stress on him and this is one more thing. So after its been a month, I initiate relations, and its not like I hate it, but I'm uncomfortable and not in the mood.

How can I help feel more intimate? My mental health issues won't be going away any time soon, so hopefully that's not the solution.

[Frankbtl]

Hi october, read your other thread and having been sexually abused is likely to have a big impact on the way you're feeling. And understandably so!! You know you could get practical tips on preparing yourself for the intimacy side, on "allowing" that with your boyfriend.
But I'd say that the most important things to work on are your feelings around the abuse and around intimacy, and for that you might need some extra support. Because while your real/underneath feelings are around seeing it as being violated (???), triggering, uncomfortable, upsetting........then any "intimacy" you do achieve may not really be around intimacy.
And when some of your bigger concerns are around: not letting your boyfriend suffer because of it and not depriving him that's kind of leading to thinking that your real feelings don't matter as much but they do!! It shouldn't be about trying to put your feelings/problems on hold partially because you're feeling you almost "owe him" (that's not what real intimacy is about, is it?) you matter/and what you've been through is really important.
And I'd say that for you to feel more comfortable then he really needs to be going at your pace in this. And remember intimacy in itself doesn't have to be all around that kind of physical contact, it can also be around things like holding hands when you're out, holding each other when you're watching films or whatever, stroking a hand/arm/back, a hand on a hand, kissing spontaneously.......lots of different forms of intimacy if the feelings are there between you.
So don't lose any of that or the feelings attached because the other forms of physical contact are "too big" a focus. If they happen they happen, if they don't then maybe in time when you're ready.
And apart from any of that, the depression you're feeling can lock out some of the desires/feelings of intimacy in itself. Just one of those things that can come along with it. So not necessarily anything about what you "should" be feeling/doing/not doing or anything about you.
So sorry, but again back to, can you try to get some more help with what you've been through/are going through?? Although we're right here too if we can give you some support in what's going on for you.
Alison

[healingme4me]

^^^ yes, that. Feeling emotionally intimate, can lead to working through the physical intimacy aspect. Seems, you are addressing this, right now, through your therapeutic work. Hopefully, you reach that point, where you can separate the shame of what transpired, from the lovingness of the real, present experience with your bf. And hopefully he can bear,with you, as you get there.


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