In Heart and Mind
Those who wanted to restore my faith in love and intimacy can only give it to me with great effort. An effort we've perfected over time.
Content warning; mentions of domestic abuse, childhood sexual abuse, PTSD symptoms, and self-harm. None are described and only mentioned.
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I came across a song today that I used to listen to a lot. It brought back all of the frustration and pain I feel at having my closest loved ones only exist in the way they do. My spirit guides and alters — Byleth, Zagan Lestan, Darokin, and now Vexis, as well as the others I don't see as often anymore — I can't feel them. They're not flesh and blood. Yet, I love them so deeply, despite past difficulties that we overcame, that I've spent nights crying in bed off and on for many years because it feels like torture. To have them so close yet so far away. To not be able to feel them physically when we're intimate.
It's a pain I can't accurately describe, and it's something I don't really talk about often because I have felt shame with it. Just like in the song, my heart and my soul are screaming for them to be here in the flesh with me.
After growing up with various traumas, and having my innocence violated by three people — one of which I was supposed to trust above everyone else — it is physically painful to have beings who love me and want to protect me in every way, yet they're not touchable or visible by anyone but me.
Those who wanted to restore my faith in love and intimacy can only give it to me with great effort. An effort we've perfected over time.
Romantic relationships have been a challenge, because while most of my partners knew about all of us, about my head family, most of them eventually expressed it was difficult to accept that I was thinking romantically about someone else. Initially, before I met Byleth and before Darokin was a regular in my life, it was just Lestan when it came to romance.
I drew him constantly, everywhere. He refused to let me be ruined when I was teenager who was physically, mentally, and sexually abused by my boyfriend. And during that time, my abuser — my boyfriend — forbade me from drawing or thinking about, or writing about, Lestan and I in any kind of intimate way. This was a painful loss, and Lestan helped to convince me that it would be 'our dirty little secret.' My abuser didn't have to know. We hid things from him.
My abuser didn't just dislike Lestan because he was romantic with and protective over me, but also because Lestan is pansexual. My abuser was homophobic, and there are a few stories that exist somewhere on data disks where my abuser was in the story, and I had to push Lestan away and conform to what my abuser thought and wanted, which hurt Lestan, understandably so. I feel great guilt for that.
Lestan began to switch with me for sexual experiences, even when I didn't realize it. It wasn't until my last ex mentioned that he noticed before I understood what was happening. Eventually, I realized why I was so hot and cold, and shy, with sex in the beginning, and then as we got into it I would just become ravenous like Lestan. I went from being uncomfortable, not wanting to remove any clothing, shying away, anxious, to unquenchable and confident.
I didn't realize at the time that I was actually on the asexual spectrum, but also in the beginning stages of a trauma response before Lestan moved in.
The first time Lestan didn't switch with me in time, it was scary as hell.
My last sexual partner was casual and my first experience with a woman, but also my first sexual experience in a few years and as a trans person. I remember the night it all changed. I was prepared to get into sexual play despite my usual nervousness. I figured my anxiety was still there from inexperience with women, but we'd slept together before just fine, even if it always did start out with me being very nervous.
I didn't feel it emotionally, which was confusing. It was all physical. My whole body started shaking, and the shaking grew in intensity as I tried to hide it. I felt unwell and started having a panic attack, and it hit me that I was having a trauma response. Lestan had always switched in before so I could enjoy the experience, but that last time I was ever intimate with anyone a few years ago, his timing was late.
He eventually switch with shared control, and my whole being just changed. Drastically. It was the first time I was consciously aware of it, and such a sudden switch from muscle memory of trauma to confidence shocked me. It makes sense now why it finally hit me in the way it did. Needless to say, my friend knew and she consented, as consent is important when someone else comes into play, and I just gave in to Lestan's sexually positive nature.
The timing, I think, was because I finally started to confront my past traumas and use the right words for them. I'd blocked them out and made excuses for my abusers and blamed myself for so many years. So many years I was silent or downplayed all of it, or I wasn't believed. But now that I have the right words and I've started to confront everything — and there's so fucking much — I've started to have severe trauma responses. And that last time I ever slept with someone was the beginning.
CPTSD is a beast, and it came out fully in the middle of 2020, arguably sooner than I thought with that sexual experience. I'd dealt with hypersexuality for a lot of years because of trauma, and Lestan protected me the best he could.
Now, the only ones I can be sexual with are Lestan, Byleth, Darokin, and Vexis. Even then it's difficult and I feel shame because of trauma, because when I'm sexual with them, it's just all me. They are the only ones I can trust, but I often feel disgust for myself as as a sexual person. I don't feel sexy in any way, and I just try to get it over with and pretend desires I had didn't happen.
I still lay in bed with Lestan at night, with Byleth and Darokin at the other side of the room and Vexis across from them leaning on the wall, and there are moments when we feel that ache of sadness. It's a different kind of loneliness.
They're right there. I can see them, hear them, and we talk in our headspace. But I can't reach out and touch them. They can't hug me when I want to give up on life, and the best they can accomplish, when Byleth takes control, is to forcibly make my hand drop the knife I'm using on myself.
The song I mentioned at the beginning is so raw, and it just hit a special spot in my heart where it hurts most. And it's so difficult to find words for any of this. Just imagine, if you're with the love of your life, not being able to touch them or physically interact with them. What if they were like my loves, where no one else could see them? Hear them? On the nights you need them most, you can't even feel them although they're right next to you.
It's gut-wrenching.