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Tuesday, October 19, 2010

My First Step

My earliest recollection of sexual experience is hard to give a definitive age to.  I know it could have been as early as three, but was definitely not any older than seven.  I was a victim of incest that encompassed anywhere from seven to ten years of my life.

I also was having sex with my female friends with the onset, again, around three to seven years old.  That continued with four or five female friends until I was around the age of eleven.  I also discovered masturbation around seven years old.

All of these behaviors, the incest, the sex with my friends, and the masturbation were taking place on a fairly consistent basis.

Masturbation became a sexual release, a relief from boredom, and an escape from feelings of depression and emotional pain.  At times, masturbation in the presence of another was a way for me to avoid having to engage in sexual contact with them.  Often times, I would masturbate to the point of exhaustion or until I simply could not feel anything anymore.  My body would be sore for days after.

Throughout my life, I constantly had to be in a relationship with someone, since elementary school.  I always had to have someone to hold my hand, make-out with, or have sex with.  If the person who was supposed to be my significant other wasn’t available, I found someone who was.  It didn’t matter whether I thought they were attractive or not.  It didn’t matter if my family or friends approved.  All that mattered to me was that they were there.  All that mattered was that I felt loved or attractive or comforted.

It is safe to say that I have cheated in every relationship I have ever had, and sometimes carried on with as many as three relationships at the same time.

I've gone through relationships like water.

I used the high that I got from intimacy and/or flirting to make me feel better about myself because really I despised myself.  I measured my self-worth by whether someone thought I was attractive or wanted me romantically.  All ready at 11 years old, the boys were starting to refer to me as “desperate.”

I grew up Mormon.  The Mormon Church has very strict guidelines in regards to sex.  Absolutely no sexual contact outside of marriage and no masturbation were allowed.  The guilt and shame I felt were overwhelming.  I spent many hours on my knees begging for forgiveness, pleading for the strength to overcome the temptations to act out.  I felt alone and lost in utter darkness.  I made promise after promise to God that I would never act out again.  But I did, over and over.  Countless times I tried to quit and countless times I failed.

I became suicidal at a very young age, again, at an elementary school age.  Even making attempts.

During some of my sexually traumatic experiences as a child, I started dissociating myself.  I shut myself down to what was happening to me so I wouldn’t have to feel the pain of it.  This became a problem.  When I separated from my body, I left myself more vulnerable to lust.  At times it was like my soul and my conscience were  ripped out of me and I became nothing more than a vessel filled with lust.  I had lost all sense of what was appropriate and what was not.  Nothing mattered other than fulfilling my sexual desires.  As much as I wanted to, I felt like I couldn’t stop what was happening.

There were times I masturbated while driving.  I have had sex in public places:  The post office, clubs, public restrooms, cars, at school in the stairway.  At friend's houses without their permission or knowledge.

I had sex with people who I didn’t even like.  I lowered my standards.  I often objectified women.  I thought as every friend was an opportunity.  I flirted and made dirty jokes all the time hoping for attention, in hopes to be lusted after.

Any time someone smiled at me, was friendly to me, I twisted it in my head, believing that they lusted for me.

I ruined many friendships from my lust and from pursuing them, which in turn pushed them away.  I lost friendships because of my jealousy at the attention they were giving to someone else.­ I even destroyed a friendship because I slept with my best friend’s girlfriend.

When I was 16 years old, I started dating a guy.  I was also dating two other guys at the time.  I eventually broke up with the other two to concentrate on this new relationship.  At first I really liked him because he was always there for me.  Soon it got to be too much.  He really was always there.  I couldn’t get him to leave me alone.  I would try and break up with him and he just wouldn’t leave.  He had my family and other people at church fooled and they all liked him and they pushed me into staying with him.  Eventually they pushed me into marrying him at 19 years old.  I was just too emotionally weak to fight the pressure.

Shortly after marrying him, I knew I was gay.  I tried really hard to fight it.  I fasted and prayed constantly to be “healed.”  The shame and guilt and pain that I was feeling in my life eventually lead me to start cutting myself.

I began flirting with girls all the time.  Even my brother's girlfriends.  I was consumed with lust, fantasizing all the time.  I tried everything to get girls' attentions, to the point that I tried to get them to pity me by unloading all my problems on them.

I began buying and renting lesbian movies and watching them while my husband was at work.  I started engaging in online relationships with other girls.  I would estimate that I spent approximately 25 hours a week engaging in flirting, cybersex, watching movies, masturbating, and simply being consumed with lust.

My husband was extremely physically, emotionally, and sexually abusive, so after five years I left him.

I immediately ended up in a relationship with a woman.  Once I actually got into a relationship with a woman, I felt absolutely no shame or guilt about it.  It felt very natural to me and I was very happy.  We were very happy for quite awhile as she kept me sexually satisfied, but after the honeymoon phase started to wear off, she stopped wanting sex with me as often.  My lust resurfaced and I returned to my old behaviors; again spending around 25 hours a week engaging in flirting, cybersex, masturbating, etc.

I was acting out a lot of my sexual behaviors on my work computer and during my work hours.  I was putting my job in jeopardy.  This was especially problematic because my job is production-based pay.  Because of my time-consuming sexual behaviors, I lost income.  I began charging up credit cards to pay the bills.  I also began buying things compulsively to compensate for the feelings of rejection I had because my partner at the time was not able to meet my insatiable emotional and sexual desires.

I ended up cheating on her and after five years together, I eventually left her for another woman.  That relationship didn’t last long and I ended up tens of thousands of dollars in debt, kicked out of the house, all alone, with no furniture, nowhere to live, no car, and two dogs to feed.

What else to do but find another relationship? So immediately put my efforts into that.  It was taking up time that I should have been devoting to my studies and ended up leading me to get a C in a class when normally I’m a straight A student.

About two years ago I met my current partner, "Kay".  Things started out great.  We were having sex every day, sometimes multiple times a day.  It seemed like I had found the perfect person for me; however, she also knew how easy I was.  She knew that I could never say to sex, and she used it to manipulate me.  She took advantage of me.

I really wasn't ready to commit to a new relationship, and she used sex to keep grasp of me.  If I tried to break it off with her, she used sex to suck me back in.  Where I was living, I wasn't suppose to have guests and sometimes I just wanted space.  I would ask her to go home at night, but she didn't want to.  She would seduce me so I would let her spend the night.

In time, I did fall in love with Kay.  But one day, my ex shows up at the door.  She wanted to see the dogs and "talk."  I tried to resist her, but she pushed me to sex.  I couldn’t say no.  I wanted to.  I tried to, but I just couldn’t.  I ended up crying in the middle of it because I was ashamed of my weakness and for cheating on my current partner.  It made me feel violated.  It made me suicidal.

My partner, Kay was able to forgive me; however, about a month later, a friend of mine expressed an interest in me.  We were flirting back and forth.  But this friend was also someone my best friend, "Jay," was pursuing but had been rejected by.  Well, Jay found out that this girl and I were flirting around and she was angry and felt betrayed by me.  She went almost a year without talking to me and of course my partner found out.  I had hurt her again, but she forgave me again.

Soon the sex with my partner, Kay, was no longer every day.  This of course became a problem for me.  I was pressuring her for it.  The more I asked for it, the more I pushed her away and the worse it made the situation.  It became a constant, almost weekly fight for us.  I began lusting again and engaging in all my old behaviors, spending numerous hours online.

After some time, my old best friend Jay came back into my life.  And you can read my first post to find out what happened in regard to that.  The short version, I ended up in bed with her girlfiend, and eventually we ended up getting caught by Jay.

I have come to realize that I really have become powerless over sex and lust.  I don't have the strength to say "no," even though at times I have really, truly wanted to.  My life has become unmanageable.  My lust and sexual addiction has disrupted my life, the life of my family and friends, my career, and my relationships with my significant others.
I admit that I am addicted to lust and am a sex addict.  I admit that I need help and I cannot do it alone.