You get to choose who you are sexually.

I think it’s real important, in trauma recovery, that we not pathologize our needs. 

That temptation is real, though— to chalk everything we feel or do or need up to a trauma response. 

Many of us have been so overwhelmed by trauma responses for so long, in fact, that we’ve come to kind of believe trauma is our personality. 

(This is one of the reasons I think CPTSD is real easy for some clinicians to misdiagnose as a “personality disorder”— you need to not only know what you’re looking at, but accept what trauma is and understand what it does to really see it.)

But not everything in our lives is a trauma response— even if many of our patterns and preferences have been shaped by pain. 

An example that comes up often is sexuality. 

It’s no secret that, for survivors of sexual trauma in particular, our experiences can play a role in how we experience our sexuality and what we want, need, and seek out in our sex lives. 

(By the way, this isn’t just confined to survivors of sexual trauma— people who have been subject to emotional abuse and coercive control, among other forms of complex trauma, can also find their sex lives profoundly impacted by what they went through, even if their trauma wasn’t explicitly sexual.)

Some survivors of sexual trauma come through the experience never wanting to consciously engage with sexuality again. 

Some survivors come through with preferences and response patterns that are shaped by the abuse— which can cause enormous shame or confusion. 

Some survivors may think they’re “fine” as far as dealing with sexuality goes— until they wind up in a sexual situation where “fight,” “flight,” “freeze,” “flop,” or “fawn” are suddenly running the show.

Some survivors, for whom dissociation is a primary pattern, compartmentalize their sexual memories and needs into “parts,” which may in turn vary widely and wildly when it comes to what they like, hate, seek out, or avoid at any cost. 

Add to all this that the memory “glitches” experienced by many trauma survivors are very often especially glitchy around sexual experiences, both past and present. 

There’s no question: our experiences can profoundly shape who we are sexually. 

And but also: there’s no need to chalk EVERY sexual desire or dislike up to what we experienced. 

Maybe our trauma shaped who we are sexually in some ways— that doesn’t necessarily mean we have to reject who we are sexually (assuming we desire to connect with other consenting adults in non-harmful ways). 

In my experience there’s a strong temptation on the part of many survivors to reject anything and everything in their lives that they remotely suspect was shaped by trauma— and, sure, you can do that. 

But in doing that, you might be setting your nervous system up to feel more shame and self-rejection than is necessary or helpful. 

Put more simply: you get to like what you like and be who you are, including sexually, without the fact that your sexual self was partially shaped by your trauma polluting it. 

There are going to be many aspects or ourselves that have been at least partially shaped by our past and our pain that we don’t necessarily need to reject— and that we certainly shouldn’t shame. 

So your sexuality was influenced by what you went through. You get to sift through that understanding, and decide what you want to do about it. There’s no rule that says you “have” to reject things about yourself you’ve come to like or value. 

The core concept behind trauma recovery is autonomy. Autonomy, self-determination, psychological independence, is what was ripped away from us by our trauma. EVERYTHING we do in recovery NEEDS to be grounded in respect for our absolute right to choose who we are and what we’re all about. 

That includes our sexuality. 

Choose what to embrace and what to deemphasize about yourself. It’s your life. 

But don’t start out from the premise that you “have” to embrace or reject anything, just because of the experiences that shaped it. 

You get to choose. 

Breathe; blink; focus.