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TW;(COCSA)/depression how do I recover from COCSA

Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 3:10 am
by Taffy
Recently (in the past year or so) I’ve recovered memories of COCSA, and I’m still trying to recover.
I think I suppressed them over a time period of 7 years or so, in which I was almost completely disassociated for 2 years (I couldn’t feel emotions/cry/ I’d have the constant feeling I was watching a movie of myself going through life)
Basically I wasn’t in a good place to start healing from the COCSA and a few other things.

I’d never thought of the “incidents” as SA (but I’d tried avoiding think of them at all tbh) only over the last year had it actually clicked that it was SA.
I really struggle with intimacy and it’s why I’ve never been in a relationship, since I’m scared that they might want to kiss me/have sex and I’ll completely freak out and have a panic attack.

I do want to have sex and make out with a s/o and I feel like I should be doing it since I have friends who are and I’ve had crushes on people and they’ve wanted to kiss and I’ve just had to act as though I didn’t want to , since i really wasn’t able to.

Most days are okay but sometimes I’m constantly thinking about it and I feel if someone even tries hug me I’ll throw up, which I hate since one of my main love languages is physical touch.

smells also really overwhelm me since they bring back flashbacks.
One time I was at a sleep over and out of nowhere I could smell something that reminded me of my abuser and I completely froze.
I couldn’t enjoy the rest of the sleepover since I constantly felt really nauseous and whenever any of my friends would try hug me/touch me in anyway it made me feel awful.

I’ve never told anyone about what happened to me, I can’t tell my family and I’m not ready to talk to my friends about it but I want to recover and be able to do normal stuff and be in a relationship with out being scared that I’m gonna be triggered.

Re: TW;(COCSA)/depression how do I recover from COCSA

Posted: Thu Jun 05, 2025 4:22 am
by Andy
Hi there, Taffy and welcome to the boards!

First off, I’m really sorry this has happened to you, it sounds incredibly traumatic and must have been really hard for you, especially when you have been dealing with this without any outside support. Again, I’m really sorry and I’m glad you were able to reach out to us for help<3

Before I get to anything else, I would like to ask how can we best support you around this?
We can, for example, help you locating and accessing mental health care resources near you, be it for general support or more specialized ones for sexual abuse survivors. We can also brainstorm ways how to get some support around all this from your friends or other people around you. We also have a lot of resources on our site about experiencing and healing from abuse so we can share them with you if you want. And lastly, we are here for you if you just need to vent and talk to someone about what you experienced and how it makes you feel now. How does that sound?