Is it normal to feel horny out of nowhere after getting assaulted despite being pretty much asexual before?

[honeyguide]

Sorry, I don't know how much I'm allowed to say in the titles of posts. I'll edit it if it's too explicit.

Basically, I got sexually assaulted pretty often for about a year in a relationship I was in a year ago. I'm out of it now, but recently I've been feeling really horny at completely random times when I never did at all before, even before the relationship. It makes me feel disgusting and never feels good at all in any way- like something my body wants but my brain hates. It makes me really irritable and easy to anger, which I really hate because I don't like being mean and the people around me don't deserve that. I don't know if this is related to the sexual assault since it only started recently.

I've heard of the stereotype that asexual people are only asexual because of trauma, but for me it feels like it's the other way around and I can't help but feel gross because of it.

Does anyone else have experience with this/know a way to stop it? I'm sorry if this question isn't allowed, I'm not super familiar with this website.

[Heather]

Everything you have posted here is just fine. I'm so sorry this is the reason you're here, especially from one survivor to another, but I'm glad you found us, honeyguide.

You know, looking at your age, my guess is that this is actually coincidental timing rather than something related to your assault. It's pretty common for people before their mid-teens, and these days, their later teens, not to have any or a lot of sexual interest, and then have it start to show up around now. But I can understand how even if that is the case, it might feel extra uncomfortable and unwanted given the timing of your assault.

Over the decades I've lived as a survivor of multiple assaults, I've sometimes found it really helpful to remind myself that just because "sexual" is attached to assault, and just because my assaults may have happened to body parts I also engage sexually, doesn't mean sexual assault is sex: it's not. Sex is something that to be sex, needs to be consensual. Instead, it's something perpetrators -- even those we are in relationships with -- use as a vehicle to gain power and control against someone's will or without their permission, not something anyone is doing for the reasons most of us have consensual sex: pleasure, connection, intimacy, exploration, and, for some people sometimes, reproduction. People don't choose who they assault based on attraction, but based on who they have access to that they think or know they can overpower.

So, you feeling sexual desire is such a different thing than anything that goes on during assault, and that very much includes the feelings of desire you have been having. I don't know if that distance from what assault is helps you, but it helps me sometimes, so I figured I'd offer it up. <3

We really can't stop ourselves from feeling sexual desire, but as I was explaining to someone the other day, in a lot of ways, desire is like a fire: it tends to only get bigger when we give it air and wood -- if we don't give those things to a fire, the fire quickly goes out, and sometimes never even really gets started. If you have the ability to just let these feelings come and let them go without paying them too much attention, they will tend to leave as quickly as they came up.

Can I also ask if you've sought out any counseling post-assault, from someone with experience working with SA survivors? If not, and that's something you can access, I highly advise it. having that extra support can go such a long way, as can having someone you know you can talk to, in private, about anything related to your assault without worrying it isn't okay or like they're not going to know how to react. If that sounds like something you might want to look into, I'm always happy to help someone try and find that kind of care.

[honeyguide]

That is helpful, thank you! I'll try to think of it this way in the future. Sometimes it's hard for me to remember that I didn't actually want what happened and that it wasn't my fault, so maybe making that separation will make a difference in how I think about it.

And no, I haven't specifically talked about it in counseling before. I do have a therapist for my anxiety, and while she knows vaguely what happened, I'm too embarrassed to bring up specific details because I'm scared she'll tell me I can't talk about that or that she can't help with it. It's been long enough that I'm worried she'd think I'm attention seeking for bringing it up now as well. I've been trying to think of what to say to bring it up, but I've never gotten the chance during our sessions.

[Heather]

A therapist should know that there is no right timeline for disclosing abuse or assault, or any of the details about it, and should also know it’s very common for people who were in any kind of IPV, in particular, to take a long time — longer than a year, for sure — to share it. Heck, it can often take people years or more to even realize they were in something that was abusive, especially since it’s so common for abusive partners to gaslight, and because we live in such an abuse-denying culture.

No one wants to be abused or assaulted — if we wanted it, it wouldn’t be abuse or assault in the first place.

Do you think you feel unconfident telling this therapist because she, specifically, doesn’t feel like the right kind of person to tell for whatever reason, or do you think that fear or reticence is something you might feel with anyone?