Can Sexual Trauma Ruin Your Sex Life?
Jimanekia: Has your sexual trauma ruined your sex life? I’m Jimanekia Eborn with http://www.SEwJim.com/ and I’m with Cathy Vartuli with oh my God.
Cathy: http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com/, No it’s okay.
Jimanekia: http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com/
Cathy: Yeah. Reid forgets sometimes and we’ve done like 500 videos.
Jimanekia: I was like, I know this. http://www.TheIntimacyDojo.com/ and so Cathy, what do you think?
Cathy: I think that it can absolutely ruin your life your sex life if you don’t get help or if you don’t get help or if you know you don’t get help that really helps you work through thinks. I avoided sex for years I was abused as a child and sex was painful for me like I’ve had, I had vaginismus where the muscles in the vagina were basically in Charlie Horse all the time and even going to the GYN hurt so after a while I did have a lot of sex but as I started doing working on stuff and started being aware of my body it hurt, it hurt so much I didn’t want to have sex and I was really blessed and really luck to find people that could help me through it and guide me to reclaiming my body and I do absolutely believe that we can reclaim our bodies and have amazing sex lives after but I also think the the severe enough trauma or trauma at you know at the right time when we have lower resources it can get integrated into our system in a way that makes us never want to have sex or never enjoy sex unless we release it.
Jimanekia: Yeah, I definitely agree I I have had you know my my boundaries crossed many of times being in college and never really addressing them.
Cathy: Yeah.
Jimanekia: You’re kind of taught to you know kind of just move through things and I think even with having that you question yourself forward moving sexually, you question people’s intentions a lot more so I can definitely understand what you’re saying about you know having it affect the overall of everything.
Cathy: Yeah. Yeah.
Jimanekia: Do you do you think with moving forward was it the actual touch, was it the intimacy, was it people, men?
Cathy: I think it was a combination of things because I was abused by someone who’s close to me there was that oh, it’s not safe to let people close to you, they’ll hurt you, there was that fear but there was also the physical part of it and I had to work through all of it, you know there was a process like you said and I’m so sorry that happened to you in college, we’re just not shown as our society how to work through things, we’re like you said we’re supposed to shove it off. It’s like, I work, I have a website that’s called http://www.thrivingnow.com/ to where I do emotional freedom techniques how people work through traumas the the survival part of our brain can block off things, if we’re running from a bear and we smack our hands against the wall, we could have broken our entire hand, we can still run, we can block that part of us off and run for survival. We’re designed to take care of it afterwards and release the pain and the trauma in our society we treat emotions like we’re just going to block that off forever. We’re going to leave that in the closet.
Jimanekia: Yeah.
Cathy: Because I think a lot of people don’t know how to clear things like that and I’m a big fan of somatic and emotional releases because I did so much cognitive therapy which really helped me a lot of ways. That helped me understand what was going on, I still had this visceral response when things happened and doing some emotional work and some somatic body work that really helped me release the trauma in a really deeper level for me so I know you work with a lot of people..
Jimanekia: Yeah. I’m I’m really glad about that.
Cathy: Yeah, I feel very blessed you work. I know you work with a lot of people too that have been through things like this. What do you recommend for like if someone’s been traumatize, how do you invite them forward.
Jimanekia: I like them at their own speed. That’s the first thing that I tell people. Don’t try to push anyone because you never know, you pushing them you think you’re helping them but you’re really expending them allowing them space.
Cathy: You can be traumatized.
Jimanekia: Yeah. Allow them the space to figure some part but allow them to know that you’re still there, provide resources if you can find them, but don’t push them because it’s not helpful. I think that’s the biggest thing like let them know you’re there but don’t push them because you can stunt them and re-traumatize them and make it worst and it moving forward I’m really glad that you mentioned quick like using other things such as therapy because I feel like people don’t think about that and they’re just like well, there’s therapy but there’s so many other things like body work I think is really important and reconnecting and refinding your not only your sexuality but your own some form of spirituality within yourself.
Cathy: Yeah know I, I because I used all of, my I feel like I’m much more like a more holistic healing than I was for a long time just doing cognitive or just doing what you know body therapies I think combining them is really powerful and I think also talking to people about, like give your partner, helping your partner understand for instance if you’ve had a trauma, your partner may not know how to help and like you said, it’s important not to push, if you can share specifically what will help. I was really lucky I had some roommates that were great and when I was dealing with the worst of it and they you know I’m like I just need a cup of tea when I’m really upset like and a blanket and they would just do that for me a lot of times and having that a little bit of caring and not like when I was really triggered I didn’t need to be pushed to talk about it, that was just going to make It worse, I needed to be able to let it soothe out not bring it up so just, if you can figure out what works for you specifically and at least let the people around you know so they can be there for you if they want if they’re able to.
Jimanekia: Yeah, I definitely agree with that. I thank you for having that conversation with me, I know those conversations are not always easy but thank you for sharing that with us today.
Cathy: Yeah, I think if you..
Jimanekia: If you guys have any questions like please please follow up with either one of us.
Cathy: Yeah, leave comments below, we’d love to know what you think. It’s really important to talk about these things and make them not so shameful and scary.
Jimanekia: Definitely.
