#intersectional ace survivor stories
content warning: explicit talk of childhood sexual abuse & religous trauma without going into detail; explicit mentions of acephobia, biphobia, homophobia
this is one of two posts that i’m going to (hopefully) post on the topic of sexual abuse / violence and consent issues. this specific post is a submission to @resourcesforacesurvivors‘ series on Intersectional Ace Survivor Stories and pertains to navigating childhood trauma and religious family as a not-so-young-anymore black, non-binary, bi / pan asexual. while i have talked briefly about the topic of this post in a video, for the most part the experiences discussed in both posts are ones that i’m only just now sitting down and thinking about. please bear with me as i try to put things into words.
i’ll be honest with you. i’m extremely hesitant about posting this or drawing any kind of connection between myself and sexual abuse. why? well, for one, my online presence isn’t exactly anonymous. on top of that, i don’t actually view myself as a survivor. even identifying as a victim at all is something that i’m still coming to terms with.
regardless of how i view myself, you, dear reader, might view me as a survivor and/or a victim after reading this (or the upcoming) post and quite frankly, i’m not sure how i feel about that. it almost feels like posting this is a calculated risk of sorts that i’m taking.
the goal: to put a story that seems to be uncommon out there for those who might benefit from hearing it.
the risk: being viewed as or associated with something that i don’t don’t even view myself as or associate myself with. having people attribute who i am to this trauma.
…well, enough with the stalling. here goes nothing.
when your (a)sexuality and/or gender is blamed on childhood trauma that you didn’t even know happened to you, how do you even begin dealing with it? and where do you even go from there?
This post is a submission to RFAS’s intersectional ace survivor stories series. You can learn more about the series here.
This post is a submission by an author who prefers to remain anonymous. Please respect their privacy and do not speculate about their identity.
Trigger warnings: discussion of abusive relationships, mental illness, victim blaming
I am a biromantic asexual. I suffered an incredibly abusive relationship all through out my childhood. I have been diagnosed with OCD, anxiety and depression. For years I have been told that these things are directly related, both by mental health professionals and by those close to me. Before learning about asexuality, I really thought that my history of abuse and mental illness had cut me off from ‘normal’ sexual/romantic relationships.
It took a long time and a lot of courage to accept that was not the case, and to convince myself that these aspects of my identity are not causes and repercussions of each other.
I am an abuse survivor because I let an awful girl destroy every aspect of who I was before I knew her. She cut me off from everyone else in my life. She took away everything I loved by telling me they were worthless passions if she did not share them. She triggered my anxiety and paranoia, and she took my happiness. My abuser took everything from me, but she did not take my ability to be attracted to people. I was asexual before her, and I am still asexual now that she is gone from my life.
To all those aces who are told their mental illness or abusive past ‘broke’ them: it didn’t. Your asexuality is not a side effect of your personal history, it is an intrinsic part of it. Your sexuality was not stolen from you, it is still a part of your identity even if those around you cannot acknowledge or understand it. For years I have been told that I am broken, but that I can be fixed. I know now that even if I leave behind my mental illnesses and my history of abuse, I will still be asexual. That part of me is not broken, no matter what anyone else says.
