Situationship to Soulmate
This podcast is for YOU if: You're feeling stuck in the cycle of hurtful and harmful dating and intimacy experiences. If you feel like no matter how hard you try, you just can't stop making the same mistakes over and over again in your romantic relationships. If you are over "hookup culture" and "situationships", but seem to still attract people who can only give you that level of commitment. If all the people you date and sleep with have one thing in common: they inevitably leave you feeling hurt, confused, and betrayed.
Situationship to Soulmate
Navigating Dating and Intimacy as a Sexual Assault Survivor
Navigating the world of dating and relationships as a sexual assault survivor presents unique challenges and opportunities for growth. In this episode, Shelly shares how her best advice for navigating dating and intimacy for those of you who have experienced sexual assault. She describes how to tell the difference between intuition and anxiety, explores the benefits of being single for healing, and how to recognize the difference between feelings rooted in past trauma versus present-day awareness.
Shelly also speaks on how acknowledging and accepting the sexual assault survivor part of ourselves is crucial for genuine self-expression and healing, as well as for building healthy relationships and intimacy. From the complexities of sexual relationships to the importance of quiet moments in fostering intuition, this episode provides a thoughtful approach to embracing all parts of your identity as a sexual assault survivor, and gives tangible tips and advice.
Follow me on TikTok and Instagram @shamelesslyshelly + @situationshiptosoulmate
This episode is focused on giving you advice if you are a sexual assault survivor, how to navigate through dating and sex and relationships. So my first piece of advice is there is absolutely no shame in being single. I just want you to know that that is again. There's no shame in that if that's what you need to heal and also if that's what you need to ensure that you are safe, that you know that you will not get pregnant. If that's not something that you're wanting, I really look back on a lot of times in my life where I really where what I really needed was to just slow down and to just focus on myself, focus on self-care. I look back and realize that there were a lot of times in my life where I was kind of forcing myself to date, forcing myself to go on dates or to be on dating apps or, to you know, to always have someone that I had a crush on or someone that I was talking to, because I felt like that was what I was supposed to be doing. Whenever I did decide to take a break from dating, that was usually when I would find situations would pop up, so I would end up going against what I said, or maybe I would think like taking a break from, like, serious relationships. But it's okay for me to be in this situation, right, those always always ended up hurting me way more than if I had just listened to my gut, listened to my intuition and been like, yeah, I should just take a break from everything, from situationships, from hookups, from everything. You do not need to always be in a relationship. Trust your gut and trust your intuition. And I actually did some really interesting research around the difference between intuition and anxiety for this episode, because I realized that a lot of us that might be more prone to anxiety, myself included it can be really difficult to determine like is this something my gut is telling me? Is this something my intuition is telling me? Or is this just anxious thoughts? Is this just anxiety? Or is this just me being triggered from my past experiences? Right, so, again, as a sexual assault survivor, I think it's very easy to get confused, to think like, hey, I might be more easily triggered by things because of what I've been through, because I have had the experience of having my boundaries crossed. I might be more likely to mistake anxiety or triggers for my actual intuition telling me something. Trust your intuition if it's telling you that you should take a break from dating. But I think that that is easier said than done, right? Again, I think a lot of times it can be easy to be like well, am I just thinking that I don't want to date right now because I'm actually anxious, or I'm actually still healing from what I've been through in my past and that is what's informing me or telling me that I should just avoid dating or I should just isolate.
Speaker 1:So I wanted to talk a little bit about how to know the difference between anxiety and intuition. So I found this Psychology Today article, which I will link below, and I really like this quote from the article. It says one of the toughest things about dating is knowing how to tell the difference between your voice of intuition and the echoes of anxiety. I thought that was so so, so true. I think that, again, it's just.
Speaker 1:It can be really hard and it can feel almost a little bit patronizing to be someone who struggles with anxiety and to be told like, just trust your gut, because it's like well, I don't know the difference. I feel like my gut is always telling me something's wrong. I feel like my anxiety is always telling me something's wrong. So here are a few ways to tell the difference. So the first way is to notice how it feels in your body. Intuition and anxiety feel different within our body. Ok, so intuition feels like a calm, steady feeling in your whole body. It's like a sense of knowing, and it also can be very hard to describe the feeling to someone and it's very hard to kind of pinpoint what you are actually feeling. On the other hand, anxiety tends to manifest as physical discomfort. I feel like this, like tightening and like squeezing feeling in the center of my chest, and that is one of the signs to me that I am feeling anxiety. Or maybe some people feel like a racing heart, right, like your heartbeat is faster than usual, or you just feel this overall sense of restlessness like you just can't. You can't calm down. And something else they said about anxiety that made a lot of sense to me is anxiety often feels urgent and overwhelming, but not in a good way.
Speaker 1:So another way to kind of tell the difference between anxiety and intuition is to look at the source of it, like where is the source of this feeling coming from? Ask yourself if these feelings are based on past trauma or fear, or if it's more of a clear present moment awareness. So to bring it back to dating and relationships, when you're trying to evaluate if you're feeling anxious or if you're feeling like your intuition is telling you something, try to focus in on what is the source of these thoughts or these feelings. So, am I having a lot of thoughts about past trauma? Or do my thoughts feel very fear-based, right Like well, what if this person doesn't like me back? Or what if the same bad thing that happened to me in the past happens to me again? Versus, is it very clear and present moment focused? Does it just feel like you know what? In this moment, I feel like something within me is telling me that I need to take a break from dating. It doesn't feel like it's focused on the past, of like, because I was sexually assaulted in the past, I need to take a break from dating. It just feels like right now, in this moment, I feel clarity. I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do.
Speaker 1:The other thing that this article says is that intuition comes out in the quiet, still moments. I feel like this is what I'm supposed to do. The other thing that this article says is that intuition comes out in the quiet, still moments. I feel like that is so true because I decided to record this episode while on a walk earlier, and I was just on a walk enjoying the sunshine, enjoying, you know, looking at the birds and people watching, and I felt very calm. And that was when I got this kind of signal from what I believe is my intuition being like hey, I think you want to make a podcast episode today.
Speaker 1:So, in order to be able to like tune into those quiet still moments, some of the best ways to do that is through journaling or meditation. Or, like I just said, go on a walk, do something where you can. Your body can feel peaceful, your mind is not racing, you aren't doing a million things at once, you're just very calm and focused on the present moment. So I think that journaling or meditation are great ways to do that. There's so many free meditations on YouTube, for example, you can literally try one for like five minutes or less to start out. And for journaling, too, there's so many ways to journal. You could do more of like the stream of consciousness journaling where you're just like okay, I'm just going to start writing everything I'm thinking. Or you can again find free journal prompts online with a specific prompt like what do I want right now out of my dating life?
Speaker 1:Okay, so now let's talk about sex, which my advice. For sex is very similar to dating, which is, again, if you feel like you want to take a break from having sex, there is no shame in if you feel like you want to take a break from having sex, there is no shame in that you should trust your gut, trust your intuition, and do that if that feels like that's right for you. And yeah, just really use what we just talked about around intuition versus anxiety to determine when or if you are ready to have sex. As a sexual assault survivor, sex can be something that a lot of people will either do one of two extremes right, like we either tend to avoid it altogether, or some people might use sex as a coping mechanism, almost, or as a way to feel good, and sex can almost become like a method of self-harm for some people. So I think, just getting really clear and really self-aware around what is my motivation for wanting to have sex or for not wanting to have sex Because avoiding sex can sometimes be just as harmful as being hypersexual.
Speaker 1:Because, depending on what you truly want. You might be disregarding your true needs and your desires by just avoiding sex altogether and, at the same time, if you are someone who really actually genuinely wants and needs a break from having sex, a break from hookups, then you might also be harming yourself by forcing yourself to keep engaging in sex when that's really not what you want or need right now. Whether we like it or not, as a sexual assault survivor, the stakes are kind of higher for us when it comes to sex, and this is something that I did not want to admit. For so long I was in denial. I felt like I want to just be able to engage in sex the exact same way that anyone else can, and the fact is that that is not going to work very well for most sexual assault survivors. Again, a lot of us have a positions to experience another version of our boundaries being crossed, even if it's not as explicitly as it was in the past.
Speaker 1:So what I mean by that is like if you're saying yes when really you want to say not, yet maybe you're just saying yes because the other person seems to really want it and you're not actually thinking about the other person seems to really want it and you're not actually thinking about, well, what do I really want? And then again, at the same time, avoiding sex can also be harmful, because it can lead to a pattern of isolation or of subconsciously thinking that maybe we don't deserve to have sex, we don't deserve to feel pleasure, and that could not be farther from the truth. Right as a sexual assault survivor myself, I believe that we all deserve to feel pleasure and to enjoy sex, and I have seen myself grow and heal in that area so much I've helped my clients do the same. Don't deprive yourself of it. So if you've started dating someone and you're like, you know what I really feel, like my intuition is telling me that this person is a safe person and I want to experience sex with them. Don't let your anxiety win, right. Don't let your anxiety take over, but just make sure that it's truly what you actually want. And again, there's no shame in waiting or in telling someone I really like you, I want to have sex with you eventually. I just am not ready for that right now.
Speaker 1:An area that I get questions about a lot is how do I tell a new partner or a potential new partner that I was sexually assaulted. How do I disclose sexual assault to my partner? And I want to reference a quote by Brene Brown that I really love. She says that our stories are not meant for everyone. We should always ask ourselves this before we share who has earned the right to hear my story? You should never feel obligated to tell your sexual assault story. You should never feel obligated of like oh, I just started dating this person and maybe he'll be mad if I don't tell him that I was sexually assaulted, or maybe he'll feel like I was keeping that from him. No, that is your right and you get to choose when and how you share your personal story with someone. See where your desire to disclose this is coming from. Is it coming from a place of like this is what I'm supposed to do? Or again, like maybe you're worried that your new partner will be mad at you if you don't tell them. Maybe you're worried that having sex with them will cause you to have some triggers and it might be difficult. So you're wanting to explain why All of these could be coming from more of a place of anxiety and maybe even shame, rather than a place of bravery and wanting to be vulnerable and wanting to connect with your partner. You know which would be more of that intuition piece. So, again, use what I've taught you in this episode Check in with your intuition to see if you truly feel like you are wanting to disclose your sexual assault to your new partner, and when and what parts, what details and what things that you choose to tell about your sexual trauma history to your partner.
Speaker 1:You are never obligated to tell every single detail. You're never. Nobody can force you to share something that you don't want to share or that you're not ready to share. So you really do have autonomy over how much detail you share, the way you communicate it, when and how you tell them. And I really want to emphasize there's no right or wrong way. Right, like for some people it can make them feel really good and safe knowing that their partner fully understands everything they've been through. But for other people maybe that's not as important. So, again, just check in with yourself and see do I want to tell this person? And if I do, do I feel like I'm wanting to tell them from a place of anxiety or from a place of intuition? And maybe it's a little bit of both, and that's okay, too right, like it's normal to have some level of anxiety around a topic that's so personal and so important to you, but again, you get to choose how you talk about this.
Speaker 1:My next piece of advice get support. Do not isolate yourself. Do not try to work through all of this on your own. One of my biggest regrets is that I didn't open up more to my close friends when I was going through some really difficult times oh, I can just deal with this all on my own and that really led to a lot of shame and a lot of blaming myself, even in situations where it was absolutely not my fault. I unequivocally think that sexual assault is never your fault and you should not feel any shame around it, but it's also very normal and very common to feel that shame. But now I look back and I know like I have really good friends in my life who would have been there for me if I had asked them, if I had told them what was going on. I could have opened up to them, and I just really want to encourage you to not make the same mistake I did.
Speaker 1:Vulnerability is a strength, and the last thing I want to remind you of is just that this is not all of your identity. Like being a sexual assault survivor is part of who you are. It is something that has impacted you, but it's not all of who you are. It's not your entire identity. At the same time, we cannot erase the things that have happened in our past and as much as you may, you know, be like, I just want to be a normal person. I wish that this never happened to me.
Speaker 1:I completely understand and I completely relate to that, but the fact is we did experience this. We did experience sexual assault, and the harder you try to avoid looking at it, the more the worse it becomes. So when you actually start to take care of your wound and take some time to heal it, that's when you'll find that all of the parts of you have more room to shine. When you're not denying certain parts of you, you feel better overall and you can be like the fuller, truer version of you when you actually allow your sexual assault survivor part of you to take up more space.
Speaker 1:So my biggest piece of advice is just to stop denying that part of yourself. This is part of me. I am a sexual assault survivor, but I'm also all of these other things too, and I can be my truest self when I am not denying parts of myself. I hope that this episode provided some advice and hopefully some comfort to you. And yeah, I would love to connect with you on social media. My TikTok and Instagram is shamelesslyshelly, and I also have a situation ship to soulmate TikTok and Instagram which are not very active, but I'm going to try to work on that, so feel free to connect with me there, and you can also send me an email at shamelesslyshelly at gmailcom. I'll talk to you next time.
