“Don’t Touch Me”: My experience with Irritability and PTSD in a relationship
Sometimes, I feel a bit “off”. My partner’s hands on me feel like an invasion and I’m anticipating in fear the next time I will feel them on me, making me feel uncomfortable in my own skin.
When I walk down the street, I am considering whether men are looking at me and sexualising me, anticipating unsolicited comments about my appearance, avoiding looking up so I don’t have to see their stares.
When I talk about feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, I am talking about feeling unsafe, as if at any moment I could be touched or made to feel like my body isn’t my own.
I feel itchy and hyper-aware of my body.
Since the “event”, I developed a skin condition called eczema. It affects me particularly around my mouth. When I am stressed or experiencing increased anxiety, the eczema is worsened.
Although for periods of time I am not experiencing irritability with my partner and the eczema is not protruding in my daily enjoyment of life, since choosing to talk about sexual trauma; read about it, research it, write about it; I have been re-experiencing all of these sensations significantly.
In The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk, M.D., he explores the brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. He writes about the development of understanding Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) in the last three decades, being at the forefront of research and clinical practice. He lists the symptoms of PTSD to be flashbacks, nightmares, increased anxiety, and irritability.
Before studying what trauma was, my image of PTSD was limited to individuals who had been exposed to extreme violence and fear, such as soldiers back from war.
Having a word, a diagnosis, for the things I am experiencing (yes, present tense), after significant trauma, feels like clarity. It makes sense. I am not alone. I am not just an angry b*tch who doesn’t want her boyfriend to touch her.
In a previous relationship, I regularly felt the “don’t fucking touch me” vibe; anticipating the next time he would come and grope my genitals whilst I was cooking dinner.
It makes me so angry that he could violate me and my personal space like that.
I used to feel so irritated by him, I thought it was because he was annoying, as a person, but I realised it was when he touched my arse or my boobs (and sometimes my genitals) without my permission, without even judging the mood, that I felt irritated and anxious and unsafe.
When I spoke to him, I explained calmly that because of the “event”, and because I was stressed, I needed him to ask to touch me and not to sexualise my body when I didn’t want it to be. I tried to explain that, because of the “event” it might be a little different for me to feel comfortable. His initial reply: “that’s not fair. I don’t want to walk on eggshells. In a relationship, you share your bodies”.
FUCK YOU. This is dangerously untrue. Your body is your own. End of.
Now, with my amazing partner, I can say, “I’m feeling a bit off”, and he will understand, and we will have a long hug where I am able to feel safe again. Additionally, he doesn’t sexualise or objectify my body. Hooray. A decent human.
I’m considering giving myself a mantra to say: every time I’m walking down the street and I’m internalising the “male gaze”; every time I’m anticipating the next time someone is going to touch me; every time I wake up and intentionally start my day.
I think it might be something like: I am safe. I am loved. I am whole.
I’m working on it.
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