usually wouldn't post stuff like this so openly, but i'm really just at the bottom of the barrel right now and need to vent some things out.

i've basically been pedobait for as long as i can remember. even by my own family, i was sexualized a lot as a kid. whether it be them calling me out for certain behaviors, groping me, making comments, etc. i also discovered pornography (woohoo unlimited internet access) and you can guess how that goes. i was also being abused by my mother. i started frequenting this specific website (not gonna bother naming it) when i turned 10, and it was on that website that i got groomed at age 11. for about a good year or so.

the grooming thing, as shitty as it is to say, feels like my fault. like i really did do it to myself. he was popular, had a lot of girls fawning over him. i thought he was cool and wanted to get closer - i wanted to be better than the rest. so what do i do? i sent him a picture of my chest, unprompted. he didn't even have to ask or coerce me. and from there it was a year of on and off blackmailing, threatening, tormenting. he even faked his own suicide and sent me a fake ip address to terrify me with the help of one of his irls. i'd have to send him proof that i was self-harming in order to get him to stop threatening to send the photos to my friends and family. and the most fucked up part? as scared as i was, it was exciting. exhilarating even. it made me feel warm.

how i eventually got him off my tail, i dunno. it's all a blur at this point. but from that point on, i basically learned that sexualizing myself was the way for instant validation. cus even though the torment was gone - so was the praise. the compliments. the telling me i'm pretty when i wouldn't even dream of hearing a comment like that from a boy my own age at the time. so i went to omegle and basically showed myself off for all my teenage years. i'd meet a lot of "boyfriends" via these nsfw online forums or chatrooms, and our relationships were of course, always sexual in nature.

and of course, life wasn't all bad. i've had genuine, sincere romantic experiences. but they've always been littered with discomfort or 1000 prerequisites (totally not to self-sabotage or anything) i place beforehand. hell, i accidentally (yes, accidental. hear me out.) decked my boyfriend in the face when he was just staring at me (he said he was doing it lovingly, it freaked me out. it was a visceral reaction okay i'm sorry). but i always spiral back to feeling like i can't.. do this. and i've given myself every reasoning and excuse in the book;

"maybe i'm just asexual." "maybe i'm a lesbian? or i'm just into a certain type of man?" "maybe that part of me is dead and gone." "maybe the trauma really won."

and i don't want to accept any of those answers. i'm horrified at the thought that i can't.. feel anything for people. i feel most comfortable around women but i don't feel anything for them because i don't get "butterflies" (aka, outrageously anxious) in my stomach around them. i'm terrified that i'm "broken". i don't think therapy can help this. like i'm reaching a point where even pursuing the things i did when i was younger isn't doing it for me. if i don't have that then i have nothing, and i'd rather feel something than nothing. i don't wanna have to go through the push and pull of toxicity in relationships, but i always lean toward it. i'm always going farther when arguments could have ended forever ago. i push people's buttons until they get sick of it, and i don't know why i can't stop. you'd think being abused would be all the more reason to know how fucked up this all is, but i feel like i'm stuck with what i've known. it's like i'm discomforted by being treated well - it often times makes me angry / aggressive. is there anyone else who struggles with this or am i just insane at this point. idk what to do or who to go to anymore. i'm just tired of being alone and insufferably bored when i don't have someone literally tormenting me or using me. it's like a drug i can't stop craving.