TW for sexual assault and cocsa . . . . . Hi... This post is very hard to make. I have always had problems with consent, especially the non verbal and everyday life parts of it. I have been r4ped, gro0med, and other stuff from age 12 to 19. I am now 20. I have also been an abuser, unknowingly, at 12 (the person only told me they did not want it when we were 16). . Now, I learned to give my consent so this is not the topic today. A friend of mine just "joked" around saying I'm not good with consent (we were talking about our cats consent to be pet and they basically said I couldn't tell them to respect the cats consent because I never do). I feel so bad. I don't want to play victim though, so I am owning up my possible mistakes and come here for help. I will also talk about it with my therapist, but I only see her in June and she is expensive so I can't count on it that much. . How the fuck do I understand people's consent?? I get yelled at for joking around sometimes, with small insults that I try my best to make look like a joke (because they are), but people insult each other as jokes all the time and they never get yelled at. How do I differentiate the two? I just want to reciprocate their way of having fun but always fail. It happens all the time with so many things, and even though I tell my friends clearly they need to vocalize their needs because I do not understand the non-verbal cues, and that they do vocalize some needs it still happens. I think they don't vocalize every need because some might be supposed to be "common sense", but I never know where or when it starts and ends. . I always fail to follow their consent. I feel like I'm trying so hard, analysing everything and thinking about what I say, but it still happens and I feel so bad. I do not want to hurt anyone but everytime this happens, it feels like I only have two choices: hurt them by breaking their consent when trying to be friendly, physical or anything, or isolate myself. . It also happened during sex with a friend. We talked about it beforehand, I had their consent during it and it felt like we had a great time, but a few weeks after they told me that I went too far when doing it. How am I supposed to know and how do I make sure everything goes smoothly? . Especially with kink, it makes me so scared to even try anything or talk to people because I do not want to do something they don't agree with, and it feels like asking "hey are you into kink?" Could violate their consent and I'm just so confused and lost . I really need help, if anyone has detailed ressources on what to look for exactly, what to ask exactly and what to do to not go too far, I'll gladly take it. I am now even scared to stay in the same room as my friends for too long or pet the cats because I do not want to do something they won't like. . I do not want to lose the few friends I have over this, and I have lost so many in the past for doing or saying something I did not know I wasn't supposed to, I'm so tired of this, every time I try to understand and ask and vocally make sure everything is fine they say it is, but it never works, it always ends up backlashing and I simply do not know what to do. And again, I am not a victim in this. I am a victim of the stuff that happened to me, not the stuff I unknowingly do. Even if I do not want to hurt people I understand I do and am genuinely wanting to stop hurting the ones I love. . Sorry if this was a bit long but I wanted to give details so you could understand my situation better.