There will be mentions of SA. I’m sorry this is my first post here and hope I’m doing this in accordance with guidelines.

I’m a 26 year old trans woman and transitioned at 20/21. I was allay pretty sure about being a lesbian. And had no real experience with men even though I had opportunities and experimented a bit.

But because I felt no real attraction during those times and being sexually assaulted on multiple occasions by a “friend” when I was in my teens, and an other few times pre transition.

FFW to about 2,5 years ago and I had just gotten over a break up with my long term partner (nb) of two years. I was at a low point and craved physical closeness and wanted to feel wanted so I got a dating app I had good experiences with. I wasn’t really looking for a relationship but open to it. I had a couple things with women and nonbinary people, but it wasn’t going anywhere and often made difficult by long distances or flakiness.

But I got a lot of attention from men. I didn’t really care about it at first but after some time of yearning and desperation I thought: “why not give it a try”. At first I was really critical and careful. I listened to my heart. I realised that I wasn’t really attracted to men, but their attention was so nice. It was in a way really validating. So I met the first guy after a while and he was actually nice and charming. But I just wasn’t really into him. I was into him wanting me so we ended up having sex. Afterwards he just ignored me and ghosted me. This kinda thing repeated itself. It wasn’t good for me but I got hooked on the validation and relied on it more and more. I got reckless and started to put myself in danger. Sometimes I was being treated horrible and dehumanising. Sometimes worse. I got sexually assaulted again, multiple times. Once I got drugged and choked so hard I thought I was going to die. I was terrified. But I just kept going. The validation was a bit like a drug. Something kept telling me, that it meant they found me so attractive that they would hurt me just to have me. I got really bad and at some point was finally able to stop when I started talking to a person who was so vile that I thought he would kill me. I was so scared that I always carried pepperspray and a knife. I finally stopped.

But these urges come back sometimes. I’m in a wonderful lesbian relationship and I love her more than anything. We live together and my life is better than it’s ever been. But still I think about it, I crave this horrible thing that I know will harm me. I crave the fear and the pain and I hate it. Sometimes it gives me flashbacks and I wish somebody would hurt me again. I’ve told her about this. She knows how I feel but we both don’t know how to deal with it except to ground myself in the moments when it’s bad and remind myself how awful it was and how terrible it made me feel. I’m sorry this is such a graphic read but I just would appreciate any advice. Typing this out was incredibly draining thank you for reading it. Please stay safe and don’t go seek out harm.