Trauma Shaped My Love Life
My relationships were designed to escape, not to last
When I was a child, I was sexually assaulted over the course of three years. My parents didn’t know what was going on and I was young enough not to realize how wrong the whole thing was. However, I did know that it made me feel weird. I spent my middle school years trying to get anyone to listen as I talked about my childhood experiences. By high school, I’d realized that talking about what happened just made people look at me oddly, so I shut up and blocked everything out.
Occasionally a smell or a texture, a random song or a bad dream would transport me back into the thick of it. I didn’t know what to do, so I handled each flashback by burying the memories deeper, stashing them under a plethora of alcohol, exhaustion, sex, and escapist entertainment.
By my late 20s, I was sure I’d beaten my trauma. I was financially independent, surrounded by friends, and living in LA — a mecca of sunshine and possibility. When the rare unsavory memory pierced through the haze, I would look at the blue sky dotted with palm trees and remind myself that I was thriving. I was healed.
Then I met Marina.
Marina (not her real name) and I worked together in a giant old restaurant in the heart of LA. We worked in different…
