I started to say that I have an affirmation book called On the Path: Affirmations for Adult Survivors of Sexual Abuse, and that it has one affirmation per week that you need to practice telling yourself regularly until it sticks. I already wrote about this affirmation, but I was going to write about it everyday for that week if new thoughts came to mind. Since I never followed through with this, I am restarting from the first affirmation, my body is my own, and going to try hard to write about any new thoughts that come up during the week before I move on to week two.

Unlike this affirmation says, I didn’t end up believing that my body was not my own. Maybe as a child I believed that, but throughout my life I have been overly protective of my body, to the point that for the most part, I didn’t let anyone, even those I was in relationships with, touch my body sexually. I was so afraid of sex and just couldn’t have sex that it sort of ruined the relationships that I did have. I thought you could have romantic feelings for someone, without sex being involved. I was wrong.

Most people expect their partner to be sexually active with them, and I completely understand that. Because I couldn’t my relationships ended. I have been told by therapists that to heal that, you first have to start with yourself, and see for yourself what feels good and what doesn’t. The word for that is a word that I cannot say out loud or in writing, because shame is connected with it. The word itself triggers so much anxiety, shame, and disgust within me I can’t even consider it.

Because I am DID, which for those that don’t know what that is, it’s where your mind fractured, and different people (I call them people, most call them parts) were created, or I like to say, born. Anyway, because each one within me is their own person with their own feelings, thoughts, beliefs, likes and dislikes—some of them feel differently about this topic. It even makes me feel ashamed that some within me have no issues with it.

But that’s the way some therapists in the past say that you can change your perspective about it. I refuse to try it. I feel ashamed even thinking about it.

Because I am a lesbian, and live in a city where there are’t too many gay people, and I can’t afford to live on my own and get a place in Phoenix, where there are a good amount of gay people, I have little chance of being in another relationship. Which is kind of good because I feel I need to work on my fear of sex before I get into another relationship.

So I have become overly protective of my body because of the abuse, not the other way around. Which I think is just as bad as not believing ones body is their own.

That’s my thoughts today. If I have more thoughts about it tomorrow as I practice telling myself that my body is my own, I will write about them.

I hope that my sharing these affirmations with my readers will help you think about these things and take a little time to process it. I will be writing about every one of the affirmations in this book and there are 51 of them. So be sure to subscribe to my blog if you want to hear all of the affirmations, and think about them for your own healing.

Kelly