I Am A Survivor Slut – On Trauma and Hyper Sexuality
/
There is a direct connection between my mental state and arousal. When triggered, I go one of two ways; meltdown or hyper sexuality.
The meltdown is the more ‘normal’ response. I struggle to think, to talk, or even to function. To recover, I need rest. I need alone time. I need Valium, therapy, and other interventions.
I call this response ‘normal’ because compared to my other response, it is.
I have long asked myself, ‘What normal person gets triggered, but rather than breaking down, instead wants to lose themselves completely in sex, sensuality, porn, promiscuity, and pleasure?’ As it turns out, a lot of us. I posted a meme with a caption espousing what happens to me, and the response was overwhelmingly validating.
There is a distinct subset of ‘survivor sluts’ and ‘healing whores’ who like me, when faced with anxiety, stress, or triggers, get aroused. This is exactly why I share. It is vital to know my responses whilst confronting and confusing are not also an abnormality. Or more specifically, my response is legitimate response to trauma.
Trauma corrupts and rewires the brain. The defence mechanisms we create to survive early on, may not be appropriate for later life. This is a process to work through with a therapist and with the page, but at least I know that because others feel as I do, I can drop the added stigma that the trauma I faced broke me more than it would have broken others.
If you know, you know. Survivors know. We didn’t come out unscathed. Our scars are psychological, and the thing seeking to heal is itself damaged.
Let’s break down my internal responses, so that if you too feel as I do, perhaps you can let go of some of the additional shame and confusion. When other people want time alone, or to talk, or a hug, or literally the exact opposite of anything sexual, I crave being fucked. I use explicit language here, because in my mind it isn’t ‘love making’ or ‘romance’ or ‘connection’ or any of those other higher order things.
No.
I want to use and be used. I want to lose myself. I want to cum. I want the validation of another’s body writhing underneath my own. I want to hear my name being screamed. I want to take another and be taken in turn. It’s base. It’s primal. It’s intense. I want out of my mind.
Unsurprisingly, this propensity has led me to making many poor choices. In my desperation to escape the torment of my mind, I have engaged in sexually activities that I wouldn’t have done were I thinking straight - aka not triggered. I have said and done things I wouldn’t have otherwise and connected with people I shouldn’t have - a true connection, one worthy of the deep intimacy of sex wasn’t there.
We were mere flesh vessels, using one another’s friction for release.
Sure, it was fun. But it wasn’t meaningful. Beyond that, when I ‘came down’ from the trigger, I lost interest in them, and thus feelings were hurt.
I have learnt to taper my responses. To be explicit with my desires and requests. To tell people exactly what I can offer them and when - this helps me to maintain relationships, or at least ground those relationships in what they actually are; a realistic acceptance of mutual ‘support’ via the giving of our bodies to each other as a form of desperate self-care.
More beneficial however is the learning to use other coping strategies - breathing, or writing, or exercising, or sleeping on it to better process the triggered response. I have learnt to meditate and introspect, asking myself the question, am I attracted to this person, or am I triggered and being seduced by their red flags?
As I have said, writing helps me to process trauma and understand my responses to it, I wrote a poem called ‘red flag chaser’ a while ago on this topic, if you would indulge, I would like to share it with you below.
I’m a red flag chaser
A self-debaser
That tattooed look
Leaves me shook
Dabbling in drugs
With ‘caring’ thugs
Incredible sex
For the brain hex
Insightful conversations
Just distracted ruminations
Same toxic pattern
From abstinent to slattern
A mirror’s shame
Only myself to blame
Left alone and burnt
No lesson learnt
I get off on the thrill
Of you losing your chill
I hate when you insist
With a scream and a fist
But it’s worth the pain
To feel like myself again
A childhood’s toll
Red flags make me whole
The end of another fight
This is love, right?
…
Some of the best sex I’ve ever had, has come from other people with a similar trauma response to me. It’s the origin of the post-fight fuck. Or why break up sex is so dam hot.
Whether or not they realised it, those partners were using me, as I was using them. Not to heal. Not to love. Not to become intimate with. But to survive the night. To fill the whole inside themselves that was left from the abuse they faced as kids. Or perhaps that’s just what I was doing with them, and I am feeling exposed and vulnerable having shared all this with you just now.
The worst part is that this demon is still within me. I can feel it rising (pun intended) when I am triggered. I feel my arousal, my desire, my lust for physical validation - from people who can’t, won’t, or shouldn’t give it. I know that it’s an internal red flag to push for sex when triggered. Either they aren’t into it - informed enthusiastic consent is key, unless it’s a fuck yes, it’s a hell no – So now I hold back and don’t push or even share.
But to this day, if I am having a bad day, I want to fuck my problems away. Most people don’t. And when I find the few, like me, that do. Often the sex is amazing, but our connection is volatile and toxic. We aren’t good for one another beyond their bedroom - this is great in the moment when struggling but leads to a downward cycle down the line.
We get triggered and fuck. We feel better. Then we find ourselves together, incompatible for much beyond the bedroom, so we fight and get triggered. Then we get horny and fuck again. Rinse and repeat until one or both of us realised that we are trapped in a toxic pleasure cycle. Bonus points for adding drugs to the mix
Yes, I am a red flag chaser, but I’m learning, I swear. Nonetheless, those feelings of arousal are hard to ignore.
Tell me, can you relate? Because as I type these final words, that all too familiar sense of arousal is rising, and I want to know that it is a normal response to an abnormal situation.
I write erotic poetry and fiction, check it out on my substack!
