Faking It

BY HALEY MARANDO

CONTENT WARNING: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES SEXUAL TRAUMA AND HYPERSEXUALITY, AND MAY NOT BE SuITABLE FOR ALL READERS.

When you’re a victim of trauma - in my case, sexual trauma - there’s a certain degree of pressure that you feel to give your story the conclusion that everyone expects. People want to hear that you made it out, so that’s what you tell them because the real truth, the twisted truth, is better kept hidden away in the dark.

At least, that’s what I used to think.

There’s a perception about what happens after trauma that crafts the mould of a “perfect victim.” It’s expected that you’ll endure explicitly negative side effects such as post-traumatic stress disorder, panic attacks, and a complete fear of all things sex-related, all of which are true, and all of which I have been able to recover from, or at least manage. But there’s also the misconception that when you don’t find yourself in internal anguish any more, that means you’ve healed.

For years, I felt an aching sense of shame because the thing that I was supposed to fear the most was the one thing I hungered for, day and night. So much so that I started to wonder if my mind had created fake memories of fake traumas. How can I be a sexual assault survivor if I’m constantly starving for the taste of sexual desire?

What I was externally displaying as the reclamation of my body and sexual liberation - which should be celebrated - was internally the unhealthy behaviour of hypersexuality - a completely normal side effect to sexual trauma. The two appear identical on the surface but are

drastically different, which is why my behaviour wasn’t alarming in broad daylight.

The definition of hypersexuality is heavily debated, but in my case, it meant the development of an obsession over a repetitive pattern of increased libido and sexual behaviours, which resulted in damaging consequences.

I didn’t have an addiction to the act itself, but I had an addiction to the process of getting there, to the control I gained. It was easy for me to get someone hooked on my charm, take them home, leave before the sun would rise, and rarely to speak again.

I felt no sense of pleasure at all; the act itself was mostly either numbing or painful. And while my “I have three orgasms in five minutes” friends tried to convince me that “maybe you just haven’t found the right position yet,” my mind would never let me get to any place of pleasure, let alone orgasm, because it saw sex as one thing only: abuse.

But how do you look at your friends and tell them that your “legendary” stories are nothing but a response to trauma, always resulting in a paralyzing fear that left you hanging over the side of the bed, unable to speak?

I thought that if I could train myself to make it through an encounter with a stranger, then I’d be able to control my triggers and be “normal” when I’m with someone I care about. So, I faked it.

To some degree, I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I couldn’t physically stop myself. I eventually stopped caring if I liked them, and then I stopped caring about if I was attracted to them, and then, with utter regret, I admit that I stopped caring about who they even were. I didn’t even know who I was.

It all boiled up to a brutally awful episode of post-traumatic stress in the middle of a sexual encounter. The mere way the light shadowed his face triggered me into hallucinating that I was back experiencing an assault, seeing him as the abuser.

Trauma comes at you in waves, but on this night, it nearly swept me into the undiscovered depths of the dark sea. I knew that if I wanted to live, I couldn’t keep doing this.

To this day, my biggest regret is not being able to communicate what was going on and, in the process, hurting people; for that, I am eternally apologetic.

I don’t tell this story to create a sense of fear and hopelessness but simply for awareness. What is often shown through education is the perception of a weak, depressed, and isolated victim - the “perfect victim.” To some degree, I believe my hypersexuality stemmed from the fact that I didn’t want to be seen as weak (because surviving multiple sexual assaults is anything but), which thrusted me to the polar opposite side of the trauma healing spectrum.

If you have endured common experiences, know that it is completely normal, know that this is your trauma talking, and know that you are not, as I told myself many times, “absolutely f*cked in the head.”

We are not weak. We are not “perfect victims.”

I’m not a victim. I’m a survivor. Not one person can take that away from me.

CREATIVE DIRECTOR MAYA GINZBURG PHOTOGRAPHER NICOLETTE SHWARZMAN

Helena

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