Me 21F and my ex boyfriend 21M we broke up yesterday. I'm sharing this because I want to explain how surviving sexual assault affected me, my relationship and ultimately why it ended. Maybe someone else will feel less lonely after reading this.

My boyfriend is not responsible for the trauma. It happened when I was 12 , after school I was going home and kids in from my class were celebrating , some of them grouped together and crossed physical boundaries ,I froze. They had colours in their hand and in a group they physically harassed me by touching me in places while my eyes and mouth were covered in colour. I saw girls from my class just standing and laughing. I was bullied at school for no reason, i used to be bullied from 6th grade till I finished high school. There were mostly sexual comments, harassment, girls in my class knew everything but all they did was laugh. I was too much of an introvert that i would never speak against them. 10 years have passed and I never told anyone about this incident. I became someone who loved being alone, i stopped expecting from people, became self centred I believe relying on myself felt safer than depending on anyone. Then in college I met my boyfriend at 20

He was too sweet, kind of like a green forest. My mind trusted him but my body didn't feel safe. We got into a relationship too quickly without even knowing much about each other, our other mutual friend peer pressured me to show more physical love like basic holding hands which I was not ready for but eventually did it. 

Later I kept regretting that i wasn't ready, it happened too fast things , i barely knew him. 

Tho I liked him and had a crush on him , later on i stopped feeling any emotional connection my love faded but there was care and respect i always had for him. I wanted us to become close friends first. I wanted to understand him naturally before becoming emotionally and physically close. One year on and off in our relationship I told him I felt some kind of pressure in our relationship, I'm not able to have an emotional connection. I never told him about my trauma. I can't really feel any strong emotions for anyone. I can't keep this relationship because i might hurt him more if we keep going on. Idk if this is PTSD anxiety , I'm not self diagnosing myself, but everything changed after the trauma.I just couldn't give the relationship what it deserved because I didn't fully understand myself.

Trauma led to breakup