I'm so tired of being scared of intimacy.
Every time one of my friends mentions it or talks about it, I feel wrong. I feel like something is wrong with me ananI just can't fix it. I'm 17, almost 18, and of course all my friends have a girlfriend/boyfriend. I hate hearing them speak so easily about how intimate they get with their partner, I wish it was that easy for me too. And i'm not shaming them for it, I'm shaming and blaming myself. I was never able to get intimate with my ex boyfriend when I was 14, even though I loved him and genuinely wanted to be with him. I loved cuddling, hanging out together, doing all those small fun activities, but whenever it came to being intimate, I panicked and backed up. Whenever we made out, my body felt tense for some reason, i was deadly scared and didn't enjoy it as I should have had. Same thing for whenever he tried to touch me intimately. I was a teenager, I still am, i should have been happy and excited to sleep with my boyfriend and have some alone time with him. But no, all I felt in my body was anxiety and panic. I hate it of me. To this day, i still hahaven'had any other partner (excpet a long distance one, which i don't think counts as real relationship experience), but the thought of having sex or being touched still creeps me out. People around me say it's because i haven't found anyone who makes me feel "safe" enough - but I genuinely can't understand why I didn't feel safe with my ex boyfriend. I blame it on last trauma, but honestly, I don't even know if that's the reason anymore. It hurts so much because I crave a relationship. I crave to feel love and to be held at night and i crave going on dates and eating together and getting comforted by someone I love. But I genuinely get the creeps when I think about the fact that I will have to get intimate with that person, I will have to give them my body. It makes me depressed and angry at myself every day. I just wanna know if someone else is, or was, like me, and if they ever got better.
Posted Jul 10, 2026, 5:50 PM UTC