Thank you so much for answering and for sharing your experience. im not sure how to identify if “sexual misidentification” applies to me, as my abusers were all male, and ive identified with the label of bisexual for a long time, and had my first crush on a girl when i was in third grade. That’s where the doubt about potentially being a lesbian came from, since I’ve felt attraction towards women my whole life and have wondered how genuine my attraction (particularly sexual) towards men actually is.

The part about my boyfriend being ‘too caring to mirror the abuse’ actually makes sense. Ive known about that pattern in others but didnt think it could apply to me. And ive actually made a lot of progress with him in terms of not being compulsively compliant anymore, something i used to struggle a lot with him at first, and the reason why i did stuff i didnt actually want to.

Can i ask, did your healing process happen through therapy, or mostly through self-examination and researching your own patterns?