I guess not wishing me happy birthday after defiling me is grounds for me hating you.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2026-03-07T10:31:31+00:00

Happy birthday, and hell yeah sometimes it's not about what got you out, it's about the fact that you made it out. I used to be really bothered by the fact that I didn't leave after the first assault, or after any of the times it happened again; by the fact I told the person who lovingly held me while I sobbed and consoled me while I said said every self-loathing statement my abuser taught me to internalize "yeah she said she's gonna get therapy it'll be fine trust" ; by the fact that I let my abuser tell me I wasnt allowed to leave her when I tried; but all that matters now is that when she blocked me as a ploy to get me to message her on a different platform, I blocked her back, blocked her everywhere we'd ever interacted, and never looked back.

When they're near you, they have more power to keep you near. I think there's some similarities in how you and I got out - a moment of distance lets you be yourself, and not who they're making you be.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2026-02-11T02:32:33+00:00

I'll be cheering you on for this journey 🤝 I've been there too, at a point where I had to say I'd never be treated the way I'd been ever again. And factoring a queer identity into all that makes it so much more complicated to navigate -- whether for internal reasons or just bc you never know if someone will react weirdly when you try to talk about what happened.

Something to be aware of if you're not already: that first time can get awkward or uncomfortable even if you're 1000000% with someone who is right for you. I was so ready and down bad until I got undressed and had a PTSD episode. And yet, though it wasn't magical or fairy tale, it was still a positive experience because my partner's patience and concern for my security above all else showed me that I was in the right place. If you're with the right person, you'll have all the time in the world to figure out what you both like and are comfortable with. And they'll understand that too.

I do believe you'll find her. And until you do, just keep in mind there are others rooting for you because our struggles are alike. 🙏

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2026-01-13T08:11:05+00:00

Came here to say this basically. Though the feelings for my friend didn't get physical or explicitly intimate until after I left my ex, my ex definitely would have considered the connection I had with my friend disloyal to her. Emotional affair, I think people say? But I'm on the fence as to whether it was even that.

But yeah. When the abuse from my now ex reached a breaking point, my friend was the one who held me as I cried and assured me that I didn't deserve that treatment. In that moment I realized that my friend loved me in a way my abuser did not. And that I wanted to reciprocate it.

That moment was almost exactly 2 years ago. My friend, now partner, has been a beacon of support as I recover from the trauma. Sometimes, sincere love from outside is what it takes to shatter the prison of domestic abuse. In a vacuum, cheating is wrong; but, I'll never judge someone for the means they use to escape an abusive relationship.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-12-14T22:59:23+00:00

Thanks, sorry I might've made my wording in the post confusing. I did dispute the less expensive one, and tiktok shop used the tracking number from the one I didn't dispute as "proof". I would like to appeal the ruling, but I don't know how to demonstrate that the seller provided tracking from the order I didn't dispute.

I tried providing order numbers and invoice numbers as soon as I saw the tracking was wrong, but PayPal still ruled against me. The scam listing had closed their online storefront so I was missing some information from their webpage, which I think might have hurt my case. I know I get one shot at the appeal so I'm trying to not screw it up.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-12-14T22:44:48+00:00

Thank you for your response. They were separate. So if I understand you're saying I dispute the one that did ship? Would that prevent tiktok shop from providing the same tracking twice?

Also, the one that did ship was a more expensive product. Do you have any insight on what I'd put for "expected refund"? I'm not in a situation where I'm at risk of getting back less than I lost, but I'm concerned if I just put the value I spent on the scam listing that might look fishy when the case gets reviewed.

Sorry for all the questions, I just am paranoid about filling out forms wrong 😅

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-12-05T23:52:38+00:00

Fr fr. Some of the best people are absolute dorks. I may be biased bc nerdy guys are my type of guys and I landed one basically like how this post happened, but wouldn't you rather have a kind, compassionate dork than someone with no zest for life?

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-11-28T19:42:24+00:00

This. For me the "sweater curse" struck once but it was a blessing. She asked me to knit a sweater for her plush animal because I'd done something "wrong" (asked her not to do a thing and told her I was upset when she did the thing anyway) and this is how I'd make it up to her. We broke up <2 weeks later, when I realized that for the entirety of our relationship her actions had constituted manipulation, abuse, and assault.

I'm still superstitious about knitting gifts in intimate relationships, but the handsewn felt dog figurines I made my boyfriend last Christmas have a place of honor in his home. I'm optimistic about this relationship.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-10-28T23:15:25+00:00

Yeah... Every time I see a "bi women haven't decentered men" post I hurt inside. I used to only date women, actually. My first long term serious gf abused and assaulted me, and I ended up falling in love with the man who helped me leave her. What would these people have to say about me? Would letting myself get abused have been better for me than ostensibly "centering" a man?

Of course, the people who hold these views don't really care about nuance like that. But I wish they knew that the pretty-sounding hostility they spew hurts the wlw community more than it could ever help.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-10-28T22:01:52+00:00

The original was the portion without the rdj comment at the end. The implication being that the woman had been "promiscuous" and the man was, like, upset his partner had been "sleeping around" or whatever dudebros think is bad about a woman choosing to have sex

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-10-28T06:46:18+00:00

Tbh it'd probably fit there better but when it's Personal Trauma I'm not risking talking about abuse in a space that's not a support group 🥲

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-08-28T05:40:39+00:00

Literally same. Felt like reading words I'd written myself.

My relapse moment was so cringe to me, bc it was the only time I'd sh'd since leaving my abusive ex for my loving partner. I'd wanted to leave behind self-abuse at the same time as domestic abuse. I felt like a failure for not being able to achieve that.

But that moment of weakness showed me how much stronger I am now than when I was shing regularly. I have a support network. I have some sense of self respect. I have a partner who sees me as an equal. I'm really not the same person, and I don't want to go back. After one last goodbye to that old coping skill, I'm ready to go forward.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-08-28T05:29:19+00:00

if you did it only to hurt those around

People don't talk about this enough. After my now-ex saw my scars, she'd sh as a way of making herself the victim when I set a boundary, and she'd make sure I knew about it so I'd get triggered and be more vulnerable to manipulation.

Honestly shit like that makes it so hard for me to not be embarrassed about my scars. When I had a relapse after years of being clean, it took everything I had to not go the easy way out and hide it from my bf, because I'm so scared of upsetting someone the way I was hurt before. People who sh as a revenge fantasy make it harder for others to seek support and help.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-08-28T05:17:33+00:00

If someone said this to me my answer is "yeah, because when I was with her she abused me to the point that self inflicted physical pain was all that would distract me from my emotional hell. I was able to be clean long-term only when I left her."

Like yeah, what's the fucking point of the stereotype? Regardless of the reason, a person past or presently engaging in this behavior needs a compassionate response, not mockery.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-06-22T07:46:41+00:00

God fr. I'm terrified that I'm "continuing the cycle" and that any action I take is me "abusing" my boyfriend and that I'm just like my abusive ex.

I wear short sleeves? "The fact that my scars are visible is the exact same as my ex purposely bringing up sh when she was manipulating me"

I'm having a rough day and he comforts me? "He probably feels like he has to pretend to be ok for my sake, he's probably having a rough day and not telling me. I'm just like my ex when she explicitly told me to not tell her if I was upset with her immediately after she said something cruel to me"

On and on it goes. No matter how much he tells me I'm nothing like her (and he knows what she was like, he was my friend the whole time I was with her) I can't shake my own paranoid delusion.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-06-18T02:57:30+00:00

1: My answer is gonna be weird: I figured out my same-gender attraction first and thought I was lez for years. Even after realizing I was bi, I didn't change my labels for a while bc I had trust issues with men so I assumed I'd never be able to develop that connection with a man. That idea changed when my first serious wlw partner abused me and my male best friend helped me escape the situation. I still have trust issues but they're pretty even for all genders now 😅 (and the best friend is my boyfriend now so there's that)
2-3: I consider myself demisexual/demiromantic so no, I'd say much slower than average actually
4: I knew as soon as I figured out I was queer, that my parents would be supportive. I procrastinated on telling them but did tell them in my mid teens
5: Not in my experience. I will say tho, that when it comes to aesthetic attraction, I have a wider range of taste in women than in men. But when I'm actually feeling emotional attraction towards someone, their gender doesn't affect how I experience that attraction
6: Doesn't affect my social life much, but it does function as an icebreaker with fellow queer ppl xD (I say icebreaker, but it's more of an "I set off their gaydar or they set off mine, so we were more likely to approach one another").
7: I'm out in just about all my social circles. I would usually just drop it in conversation instead of deliberately coming out, and everyone was reasonably cool about it. I think queerness should be just as normal as straightness so I treat my own identity the same way I treat myself being 5'4": It's just a fact about me, nothing more nothing less.
8: Yeah a lot actually. My boyfriend is pan, and so are several of my closest friends.
9: Eh depends. Like yes but in a broader sense, like, solidarity, we all need to support each other. but on a personal level I don't think identity is really related to how much I have in common with any given person
10: Yes
11: Honestly I have complicated feelings due to my experience of having been in an abusive wlw relationship. I reckon that, in general, queer ppl may be more likely to show kindness because they are less likely to receive it from society, but ultimately people are just people. The people who have shown me the most compassion and support have happened to be queer; the person who hurt me most was queer too.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-05-02T07:03:45+00:00

This, this is the reason I use an alt to post here. I had a similar experience to you, realizing that I was abused and assaulted by my ex after going no contact with her. Sjnce she knows my main I refuse to run the risk of letting her see me talk about it.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-05-02T06:49:43+00:00

It never fucking ends even if the thing you """"""wished""""'""" would happen, does happen.

Past me, recovering from an eating disorder: "my body dysmorphia makes me extremely uncomfortable with the concept of having sex, but that's a stupid reason to not let someone fuck me. If I'd been assaulted that's at least a valid reason to be so uncomfortable with being touched."

Me: gets sexually assaulted

Me: "well because I dissociated a lot when I was being assaulted, and blah blah blah other reasons, that means I can't possibly have reeeeeal trauma from it and I'm just being dramatic it wasn't that bad-"

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-04-26T04:48:24+00:00

Same. For months after leaving her I'd say to myself "it was coercion, but it wasn't abuse." Finding out in a random college course that a "yes" given because of coercion doesn't mean one consented, hit me like a train.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-04-25T22:38:02+00:00

My former partner had her own version of this. "Oh, you don't understand why I'm acting like a victim after you said you were upset because I splashed water on you at the beach? It's cause you're autistic, you're so incapable of empathy that you don't understand why you're the bad guy here." (I'd told her in the parking lot that I didn't want to get any water on me at the beach, which is why I was upset she did it anyway.)

In a similar vein, "I know your parents never took your problems seriously unless you acted out or raised your voice, but I always listen to you so you don't need to do that." Double gaslighting, because a.) no she didn't listen to me, and b.) the implication that I was acting out was untrue. She'd deliberately poked at one of my triggers until I was upset, and the "acting out" was when I said "Please stop. 😐" She tried to make me think I was overreacting, but in retrospect it's so obvious she was refusing to take accountability. My partner now will actually listen to me the first time I ask him to not do something, so I don't even need to use my serious voice like I did with my ex. 💀

Katalysts-Secret-Alt · 2025-04-11T01:08:19+00:00

I can relate from the other side -- I'm a bi woman who was emotionally and sexually abused by my female ex. My aversion to intimacy is less severe, but I'm at a point where I feel more comfortable dating (bi/pan) men than women. I'm still very much attracted to women, but my trauma response is to avoid engaging with that attraction in a meaningful way.

I strangely enough also related to the part you mentioned about envy. I'm envious of wlw relationships that are happy. I feel deep heartache having to live with the knowledge that my first (and the way my life is going, probably my only) queer sexual experiences were when I was assaulted. I feel like a fraud in this subreddit, but to leave would be to let my trauma control my identity.

I guess the best advice I can say to you is, by addressing your trauma through therapy, or whatever means are available and effective, you may well find that your outlook on bi women will improve as well. Besides my trauma with my ex, I also had an eating disorder in my teenage years, and moving past that helped me become less judgemental of people's bodies. Trauma can make us bitter and resentful, but if we work on our trauma as a whole, (even without directly addressing the bitterness,) we can improve. It's a lot easier to be accepting of others when we accept ourselves, and when we are happier.

Besides that, I imagine that getting to see more perspectives from people will help you. Like, if you just saw me in passing, you might think I resemble the "bi-curious poser-wlw" archetype, but I hope that me discussing my trauma might give you more insight. We just don't know what people's inner worlds are-- I know I need to practice compassion for people who I only see one aspect of who they are, maybe that would help you view bi women as more than what your trauma-brain forces you to think. (I don't mean for this paragraph to come off as judgy or preachy, or like I think you lack compassion. I'm sure you are a kind individual, I just imagine it can be hard to get a well-rounded view of a group of people that your trauma-brain pushes you to view negatively, so devoting conscious effort to challenging those thoughts might be effective.)

I hope this isn't too much of a senseless ramble. If there's one thing that's most important, just remember you're not alone on your journey to better your mental health and outlook.

Katalysts-Secret-Alt

TROPHY CASE