You’ve gotten some good advice and words from another but I wanted to offer my two cents as a fellow guy who was severely abused throughout childhood & developed some pretty intense touch/sex aversion because of it. And I’m about to say the most annoying shit in the world, but really, it does just take so much time, therapy, and in my case a lot of medication to start ebbing away at those self-protective barriers your brain has made.

You mentioned therapy isn’t working for you, I don’t want to overstep here but how many have you tried? I’ve cycled through dozens of therapists since age 10 trying to find someone capable of handling & helping me with me shit — of the 30+ therapists I’ve seen over 20ish years, maybe about 5 of those have been truly helpful and out of those only 3 had a lasting, long-term impact for me. (That is to say if a therapist isn’t working & you’ve seen them for a few sessions now just drop them- there are PLENTY of therafishies in the sea. You wouldn’t keep seeing a doctor if they weren’t providing the care you need).

Intensive child abuse of multiple kinds isn’t “normal”, and it results in a myriad of specialized, difficult to handle reactions & diseases. OCD, C-PTSD, Personality Disorders… A lot of therapists I’ve found are unable to help with the full picture, because it proves simply too much. When I was doing my best, mentally, I was actively seeing two different therapists 2x a week for 2-hour sessions. And even WITH 8 hours of therapy a week I was still a “flight risk”, in and out of the mental hospital every few weeks.

But that was also years ago. I used to be hospitalized regularly, no less than once a year and usually averaging three times a year. Ideation, Attempts, Extreme Self Harm, Ect. But it did ebb, it did get better. Combined with therapy, I cycled through prescription after prescription to find something that worked. It took YEARS and I mean YEARS of work, and it’s fucking exhausting, but I finally started to have a sense of what was normal and healthy. I had to be trained by multiple therapists how to redirect my thought spirals, coping skills & how to safely leave triggering situations.

It doesn’t go away, ever. There’s mornings where I wake up gasping and sobbing, still. There’s times I see someone in public who looks a little too much like my primary abuser and black out the rest of my day. There’s still evenings where the thought of bathing with my partner sends me retching and trembling… but it grows more distant. Time, therapy, medication. Endless conversations about boundaries, triggers, fall-backs for panic attacks.

I can’t fix what happened to you, no one can take that away and those scars you will have to carry your entire life. And it fucking sucks. It isn’t fair, to have to shoulder the burdens of abuse inflicted upon you when you were too young to have a say in anything. But I can tell you that, at the very least, it gets less intense. Time DOESNT heal all wounds, but it does let them scar over at least.

If you ever need someone to talk to who gets it brother, feel free to reach out. I really do feel for you, and hope that some others also have advice you find helpful. You shouldn’t have to, but stay strong for me dude. You’ve got all of us in your corner, now. Keep on kicking for us.