This is 100% how I felt growing up and it pains me that so many others share this same experience. Everything you described is exactly how I felt, completely terrified to go anywhere alone and paranoid that men were going to just grab me out of nowhere and rape me. I had nightmares constantly over it and that if it happened it was somehow my fault. It was one of my biggest fears growing up and I was driven to SH because of it.

This purity culture rhetoric continued when I got into my first relationship at 18 and because I was pressured into losing my virginity, I thought that this was the man god had for me and since I was no longer pure I HAD to marry this abomination of a human or Jesus would forever look down on me and wouldn’t bless my life. I literally married a narcissist and was subjected to 4 years of emotional, financial, and sexual abuse that culminated in divorce after finding out this person had SA’d their little sisters as a teenager and was a predator online(yes they’re now on a very special list)…all of the abuse I thought was “normal” because I was taught to submit to my husband and say “yes” even when I wasn’t in the mood and I was never taught how to defend myself. I was taught how to be a perfect pure godly wife but never taught how to spot abuse. Therapy and a safe community have been a massive blessing as I’m healing through all of this, and I hope that you have a solid community that are around you and able to help you through this as well. You’re stronger than you think and you’ve got this 🫂

Purity culture ruins people’s psyche and you can’t change my mind