I have the constant urge to confront people who have hurt me in the past, even if it’s from years ago. This is a compulsion I absolutely cannot do as it’s real life involving other people and can make matters much worse. This is the ultimate challenge. I sit in anger and rage with no closure, and my urge is also for reassurance seeking to basically cover my ass and endure perfect reputation or make sure my past will not come to haunt me. But without closure or having the last word I am agoraphobic and want to hide. The anxiety I get from this is crippling. If I don’t get the last word I feel weak.

EMDR is really helping me with trauma and giving me a safe place to get really angry and really upset and really scared and really guilty. I think really closure means processing what's happened, just like how forgiveness is about yourself and not about others. As for confronting people, it's really only worth doing if they are in a mental place where they're able to take accountability without getting hostile from feeling ashamed. Their mistakes (and their feelings about those mistakes) are about them, not about you. I have the same issues with agoraphobia because avoiding the places and people involved in my trauma and real event OCDs has left me feeling very trapped and suspicious and unsafe. We have to find a way to be ok with living our lives knowing that some people dislike us or judge/would judge us. I can relate because I talked publicly about being sexually assaulted repeatedly by my ex and it resulted in friends of his defending him and hating me, to the point I literally have had OCDs about the idea of what if they're right and fears that I made it out to be worse than it was because I didn't go into detail. And I made it even worse for myself mentally by complaining about him in unfair ways because it was expected of me and because I thought if people don't think he's the worst person ever then they'll just doubt and judge me. Plus mistakes I've made in the past make me feel like even more people just wouldn't believe me. I fantasize about technology which could read your mind/share memories so I wouldn't have to worry about it lol. And *I too* get urges to talk to that ex and try to talk about what happened (even though he's already actually been pretty accountable and apologetic) because I have this need to be validated and reassured that I'm not crazy, plus want him to be aware how much he actually screwed me up, and I honestly ALSO want him to admit his fuckups in writing. Tbh the way his friends treated me was a whole additional trauma. We don't need to have a perfect reputation, though. Try to imagine as if it were somebody else, you met them one day and you liked their personality and you wanted to be friends. You really wouldn't care if they've made mistakes or whether other people have a negative opinion about them, you'd just like spending time with them. It's hard as fuck to live with PTSD and OCD about your PTSD, just hellish. But there are definitely ways out. I try not to give in to my compulsions to confront my ex about every awful memory that pops up, because it's never actually made me feel more closure, and only makes me feel safer VERY temporarily. Plus makes me worry about whether I just look BAD for confronting him like I'm trying to cover my ass like you said. You would definitely benefit from trauma therapy. Your anger and frustration and fear all deserves to be felt, without judging yourself for feeling it. In my experience, those things really do just need to be felt and validated and then they'll leave you in peace more often. Sorry for the verbal diarrhea. But I really feel you about some of these difficulties.

I gotcha. I've been in a relationship online with a narcissist but was able to dump him as soon as I found out that he was making stuff up about me. I think part of what makes my trauma so complicated is that my ex who did all the sexual abuse wasn't narcissistic. He was an addict and actually pretty vulnerable, he wasn't cruel, he was a CSA victim and was DEFINITELY reenacting it on me, I suspect even right down to the phrases he used to always say when he did it. Which ofc has always made me feel too much compassion for him to be able to really validate what I went through- I still don't hate him or even particularly think he deserves to go to jail (mind you I'm not the first person he's "had trouble with consent" with) and I'm not even sure that he *really* knew how not-okay it was at the time. But I'm still very, very angry. Plus the usual blaming-myself-for-not-doing-more-to-stop-it thing. I guess in that sense it's like the sugar daddy thing, feeling extremely angry but also guilty like we got ourselves in these situations and actually for both of us we know there are people who would judge and blame and shame us. I think it could help to always bear in mind how you would think about it if it was someone else. If I met a girl who was sexually exploited and filmed without their consent (I'm gay, hi), I would be angry at the guy and be devastated that I couldn't make it all better. I'd feel the same if it was a friend that happened to, and I know that all the friends I have would agree a million percent. I know you feel the threat of stigma but any guy who would abandon or blame you for that situation is pure compassionless scum anyway and would not be worth marrying. Sex workers or people trying sugaring (SUPER common) don't deserve sexual assault and exploitation any more than anyone else does. From the same perspective I can see that eventually giving up when I was being assaulted rather than punching my bf in the face doesn't mean that I consented either, and anyone who thinks it did is a moron or a backwards apologist. Yet I still felt for years like somehow I was making up something out of nothing even though it just made no sense and I even had FLASHBACKS, and the fact I was so angry at him about so many things just made me feel like I must be a hateful person trying to hurt him. For me, I apologised too much in later years about how hostile I acted during the time when I was talking to people about what he'd done, even though I can now see I acted totally reasonably given the circumstances, plus talked about how I felt like I was making it up and for me that's the stuff I fear will come back to haunt me. It hasn't been helped by the fact I have OCD fears that I said it was worse than it was during times I felt pressured and like people needed to hate him or they'd blame me, or made it seem worse or violent because I was vague (hated discussing the detail, especially as I had a LOT of self blame). Plus KNOWING that I exaggerated how awful he was as a partner- don't get me wrong, he lied cheated stole and took every drug on offer, but he wasn't malicious, just moody. I just spend a lot of time terrified that people would try to put all my mistakes together and my doubt and self blame and inconsistency, and just reflect my fear that I ruined this guy's life and I'm the bad guy. Even though he pretty much ruined mine, I've had crippling PTSD ever since. I can see how fundamentally innocent he is as a human being who was reenacting his own abuse, so of course I feel like I'm a monster. And the OCD gets even worse when I think about how he told me someone in his family reported him to the police about it and they "had a talk" with him, as I get scared that if people talk and they decide it wasn't rape and my doubts were true or that I made it up then that could make LEGAL trouble and I don't think I could really survive going through that on top of everything else. I guess other shitty or ignorant people's opinions tend to feel threatening because they trigger the self hate and blame that it's unfortunately totally normal to have when you're abused. It's incredibly unfair that we have to live with the feelings of stigma, on top of all the trauma ❤️ so for the record I judge you 0%, I believe what you're saying about your ex and I totally believe in your ability to get there bit by bit to be able to thrive even if people doubted, judged or disliked you. You deserve a wonderful life and I hope you find a lot of people you can rely on to feel safe around. I actually don't do social media because I find cancel culture and sexual assault stuff all over it waaaaay too triggering :(