Reddit forums about dating make me cry. My biggest fear is being judged by my past (I tried a sugar baby site for literally 2 months and was exploited and traumatized, but to some it might sound like prostitution). The answers people give on reddit are sometimes positive and nice and others are so mean and judgmental, basically talking about girls with the past as some sort of used good not capable of love. It reminds me of my narc ex who would bring up my past mistakes and say he couldn’t possibly marry me. How do i even date again with this fear and my past experiences? 😞

Thank you ❤️ Yeah it turned out my narc ex is married with 2 kids and 43 years old not 33 like he told me. So after all that abuse I find out the whole relationship was a lie and I spoke to his wife and she knows how he is but can’t divorce him (he threatens her). So this should make me feel better but it still doesn’t. He did a lot of damage. And also even though I’m American and raised in a free country I’m Turkish and Muslim so I have extra shame attached to my past. My sheltered childhood made me just so wild and impulsive things over the years. Maybe this pandemic and all the alone time is making me overthink too much.

@Anxiousgirl he’s WHAT? He told you he was 33 what the fuck aahhh that whole thing is a mess! Poor wife too! And I feel you on the pandemic overthinking, that could also be it

@Ocd=lame Yeah I lived in Dubai for a year and he was an Egyptian man I dated. His wife and kids are in Sweden. I found her Facebook. I guess to me he aged well or I was blinded by love. He was charming at first but when I lost my job and had no money and no options but to live with him, I became an isolated housewife. He would threaten to leave me without food and water, block me and leaving me hanging not knowing if he would leave me or not, and sometimes he would spit in my face. He would even have me masturbate for him on Skype when I was home visiting my family. He’s a selfish prick. I developed an OCD compulsion thinking “what if I was secretly recorded during sex with these sugar daddies” with no proof and never having been blackmailed. And my compulsion became checking porn sites for hours just in case I was on there since it can happen in real life. I blame my ex for this because he would scare me with ideas like this and he would tell me “you need to tell me about all ur sexual encounters because secret videos can surface and If we were married and I found out u didn’t tell me about something I would divorce you immediately”. I got broken down so much I didn’t want to leave because I was trauma bonded to him and thought I deserved it, and that I couldn’t do any better.

@Anxiousgirl That’s such a tough time wow..I’m glad you’re out of that situation, and it’s unfair that now you’ve got ocd to deal with now when you should be healing. Do you have a good support system currently?

@Anxiousgirl and again I am so glad you escaped that man

@Ocd=lame I have a therapist right now and I live at home with my parents and grandma but they think I can just snap out of things. I’m 27 now and went to an OCD specialist since I was 14. She’s expensive so now I go to a therapist on the BetterHelp app and she’s great with general CBT and specializes in trauma. My brief sugar daddy experience traumatizes me because the first one told me he would take me on dates on top of the sexual stuff and all he did was bring me to motel rooms and when I wasn’t putting up with him he dropped me and just gave me 200 bucks in an envelope out of pity. The second one spoke to me for over a month and told me to meet him at a bar. He also said it would be like dating but I got drunk and he lured me to the bar basement for a blowjob. He promised me a weekly allowance but never gave it. He ghosted me. Months later he messages me on Instagram saying “hey remember me? You really liked giving me that blowjob.” When I confronted him about his lies he said “you drive a Mercedes. Why would I pay you? Nah bye hoe”. I was on an adderall and Wellbutrin script and was traveling the world with friends so I was really distracted and didn’t process any of these memories until recently. I googled the second guy and I found out he was banned from being a broker for defrauding investors hundreds of thousands of dollars. Who knows how many girls he’s also used on top of me. I reported him to the police in December but they said since i consented they can’t do anything but they have my report. Now I have agoraphobia in New York thinking my past will come to haunt me or maybe I’ll run into these men and they will recognize me and out me one day. My OCD is really playing on those fears and it eats me up and makes it hard for me to live in the present. I don’t have insurance right now to get meds but when I was on meds I was doing better.

@Anxiousgirl Your past is thankfully just the past, and every day it gets farther and farther away. You deserve to heal from those men, and I hope this all gets better with time. It really sucks about not being able to be on medication, though, especially when you know it helped. Is there any way you’d be able to get insurance that would allow you to take your meds again? I think you definitely need that peace of mind in order to deal with everything else

@Ocd=lame I’m a temp worker at my job and just when they were going to put me on permanent staff (where I would finally get benefits), the pandemic happened and they halted onboarding, so now I can be laid off at any time. I can apply through New York State, but the windows to apply for that are certain times of the year. It’s just frustrating. It’s been really hard sitting in this pandemic. I distract myself with food, wine and Netflix, although I do run daily and try to cut down.

@Anxiousgirl It sucks when there are so many things out of your control, and I know there’s so much more of that during this pandemic. I hope things become easier once the economy stabilizes and everything!

@Ocd=lame Yeah this pandemic really screwed everything up! But I know we are all in the same boat. Thanks for talking it out with me on this post. Some days I’m fine and others I’m a complete mess.

@Anxiousgirl Don’t worry I understand, I’m the same way! I’m curious to see how everyone’s posts change on here once the stress and job insecurity of the pandemic is gone, whenever that may be