Now we were NOT expecting anything of that degree, and as an SA survivor myself, I had my boyfriend turn it off immediately. I was disgusted, but not triggered, but my boyfriend seemed to be in complete shock, like he hadn’t even processed what happened. He kept doomscrolling to forget what happened, but I could tell he was still thinking about it. I offered to hug him, but he said he didn’t want to, that he just needed some space.

I called his friend because he began to shut down, barely responding to me, and then began repeating the phrase “I need a shower. I feel light. I need a shower.” Again, I thought it was just disgust he was feeling, but he continued to zone out. Later, we went to go do my laundry and he began to shake lightly, saying he felt dread.

I asked him if I had triggered him by demanding I turn it off, but he only responded with anxiety and desperation for me to stop asking if it was my fault.

Once we were down in the basement doing my laundry, he had completely shut down. By then, it had been an hour since we’d turned the movie on. I said he was scaring me, and he apologized. I said something was wrong and that I didn’t know what was happening. He said he didn’t know either. Then, we went back upstairs and he began eating. I said that I didn’t know what was wrong and than, he began crying, very, very hard. Sobbing, shaking. I got scared, and called his name, to which he only started crying harder.

He sobbed, “You keep calling my name, I don’t know what’s wrong, I can’t answer, I can’t remember.”

Once we got back upstairs, I started crying as well and said that I think he was molested as a child. He agreed.

Now this isn’t the first time I considered something traumatic happened to him in his childhood. My boyfriend can remember almost NOTHING about when he was a kid, occasionally he’ll have moments where he’ll suddenly remember something random as a child, but those moments are far and few between. He says he’s been repressed for a long time, his dad was very abusive to him in that past and has since “changed” but my bf still doesn’t care for him.

He said he doesn’t know what else he could be repressing, and he said that he felt gross and remembered physical sensations that made him feel so. He doesn’t like his neck, chest, torso, and inner thighs being touched. He also hates being tickled, or even light touches to his sensitive spots. I asked him if it could’ve been his dad, and he says he doesn’t know, that he doesn’t remember, but he just remembers feeling dread.