Sexual abuse as child continues to haunt her
“I was molested when I was a kid, from age 2 to 9, the whole time by my mother’s boyfriend. She had no idea. When she found out, it was over. Never saw him again. Decided not to press charges. She didn’t want to put me through all that. Going through the court system, with a trial and everything, would have been horrific. So she made the decision, which I’m very comfortable with now.
“I went to therapy immediately. I don’t know if I’m just really good at compartmentalizing things. But after a while, the therapist told my mom that I was OK. And I did feel fine. But because of that experience, sex has always been kind of weird to me. Like, I have issues with sex. Part of it just grossed me out. And I’m like, that’s not normal. So my whole life, I’ve been in and out of therapy trying to deal with that. I’ve been in therapy maybe 10 times, and the goal is always to resolve that issue. Because thinking sex is disgusting is not normal, and I would like to be a little more normal.
“Well, every time I do therapy, at some point we start talking about my weight. And I get that. Yes, I was abused. Yes, I didn’t want anybody to ever touch me again. So subconsciously, that’s most likely why I put on all this weight, to protect myself. We don’t want anybody to touch us. So we get big and gross to protect ourselves. I’ve seen and read a lot about it. It happens to a lot of people. So I get that. At some point, we have to deal with my weight. But we never get back to the sex being disgusting. And that irritates me. That’s why I keep going back to therapy, to try to get that part resolved. That’s always what I’m there to fix, but it never gets fixed.”
— Sheena Gordon
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