My girlfriends trauma is affecting her mental health
Me and my girlfriend are both 18 years old and have been dating for a little over a year now. She has always expressed the fact that she never had a father growing up and that it’s affected her life a lot growing up. She lived with her grandparents and had a lot of unrestricted access to the internet which caused her to constantly seek older men online. She also had a huge porn addiction from a young age that she had been struggling with. When she was an early teenager she met up with an older guy she met online and he took her to a hotel and engaged in sexual activity with her which although she consented to then was illegal and sexual abuse on his part. My girlfriend also suffers a lot with bad body image and constantly feeling ugly or disgusting. She also identified as a boy and expressed herself as being a transgender boy from a young age up until her mid teens. She expressed that she was very hyper sexual as a child and would have rape fantasies and sexually role play online.
All of this was a shock to me, because my girlfriend is a very attractive girl who has many of the same interests as me. She also comes off as very girly and bubbly, and is very affectionate constantly. During the first half of our relationship things were great, and the sex was good. It was usually me initiating it because she was still shy around me. Unfortunately I was immature when I was younger and ended up cheating on her with another girl who I had no interest in at all, but wasn’t thinking at the time. I texted her a DM on a video she had posted saying sexual stuff, and my girlfriend ended up seeing it. She cried a lot and sh her wrists. My girlfriend has been dealing with sh since she was in 6th grade, and we have been working hard to keep her clean now. We ended up rebuilding our relationship, but my girlfriend would still frequently cry and go on rants about how much she hated herself and felt so hideous, and couldn’t believe my love for her was true and that I would cheat again. I constantly comforted her at first, because I knew it was my fault and would do anything to reassure her that I wouldn’t do it again. After a while it got very tiring, and if something were to trigger her she would go quiet and If I asked what was wrong she would say nothing was wrong yet I could tell she was upset. She’d become suddenly standoffish and the complete opposite of her joyful bubbly self, and would even kiss me differently as if she were being forced to do so. This constantly annoyed me because I knew something was wrong. I’d reassure her and tell her I only love her, but she wouldn’t take me seriously at all. Months had gone by and she still had the mindset that I was gonna hurt and cheat on her, so she’d constantly cry all night and I didn’t know what to do. Eventually I learned to read her and know if something triggered her, and the exact words to tell her so she’d be alright. She eventually began to trust me again making our relationship stronger than ever, and as the honeymoon phase ended we began to become comfortable in our relationship.
My girlfriend is very clingy and attached to me and always claims that I am her favorite person. She claims that my mood affects her mood and that without me she’s unstable. Since we’re only 18 we don’t live together, but see each other as often as possible. She’s still in high school while I’m in college, but we see each other very frequently. When she’s with me she’s extremely happy and I enjoy her company, but when it’s time for her to go home she has a complete breakdown and will start crying. She stays over my house for days spending the night and only usually goes home, so she can go to school. If we’re not together and If we’re not at school or work we’re on FaceTime, so she’s always talking to me. My girlfriend also likes to refer to me as her daddy which I leave up to her daddy issues, and I’m okay with the title. I love taking care and nurturing my girlfriend, so I don’t mind her reliance on me as a parental like figure, but I know this is just a trauma response.
Recently we went out on a date and came home together, and got pretty drunk. We are very intimate with each other, so while drunk we were having sex which is usual for us. Mid way through though, she starts crying and saying “you’re my daddy, you can’t fuck me it’s rape”. We say a lot of things while in the moment such as her calling me daddy and mentioning breeding which is total fine for me if it makes her happy and pleasures her so I kept going, but she wouldn’t stop crying. She cried the entire night and I tried asking what was wrong and trying to help, but she would only keep crying so I stopped immediately and put her to bed because I didn’t want to continue if it was hurting her.
When I told her what had happened the next day she seemed embarrassed, and ashamed but I was wondering why she had said it and was crying. She said she didn’t know why she said it but was embarrassed that she had. I reassured her that it wasn’t embarrassing, and that I only want to make her happy. This lead me to question what exactly has she been through to make her this way. She has a lot of fantasies about me controlling her and forcing her to do things. During intimacy she mentions how she enjoys being choked and slapped which I can do for her as long as she’s happy, but I know isn’t necessarily normal. She also has a bad habit of not telling me when she’s in pain during intimacy, and I have to constantly ask if it hurts despite the fact she always says no yet has told me afterwards that it hurt. I constantly tell her to just tell me but she says “it’s okay because you’re my daddy.” I wonder if she faced some sort of assault that led her to want to recreate the abuse during intimacy, but I don’t want to jump to any conclusions.
My girlfriend still faces a lot of issues that raises ideas of trauma such as constant crying over topics such as hating herself and urges to cut her wrists. She still has triggers that make her cry such as if she sees pretty girls online she’ll get sad thinking I’d like those girls, but I reassure her that she’s the only girl I see and want. She has a lot of black and white thinking when she’s sad and won’t believe anything I say, and only believes the thoughts she has like I’m a monster who wants to cheat on her which I don’t. There’s not a whole lot I can say to help her as it was my fault for cheating so I provide constant reassurance. She also has a few bipolar like traits, and her only emotions are either extreme happiness or extreme depression. If she’s with me she’s constantly happy and wants to do anything for me as if her job is to constantly please me, and she’ll even randomly give me blowjobs. When she has to go home or away from me she’ll start crying and saying she doesn’t want to go, and when she’s home her depressive thoughts come back and all of a sudden she hates herself and gets suicidal thoughts and strong urges to cut. It’s as if her entire will to live disappears when she’s not with me, suddenly her life is meaningless and she’ll constantly cry.
I’m not sure what’s entirely wrong with her, but she’s my baby and I’m willing to do anything for her I just want her to get help and learn to be okay with sadness and that she doesn’t have to always be so sad because I’m dedicated to making her happy. I just don’t want her to spiral and get stuck in her depressive state again, and wish she relied less on me to dictate her behavior and emotions.