Try doing EFT: Emotional Freedom technique. I know it works miracles.Or get yourself a pet. You will experience loyalty, love and regain faith in the universe through them. Truly.

“We’re all the sum total of the choices we make. Keep choosing wisely and nobody can stop you from fulfilling all your dreams.”

When you are ready, Compatikey is a tool that will help you to identify the wisest choice possible on the invisible levels. The levels that make up the part of attractions we feel known as chemistry. Stop by when you’re ready, I will arrange for my wife Patty, the originator of the Compatikey system, to personally guide you in the use of this powerful tool. It’s on us.

Sincerely,
Mark Firehammer, CEO Compatikey.com

You *deserve* to be happy. I know that may sound trite coming from a total stranger but it is true and I hope some day you will acknowledge that. I hope more people tell you that each day.
Good Luck!

I haven’t been in your same situation, but I have had things that are little road bumps, but they felt like mountains. The best thing I ever did was start over. I stopped looking at the past and feeling broken. I started looking at the future. I perged like there was no tomorrow. Most of it was stuff, material and emotional, that I had been hanging on to for so long. I thought that it was a badge of honor. But it wasn’t, it was the thing that was holding me back.

Therapy has helped signifigantly. I promise you that it’s not going to be easy. You are going to have to face somethings that you might have been supressing. But once you do it, you will feel so much better.

Once you know you can, learn who you are again. I forgot who I was, and i didn’t like the person I had become. I went back to my roots and started doing things that I once loved, but had dropped.

No one can give you the perfect answer. No one can wave a magic wand and make it all better. But with a little work on you and a little time, things will be good again.

Good Luck!

Mr. Katz really does give great advices. You can learn a lot too from Damie & empathetic.

Life is difficult and very complicated that’s why I analyze it in the simplest way I know how or else I’ll go crazy. Sometimes life is very cruel too and you know what’s my greatest weapon, prayers.

My heart went out to you as soon as I read your letter. So much of it resonated with me in that your experiences echoed many of my own.

I too came from a sheltered household. I started late & was particularly naïve about dating, and so after my first big relationship crash, I decided I’d “take control” and “harden myself” for the dating world.

I started experimenting with casual sex with just about any man who showed the slightest interest in me. I let men coerce me into sexual acts that made me feel uncomfortable, to put it mildly. I stayed in relationships with partners who were manipulative. One actually praised me on my ability to “take” his cruelty, and pathetic as I was, I ate the compliment up as though it were a Pullitzer prize.

The cumulative effect of all that behavior is a tortured history: I was date raped by one man, impregnated by another whose last name I can’t even remember, and psychologically abused by several. I once even found myself sleeping with a mentally ill man who stole things from me. It took therapy and learning to forgive myself before I was receptive to the idea that nice men actually exist.

Getting over the pain required that I learn how to be KIND to myself. Part of being that way involved CHOOSING good men as a way of rewarding myself and REJECTING bad ones that I used to punish myself with. It took a sort of retraining of my reflexes to the point where the men who used to set off wedding bells in my head became the ones who set off the alarm bells. (You have to take responsibility for having chosen these guys in your past, not that you don’t already. As soon as you do that, you’l realize you have the power NOT to choose hurtful partners in the future.)

I stumbled once or twice and broke promises to myself along the way, getting involved with one or two bad ones, even while on the path to reform. The key is that I learned to self-correct out of those situations more quickly and I stopped kicking myself for making mistakes.

Don Miguel Ruiz - same guy who wrote The Four Agreements - wrote in another book that the key to letting go of pain is to FORGIVE those who have hurt you in the past. Just do it in your head. You don’t do it for their sake, but for yours. You do it because if you don’t, then every time you remember what those bastards did to you, you make yourself suffer through the pain as though living through it all over again.

Evan’s right. A complete reboot of your life is what’s in order. You could stick it out in your present town, but recovery will come faster if you physically/geographically get away. The further you can distance yourself from your past, the better. Don’t think of it as running away from your problems; think of it as running TOWARDS your new and improved future.

I jumped at the chance to respond to your letter because I want you to know you’re not alone. Also, I want you to have hope. I did meet a wonderful man and we are happily married today- ready to start a family. I dated a handful of other nice men along the way.

There’s no rush to start dating again (maybe try being just friends with men to restore your confidence in their goodness?) But whenever you’re ready, approach each new one with an open mind, and with caution too.

Good luck!