Auto Ethnography

SATW

Please reflect on an important personal story/history/event that you feel comfortable sharing with our learning community.

My first romantic relationship, first sexual experience was a long game of emotional manipulation and sexual abuse.

What "snapshots" or visual signs can you find to help describe this personal story/history/event? (Please find images -yours or found images that support your story, or you can sketch them)

I have many photos of myself and my friends at the time I was also involved with my sexual abuser. These photos are "snapshots" of me looking seemingly happy, a successful, beautiful senior in high school about to graduate and go off to college. When I look back at these photos now though, it reminds me of all the thoughts and feelings I had about myself; ones I am still trying to reconcile today. I see the shell of a beautiful young woman with an inner child bouncing up and down inside of her trying to break through to shell containing her because she wants out; she wants to be seen and taken care of, not abused.

What "artifacts" (signs) can you also find to fill in the gaps left by the snapshots in this personal story/history/event?

Clothes I still have from this experience/ time in my life. Bodily trauma that surfaces today. Unresolved feelings that I did not know I still had. All the choices I made after that experience. Who I am today because of that experience. What I am pursuing academically, personally.

How would you associate your personal story/history/event with other people or even society/culture?

I have deep associations with other people and society/ culture because of my sexual abuse experience. Also, because I am a highly sensitive person who strongly relies on past experiences to feel safe in the world. I associate all romantic relationships in some connection to my sexual abusive relationship because it was my first sexual experience. I had no other information to go off of besides my friend's stories and books or movies and social media. No one in my family taught me/ told me what intimacy and boundaries and healthy sexual communication is/ looks like. So I believed him and I now associate sexual experiences with what our relationship was, how we communicated, etc.