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Years ago the first time that I was starting to date after having gone through a really traumatic

relationship experience, like after escaping like a physically abusive relationship, when I was first

starting to date again, I very much had this feeling like I'm not even going to talk about it to

anyone that I'm dating, not because I want to protect them, but because I don't want that to be

a part of my identity. I don't want that stain on me. I don't want to be the broken traumatized

person. I'm going to pretend that that didn't even happen at least the way that I

present to new people and that's going to be it. And I learned really quickly, you know, that once I started getting close to somebody, it's still there, you know?

It's still a part of me.

It's still relevant and like, I have to talk about it or I have to share it and

and it was totally fine. The whole point of my story is that you probably could stand to

open up a little bit more. You know, I think people still need to demonstrate to you that they are trustworthy,

demonstrate to you that they're able to listen and can be compassionate, but you may be surprised

how well people can handle it and how much people are often happy to handle it

...