I am more than my body.

 I learned from a young age that the way to get what I wanted was through sexual acts. Men will give me what I need to survive as long as I give them some sort of access to my body. I don’t know if this is a common experience for other people experiencing poverty, but it was mine. I saw my mother do it and that affected me in a very weird way as I grew up and started experimenting with my sexuality. I was a late bloomer in societies terms when it came to having sex. I had this fear of being taken advantage of and never interacted with someone who I wanted to have sex with. That was until I got to college. I quickly entered a long term relationship where I navigated sex in a way I never thought I would have to. I had internalized so many things I had learned as a child and didn’t know I had until I was being intimate with someone. I became aware that I was trying to use sex to solve my problems with my partner, to try to solve the problems within myself. Whenever things were hard or I didn’t know how to be intimate or share my problems, I turned to sex in the hopes that that would solve my problems and keep my partner around. This isn’t an obstacle I have completely gotten over, I still notice it creeping in whenever I am feeling insecure. I look at these actions and I just feel so sad to think about how much I discount myself with this type of thinking. As a woman, I convinced myself that as long as I give my body up the problems I have will be solved. What a terrible thing to tell myself. I sit here sometime and think about how that affects my confidence in myself. I am basically telling myself that I don’t have anything other than my body to offer. It has been a long journey to affirming within myself that I have SO much more than my body to offer to a partnership. I offer so much. I am a badass woman who has done so much. I have so much to be proud of and confident about. I am done giving my energy away to a mindset that only sets me back.