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title: For many years I had a belief that I could never say no to... ~ Our Wave Community
description: Thank you for trusting us with something this tender and this complicated. Realizing that years of your life felt very different from how they looked from the...
url: https://api.ourwave.org/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978.md
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Bolivia\]Bolivia](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=bo)[\[Image: Canada\]Canada](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=ca)[\[Image: Chile\]Chile](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=cl)[\[Image: Colombia\]Colombia](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=co)[\[Image: Costa Rica\]Costa Rica](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=cr)[\[Image: Cuba\]Cuba](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=cu)[\[Image: Dominican Republic\]Dominican 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Ireland\]Ireland](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=ie)[\[Image: Japan\]Japan](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=jp)[\[Image: Mexico\]Mexico](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=mx)[\[Image: 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Paraguay\]Paraguay](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=py)[\[Image: Peru\]Peru](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=pe)[\[Image: Puerto Rico\]Puerto Rico](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=pr)[\[Image: 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# For many years I had a belief that I could never say no to sex, and I didn’t even realize I believed it. All the sex from that time now feels like horrible memories I want to avoid. Were they all assaults? Eventually I did start saying no clearly, and sometimes sex continued anyway without my consent. Other times I don’t remember whether I said no clearly. I never initiated, and sometimes alcohol was involved for both of us. How do I make sense of this? It feels really horrible. Thank you for reading

\[Image: Dr. Laura\]

Answer by **Dr. Laura**

PhD Mental Health Nurse & Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner

Topics:[Making sense of adult experiences](/en/learn/topics/making-sense-of-adult-experiences)

Thank you for trusting us with something this tender and this complicated. Realizing that years of your life felt very different from how they looked from the outside is disorienting, and the horror you are feeling makes sense.

Researchers have a term for part of what you describe: [sexual compliance](https://community.ourwave.org/_external/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fpmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov%2Farticles%2FPMC11335786%2F&resourceId=non_specific&localeId=en&countryId=us&src=answer&questionId=b857e1d4-35c8-43f3-abf0-0d53aceff134&sig=8e47d764f2613291c4eee78540d97c5263b27d0485248859205eb2274906e2c0), which means going along with sex you do not want, often because refusing does not feel possible. Many people live inside a belief like yours for years without seeing it, because beliefs like these tend to form gradually until they stop feeling like beliefs and start feeling like facts. Consent depends on being genuinely free to refuse, and that means more than being able to say the word. It also means feeling, inside, that both answers are actually available to you. When some part of you believed refusal was off the table, whatever you said or didn’t say was not coming from a free place. Carrying that belief was not your fault.

It can help to separate two questions that tend to get tangled together. One is whether those years were harmful to you. The other is what word fits each specific memory. The second may take time, and for some encounters it may stay complicated. “Assault” usually describes what another person did, and some partners may have had no way of knowing what was happening inside you. Some people describe experiences like these as unwanted sex, or as harm that came from the belief itself as much as from any one person. The first question you can answer for yourself now, and the way these memories feel to you is part of that answer.

The times you said no clearly and sex continued are different. Most legal and clinical frameworks define sex that continues after a clear no as sexual assault. You get to decide what you call it, and you also deserve to know that your no counted, especially given how hard it probably was to find.

Where you cannot remember whether you said no, try to go gently with yourself. Memory for stressful experiences is often fragmented, and alcohol interferes with how memories get stored in the first place, so gaps are expected. Heavy intoxication can also affect a person’s capacity to consent, meaning their ability to make a clear, free decision. You also hold information beyond the missing moments. You never initiated, and these memories feel horrible rather than neutral. You do not need a perfect memory of saying no for those details to count.

Wanting to avoid these memories is a very common response. Your mind may have learned to move past them quickly as a way of getting through experiences it had to survive without full safety or freedom.

Making sense of something this big tends to happen in layers rather than in one moment of clarity. A gentle place to begin is to write a few lines to the version of you who believed they could never say no. Tell them what you understand now about that belief and what it cost you.

You don’t have to figure all of this out at once, and you don’t have to do it alone. Thank you for trusting us with this.

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Bolivia\]Bolivia](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=bo)[\[Image: Canada\]Canada](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=ca)[\[Image: Chile\]Chile](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=cl)[\[Image: 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Ireland\]Ireland](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=ie)[\[Image: Japan\]Japan](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=jp)[\[Image: Mexico\]Mexico](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=mx)[\[Image: 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Paraguay\]Paraguay](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=py)[\[Image: Peru\]Peru](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=pe)[\[Image: Puerto Rico\]Puerto Rico](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=pr)[\[Image: Spain\]Spain](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=es)[\[Image: Uruguay\]Uruguay](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=uy)[\[Image: Venezuela\]Venezuela](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978?country=ve)

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[English](/en/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978)[Español](/es/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978)[日本語](/ja/answer/i-had-a-belief-that-i-can-never-say-no-to-sex-and-i-didnt-realize-it-for-many-years-all-of-the-sex-from-that-time-feel-like-horrible-memories-i-want-to-avoid-were-they-all-assaults-eventually-i-did-ma-978)

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Grounding activity

Find a comfortable place to sit. Gently close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths - in through your nose (count to 3), out through your mouth (count of 3). Now open your eyes and look around you. Name the following out loud:

5 – things you can see (you can look within the room and out of the window)

4 – things you can feel (what is in front of you that you can touch?)

3 – things you can hear

2 – things you can smell

1 – thing you like about yourself.

Take a deep breath to end.

From where you are sitting, look around for things that have a texture or are nice or interesting to look at.

Hold an object in your hand and bring your full focus to it. Look at where shadows fall on parts of it or maybe where there are shapes that form within the object. Feel how heavy or light it is in your hand and what the surface texture feels like under your fingers (This can also be done with a pet if you have one).

Take a deep breath to end.

Ask yourself the following questions and answer them out loud:

1\. Where am I?

2\. What day of the week is today?

3\. What is today’s date?

4\. What is the current month?

5\. What is the current year?

6\. How old am I?

7\. What season is it?

Take a deep breath to end.

Put your right hand palm down on your left shoulder. Put your left hand palm down on your right shoulder. Choose a sentence that will strengthen you. For example: “I am powerful.” Say the sentence out loud first and pat your right hand on your left shoulder, then your left hand on your right shoulder.

Alternate the patting. Do ten pats altogether, five on each side, each time repeating your sentences aloud.

Take a deep breath to end.

Cross your arms in front of you and draw them towards your chest. With your right hand, hold your left upper arm. With your left hand, hold your right upper arm. Squeeze gently, and pull your arms inwards. Hold the squeeze for a little while, finding the right amount of squeeze for you in this moment. Hold the tension and release. Then squeeze for a little while again and release. Stay like that for a moment.

Take a deep breath to end.

Try another grounding activity

I feel grounded and ready