21 Signs of Unresolved Sexual Trauma (that You Can Heal)

Most people with sexual trauma in their past would rather forget about it. Many never speak of it, as if ignoring the wound will allow it to heal — but we know in fact the opposite is true.

Sexual trauma often carries shame. What happened to us isn’t our fault, but we often think it is, assigning self-blame to things over which we had no control. We are not responsible for the harm done by others.

Over 90% of sexual assault is perpetrated by someone the victim knows — and often, it's an intimate partner (a current partner or an ex-partner). It’s easy to feel confusion when the people we most trust are the ones who are harming us.

And although over 90% of sexual assault is male violence against women, men experience it too (also perpetrated, in the vast majority, by men). For men, there's even more stigma and shame, even more of an unspoken prohibition against talking about it.

But without disclosure, we're not able to heal. Having the courage to recognize that we have unresolved sexual trauma takes enormous courage. The first person we need to admit this to is ourselves.

Recognizing sexual trauma is a personal process, unique to the individual. For some of us, it can take decades to put the pieces together. No matter how long it takes, it is a brave journey. 

Often, unresolved sexual trauma is held in the body by layers of tension and fear. The body doesn’t want it to escape because it fears the traumatic imprint might affect our ability to function. We keep it — and ourselves — on lockdown. Consciously or unconsciously, we push it out of awareness.

It's often easier to examine the impact of unresolved trauma than to try to go directly into the story. Rather than revisiting the details of what happened in our memories, it's psychologically safer to look at the damage the unresolved trauma is creating in our lives.

Sometimes we don’t have a clear picture of what exactly happened, like in many cases of child sexual abuse, but we can see the impact of it in our lives and especially in our intimate relationships.

And when we see the price we’re already paying for postponing our healing, it's easy to be shocked.

I made a list of 21 signs of unresolved sexual trauma to help you notice common ways that unhealed trauma can manifest. These signs interfere with our full participation in and enjoyment of life.

It’s not fair to ourselves to pay — and continue to pay — for something that happened to us in the past and that wasn't our fault.

My hope is by recognizing how many ways unresolved trauma can steal the goodness from your life, you'll be inspired to heal.

After all, trauma healing is possible for each and every one of us.

If you've been putting off healing until everything in your life is perfect, I hope seeing some of the impacts of unresolved trauma will have you reconsider.

Trauma is not a life sentence. You don't have to carry the past around with you any longer. And you are worth whatever it takes to heal.

Awareness is the first step. So, let's explore.

One thing before we get started. If you find that you become activated when reading this, that is a totally normal response. To support your nervous system, I invite you to download my free Introduction to Resourcing meditation. You might also want to check out my two-part article on foundational trauma navigation skills (Part 1 is here and Part 2 is here).

21 Signs of Unresolved Sexual Trauma

1. Sexual numbness and shutdown: Numbness (not experiencing sensations or feelings) means we don't feel safe. It is the single most overlooked aspect of unresolved sexual trauma. The danger with numbness and shutdown is that we get so used to not feeling anything that we think there's something wrong with us and we stop looking for help.

2. Avoiding sexual self-pleasure: Because our bodies were abused during the sexual trauma, the body can become an unwelcome place. We might completely avoid sexual self-pleasure, or we might dissociate when we self-pleasure by using pornography. Both are forms of avoidance that allow us to deny the wounds we still carry that need healing.

3.  Minimizing sensory pleasure: Avoidance of pleasure is clinically called anhedonia and is extremely common for people who have unresolved sexual trauma. It's not just sexual pleasure that we avoid — the entire sensory system becomes suspect. Even simple pleasures like being in Nature or enjoying a good meal don’t feel good anymore. The world goes gray. It's easy to despair at this point and worry that nothing will ever feel good again, but it will — when we take the time to heal.

4. Avoiding sexual intimacy with a partner: Because the sexual trauma was caused by others, we decide that others are no longer safe. This can look like avoiding intimacy or even avoiding partnership altogether. But in doing so, we deny ourselves the love and connection we require to thrive. Too many of us give up on intimacy because it’s so uncomfortable. This is tragic because when we choose to heal, it has a positive impact on our relationships too.

5. Rushing sexual intimacy with a partner: During sexual intimacy, we might want to "get it over with" and use speed and intensity to override feeling discomfort. We don’t want to slow down because that might bring up strong feelings of avoidance, and even visual or emotional flashbacks. We might hesitate to bring it up because we don’t want to “ruin” the moment.

6. Tension or pain during sexual intimacy: Sometimes physical discomfort has no medical explanation and is because we are holding tension patterns in the body. This can be the body's way of bracing and self-protecting against further danger. Because trauma interferes with the part of the brain that connects with time, the tension is literally "stuck" in the past until we safely and gently release it.

7. Anger or other strong emotions during or after sexual intimacy: If strong feelings arise that don't have a clear source, we might be experiencing an emotional flashback. The body might be having a strong self-protective reaction (like shaking or crying) because it thinks we’re still in danger, even though we’re not. (See #6 for why.) Trauma healing gives us the tools to support ourselves when this happens.

8. Feeling frozen during sexual intimacy: This might show up like actual chills and coldness, or we might feel unable to move or breathe. Freezing is a sign that the body doesn't feel safe — even if we’re with a loving, caring partner. Unresolved trauma isn't logical, and it's not a matter of shifting our mindset or trying to think our way out of it. It’s going to be there until we take the steps to heal. 

9. Flashbacks during sexual intimacy: Experiencing memories of past distressing or traumatic incidences during sexual intimacy is a clear sign that they're still embedded in the body. Often these are so intense that it's impossible to stay present and in the moment with our partner. It's easy to try to move on and minimize what happened, but when we do that, we compound our sense of isolation and shame. We need support, not to keep pretending like everything is fine when it's not.

10. Feeling like something in us is broken: It is easy to blame ourselves for not wanting sexual intimacy with a partner we care about. After all, our culture indoctrinates us into thinking that sex should be easy and effortlessly pleasurable. When it's not, we think it's us — not the rubbish stories we've been fed about connection. We’re not taught about unresolved sexual trauma and how it impacts relationships, so instead we blame ourselves.

11. Not disclosing the sexual trauma: When we don't want to share about distressing or traumatic sexual and relationship experiences from the past, it's often because we want to protect our partner. We don't want to impact them or the relationship, but we don't realize that the impact is already happening. Trusting our beloved enough to disclose what's really going on is a radical act of trust and a major step towards healing.

12. Partner pleasing around sex: Pushing ourselves to have sexual intimacy to please our partner risks retraumatizing our systems. Often, we feel we need to provide sexual intimacy to keep them in the relationship, but the kind of healthy relationships we deserve do not require our self-sacrifice. It can be hard to see how much damage we've done to ourselves when we override and overstep our boundaries here.

13. Performativity during intimacy: Performing pleasure during sexual intimacy, even though we don't really feel it, is another sign that we don't feel safe. It's not our fault. The media and the ubiquity of pornography condition us to think that pleasure must look a certain way, and we don't want to disappoint our partners. But performing only deepens our sense that something is wrong with us and further disconnects us from our authentic pleasure.

14. Dissociation during intimacy: Feeling disconnected from our body (or even out of our body) during sexual intimacy can be a sign of unresolved sexual trauma. After all, the body has not historically been a safe place to be. It often feels safer to dissociate, which is why arriving in the body through somatic trauma resolution work feels like a long-awaited homecoming.

15. Feeling hatred towards ourselves or our body: It's sadly too normal for us to feel like our sacred bodies are "not good enough" or flawed in some ongoing way. This enables us to go to perpetual war with ourselves instead of addressing the core of the unresolved trauma. Body dysmorphia can be a sign that we feel our body has betrayed us and we have unresolved sexual trauma.

16. Shutting down during conflicts with our partner: Conflicts in relationships require a level of presence and trust that can be difficult to feel when there is unresolved trauma. We fear abandonment and panic, freezing in terror at the intensity that floods our body when there is disagreement. Trauma resolution work increases our capacity to tolerate discomfort and feel safe in conflict with people we love.

17. Avoiding conflicts with our partner: If conflict doesn't feel safe, it can feel like the best way to be in relationship is to please and appease the other person at all costs. This self-erasure means that our needs won't get met, and it might be a price we’re willing to pay. But we shouldn't. Conflicts are a healthy way to establish boundaries and make space for authentic connection. When we hide, we miss out on all of it.

18. Strong feelings of fear and rage during conflicts with our partner: If we find ourselves unusually angry or raging for days after a conflict with our partner, it might be a sign that something unrelated has been triggered that is still in our system. Unresolved trauma means that we didn't get a chance to move it through our body and give our body what it needed at the time — and those needs are still there, vying to be seen just below the surface.

19. Feeling unsafe in our relationship without knowing why: If we suddenly have intense feelings of fear and terror, and we feel an urgent need to escape from our relationship without good reason, it could be that unresolved traumatic imprints from the past have been triggered and are active in our nervous system. Trauma clouds our rational judgement and creates high-intensity reactivity. The good news is that this can heal.

20. Retreating into ourselves in relationship: If we find ourselves avoidant and not wanting to get close to our partner, without having a clear reason, we might be navigating unresolved sexual trauma. Intimacy might not feel safe and instead, we create reasons to be alone, so we don't have to risk it. We might also fear disclosure (see #14), but healing will never happen until we decide to trust and be vulnerable.

21. Rigid or uncompromising boundaries in relationship: If we find ourselves constantly asserting rigid boundaries and being extremely difficult and uncompromising, there is usually a good reason. It might not have anything to do with the person we’re in relationship with, and everything to do with our past experiences. Unresolved sexual trauma shows up in relationships until we decide to stop paying the price for it and heal — once and for all.

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I hope that exploring some of the signs of unresolved sexual trauma has been helpful to you. If you're ready to explore what it looks like to heal, I encourage you to learn more about my work.

Awareness can be the first step towards a new and better future, for you and the ones you love.

If you know someone who might benefit from reading this, I hope you’ll share it with them.

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