I’m curious to see where Savage Lovers come down on this one…
I am a 25-year-old male going through a disruptive transition period after a secret of mine got out.
Here goes: I developed a panty fetish in middle school thanks to the ease with which I could search for pictures of panties and thongs on Google Images. In high school I discovered it wasn’t hard to find the used underwear of people in my grade by going through their gym bags at school or their laundry hampers at home. I knew it was wrong — I knew I was invading people’s privacy — but it became a compulsion. I felt like I was addicted. When I got to college, I resisted the urge to steal used panties. However, I started doing it again when I got a girlfriend. She eventually found out that I was “stealing” her panties, and she was willing to allow it even after I told her that I did this in high school to girls without their consent, which upset her. She told me she hoped I would never do this to anyone else again, and I said I wouldn’t. But that was a lie because by then I was already stealing her roommates’ panties.
About two months before we broke up, I confessed to my girlfriend that it had happened with a handful of the women in our lives — women who I felt like were my friends — and that I felt terrible after every incident. This was distressing for her to hear especially given the fact that we didn’t regularly have sex anymore and I had seemed to have lost my desire for her. I had disclosed all of this to my therapist a few months prior, and I felt in a very different place about the whole thing and had started healing process from trauma that lead to these habits in the first place.
A few weeks after my girlfriend and I broke up, she decided our friends whose underwear I’d stolen needed to know “for their own safety.” She told me I specifically needed to tell one particular friend, which I did. That friendship is on pause as of now. Another friend (and past roommate) texted me shortly thereafter to say they no longer wished to have any contact with me. I realized the secret was out and I no longer had control of who was going to hear about this or how the information was being related. Out of panic, I started telling my closest friends. I wanted my circle to see that I knew what I did was wrong and that I was working to make amends. A friend urged me to tell the two women I had moved in with after moving out from my ex’s apartment. Both of my new roommates said they wished I didn’t tell them because they’d had only good experiences with me and never felt unsafe around me. However, now that they knew this information, they didn’t want to continue living with me, so I have to find a new place to live.
I’ve since had many difficult conversations with friends, my parents, and potential new lovers because I don’t want them to hear about this from someone else. I’m consequently have fewer friends than I did a few months ago. I want my life to “go back to normal” but it’s hard not to feel immense shame all day long now that everyone knows my secret.
I know what I did was wrong, and I am committed to ensuring it doesn’t happen again. But was it right for my ex to tell people about this? I can’t help but feel like she was motivated in part by a desire for revenge after I broke up with her. And was it right for me to tell people about this myself? Would you want to know if someone had done this to you? And just how evil and messed up is this thing I did for so many years? How do I live the rest of my life without the shame weighing me down? I want to find a place where I can at peace with my mistakes (not proud of them) and know that I can indeed become someone other people can trust again. Is that even possible?
Compulsive Panty Thing Shatters Dude
Got some advice for CPTSD? Drop it in the comments! (I have some thoughts for CPTSD and my respond to his letter in next week’s column myself — but I’m gonna let the rest of you go first.)