(TW: SA, DV, parental neglect, alcoholism, SH, depression, anxiety. For context, I have been diagnosed for the past year with PTSD, depression, and anxiety.)
Hi everyone, I hope this is an ok community to post this in, but let me know if it's too heavy to be here. As the title says, I'm entering a new relationship and I am very excited about it. I've known this guy for a few years now and he is amazing. He's genuinely everything that I've looked for in a partner, and we've been really close for a few months now and finally admitted our feelings to each other. However, I have a lot from my childhood or past that I feel like is relevant to share because of how it influences me to this day. In the briefest summary I can give:
I've had experiences with being severly neglected by my alcoholic mom, I've watched her get hit by her boyfriend once, my sister has also been deeply into drugs and alcohol for many years (following from our mom). Also, my mom argues with us over small things all the time and both her and my sister definitely have anger issues which I have worked really hard to try to avoid significantly developing, but that has led to me shutting down a lot when faced with issues or confrontation so it's definitely something I want to tell my new bf. It hasn't all been bad, but there's been a lot of family issues that definitely messed me up and exposed me to certain things really early on.
Then in high school, I had a sexually abusive and asshole boyfriend who really messed up my ability to have/enjoy sex normally and also gave me deep body image issues and an eating disorder. I then had another boyfriend who was alright I guess but didn't really know how to properly handle my sexual trauma and that led to a lot more stress and difficult situations. I had a third boyfriend in college, but we weren't together for long so there wasn't much of an issue there, but I did get with him at a time when I was emotionally vulnerable and shouldn't have been in a relationship, so I also want to mention this.
In college, I also had a friend who was physically abusive towards me (but new bf already knows about that it just adds to all of this) and that still affects me sometimes.
Also, I've had some struggles with using alcohol to cope sometimes. I've gotten a lot better with it and it was never significantly an issue (according to multiple clinically trained professionals) but one instance happened pretty recently of me drinking to deal with anxiety and that was really bad for how I view myself. I don't like losing control and am very strict with myself, so I get really down if I "slip", especially because of my family's history with alcohol.
There's also a lot of friend drama that happened in middle school – college that I feel like is still relevant to how I handle or see certain things, especially the more recent stuff since I am just now freeing myself from that friend group, as well as multiple experience with male friends having crushes on me and not being able to respect my boundaries which adds into the whole issues I have with men from past relationships stuff.
I've also had some severe depressive episodes because of situations with my friends / people around me that have led to self harm (nothing permanent, but it does really affect me emotionally that I've gone through that) and I want him to know that I've struggled with this.
There's more things here and there that I'm forgetting or don't want to lay out, but just suffice to say, there's a lot that I've gone through and a lot that could come up while being in a relationship that I would much rather be proactive about (especially the sexual stuff, but the potential argument reactions and other mental health things are really important as well I feel). I've told him that I want to have this conversation (and he was supportive), and I've started writing up a doc for what to share with him, but as I was writing it up, I got worried that it's a LOT to throw at him all at once. It's a lot more detailed than this obviously, because I wanted him to have the full picture of everything. He's emotionally intelligent, supportive, and a great listener, but I just worry about how it might be overwhelming. I'm also not proud of some of the things I've done even if they were PTSD related responses, and I'm a bit worried about how he'd see me.
Also for some added context, I was in long term therapy and currently in counseling, looking to do group therapy next semester, so I am working on these things and a lot of it has gotten a lot better and easier to deal with. I do feel emotionally ready for a relationship, in a way I never did with my other boyfriends, and I really really like this guy, I just want to make sure that I do this right.
Would it be too much to tell him everything all at once? I kind of want to just get it over with and have it out there in advance, but don't want it to be too much. Thoughts?
TLDR: gone through a lot of traumatic experiences, how can I share these with my new boyfriend without it being overwhelming?