" Intimate relationships after sexual abuse require a level of vulnerability that is hard to tolerate. Often unable to recall what happened to them due to dissociation, abuse victims instead respond to closeness with panic, rage, and anxiety, and may use self-destructive behavior to create distance and a sense of protection. Cutting and eating disorders may both be attempts to make the body less sexually desirable in order to avoid intimacy. Anger is often directed at the body parts associated with gender and sexuality. "

― Marilee Strong , A Bright Red Scream: Self-Mutilation and the Language of Pain