A few years ago I decided nothing bad happened and that we were just kids messing around because she never really forced me into anything but I shouldnt still feel sick about it if it was nothing right? For a long time I thought I forgot what happened and that I succeeded dealing with all the negative feeling I passed through, but unfortunately, in the last 5 years I occasionally feel so depressed and so angry, I feel emptiness and guilt and start having flashback from that day. But a proper, good therapist would be helping you work through this fear, as well as what seems a belief you have to have sex even if you dont want to (? A. and I would walk around the school holding hands, and he would kiss me in public. And this is more of a confessional i guess. It can even effect your physical wellbeing. As an adult I suffer from IBS, anxiety, depression poor interpersonal relationships, sever trust issues. Im not allowed to go to therapy so I have no idea what to do. The thought of sex doesnt exactly mortify me but it makes me extremly uncomfortable and I constantly make jokes and inuendos out of habit that I cant help. Ive tried suicide before but since I grew up with a fervent Christian background, Im scared Im going to go to hell if I killed my self. I have a lovely therapist who helps me to focus on me and feeling better rather than delving for what may or may not be in my mind but I feel like I need validation somehow for my feelings. Im feeling like I could completely be making this up, or mistaking memories as I am a highly sensitive person. And also, we all need to have compassion for others when they are grumpy, particularly a lot of men out there who seem so tough or are acting out, often they have suffered abuse and are hurting and sadly our society creates so few opportunities for these men to express and find support. These sorts of issues are not life sentences if we dont let them be, therapy can go a very long way in helping you find your self esteem again and separate these horrible narratives controlling your mind, relationships, and life from the person you really are. What we can say is that having to deal with this is way too much for anyone to navigate alone. We are glad you are currently in a safe space. Share the quiz by embedding it on your website or blog. We cant tell you an answer, as obviously its complex, as you are, and we dont know you. like in my stomach. My mom had a lot of boyfriends over apparently as a kid, and she said I told her I didnt like having them over anymore. Even TV shows I may watch now rarely actually show any sexual abuse, rather imply it and the audience understands what is going on, so where a five year old would have seen this kind of things, I dont know. Legally, it was well above and beyond real abuse! I have no memory of childhood. I need help in figuring this out please reply. Reach out to a counsellor or therapist if at all possible, as these are big things you are grappling with. Some children are more resilient than others. Unfortunately many of us didnt get this and ended up having experiences we just felt frozen in and are left ashamed about. Is it because you dont trust your therapist? I like pretty weird stuf sexually and porn wise. Answer these questions, and we will tell you whether you were abused as a child or not. Hi there. Some kids draw wild things and many kids have sexual curiosity and thoughts. Seeing that your lover abuses you is the first step to stopping it. Neither of these in and of themselves mean you were abused. Unfortunately, until a time machine is created, we simply cannot know. Notice present details. I was upset that my first kiss was with someone who made me uncomfortable. I have a picture in my head of something that might have happened, but its not a memory. Or just memory loss? When he would stay the night, he would sneak into my room and do things that made me feel as if he started falling for me. It can hold onto some memories and totally discard others, and completely transpose emotions from one experience onto another. Aaron, thank you for all this brave sharing. And they are confidential. They would mentally abuse me and make me feel left out all the time and the only way I could feel accepted was if I did these things with them and after a while I started to feel like this was normal and this was my way of fitting in. Its important to let yourself feel what you need to feel here, and let the emotions come out. He then took my hand and placed it on his penis and said I should rub it. But they unfortunately can also, particularly if they were abused themselves, then act out abuse on other kids, on purpose. Or a friend you trust? As with most complex issues there is likely truth on both sides. Also, note that if you dont want to talk about sex, then you dont have to. But they have a fear of there mother because the story always gets destroyed when she is involved. coming around my mother, sleeping over and i have a temper i will admit. So forgetting becomes your brains way of surviving and coping. Im 25 and I am unable to have sex with my partner. He said I should look inside and as I walked in he was about to take off his pants. My mom took pills because she always struggled with insomnia, so he was always a heavy sleeper, but I would hear everything.. he would not even turn the volume off and I felt so bad that I didnt even remember to breathe properly because I felt like I wasnt supposed to be hearing that It happened almost every night until I was 12 and got my own room. Hi, Ive been pretty concerned that I was abused (sexually or otherwise) when I was younger. Many children are affectionate with stepparents and wish they were real parents. Though I block out certain memories some as extreme as they are very vivid. It is hugely traumatic, and trauma even affects the way the brain works. I get nightmares of being assaulted and I get these disillusions someone in my family is going to hurt me. I rebuilt myself from scratch and am a confident independent, 20 years old woman. You might also find our article on how to talk to your parents about mental health and getting help a useful read bit.ly/talktoparents. And we can understand particularly how enraged you must be that as a child you tried to talk to your mother and she brushed you off. Thanks for sharing all this. Now that Im an adult, Im understanding in more depth the abusive things she used to do to me, and how that affected me until today. CBT (where I am the only option for trauma) echoed the same thing back to me, that my problems werent real but the result of my distorted thinking. We wish you courage. No wonder you feel lost and sad. Im terrified of the thought of doing it and I wish I understood it. you need support. Recently and at a snails pace, a curiosity or question of I wonder if I was abused popped up. Its less about what exactly happened then how you feel, and if you are looking it up on the internet, it means a part of you is upset by the experience. We were both young ( I was 8 and she was 11) but I feel like she had to know that what she was doing was wrong. I wanted to cry and scream help but no one was in the house. Im worried something may have happened there as well. Im thinking this may all mean something, but as you suggested in your replies to many comments that I read here, its best to focus on how to deal with the symptoms of what youre dealing with instead of focusing too much on trying to find what exactly happened. But obviously its not working so well as you feel low. We wish you courage. The floor? In any case we can not give you a verdict over a comment box but with this level of overthinking and anxiety and stress is serious. I just want some answers about how I feel. Ive been told that having sex I perform almost methodically or robotic not putting any real sense of emotional attachment into it, again afterwards feeling ashamed like I need to leave right away from it. If you were sexually abused as a child, the underlying emotion you might share with other people who have been sexually abused, both male and female, is a sense of shame. I have intense fears of random people and places for reasons i dont understand! Most of us never know, and until a time machine is created, the best thing we can do is accept that we wont ever know for sure. We appreciate that your defence mechanism is to underplay things and get on with life, and its of course important to do what keeps you steady and moving forward and not compare yourself to others. A counsellor or psychotherapist creates a safe, supportive, and entirely private environment for you to explore your feelings in, and a support group creates a circle of trust. The brain is complicated, and the way the brain decides on what is traumatic or not is highly individual. And its obvious you are feeling anxious and depressed. My sister and my father always had a weird relationship and I was, still am it seems always in the way. The important thing here is to work on getting the support you need to feel better. I am now and have been sober for 5 years. Why have the flashbacks started now. I have an overly heightened sense of grossness, shame, and feelings of sexual dirtiness in my body almost all the time. I am more confused than Ive ever been. I have not since that day said anything to anyonenot even my wife. The next day I remeber my mom asking did you dad touch you and then I heard my mom asking over and over, I kept saying no but finally I said he didnt really touch me he just had his hands in my pants and I tried moving away. And its not about what actually happened, its about what the results of your personal memories and perspective is having on your capacity to manage in life. I broke up with my first boyfriend about a month ago because every time we were intimate Id just zone out or even start to feel this numb sadness. Its in your hands, and it always has been. As a good therapist-client relationship should involve feeling you can be yourself and share anything. Hope that helps. I knew it was wrong but since I still live with him I just never thought much of it. (I realize that this reply is really long so I dont really expect a response, Ive never told anyone about this so its been nice to vent I guess.) Do you get a lot of sexist remarks thrown your way? The teacher sat me in a chair in the middle if the room for the rest of the day while all the kids played around me. My intentions were not to hurt but to start the healing no matter how painful. I dont know who would/could have hurt me, but the more I think about this, the more I really start to worry and remember. All I know as an adult I feel like theres something mentally wrong with me like I have these permanent walls put up, I dont know why but I cant be close to people, the idea of hugging someone makes me feel uncomfortable but again I dont know why, I attach normal things like hugging, or tickling or even holding my child and bouncing her on my lap like its a sexual thing, when I do it, I immediately look around wondering if people are looking at me as if Im doing something wrong or something I shouldnt be doing even though it could me the most normal of things. Seph, no, its not necessary to find out the source of your trauma, and in most cases, barring a time machine, its not possible. But you also mention other things that happened that are not ideal for a child to experience. This would happen many times and I enjoyed it and wished we could do more. We find a lot of young clients feel they have to be in a relationship or they arent normal. In general Im a weird person with a weird personality and maybe nothing happened to me. A trusted friend or family member? Im just confused. In summary, best to read our article on what to do next http://bit.ly/dealwithabuse and then seek support. I dont know what to say(I have never been back to see them since!). I was too afraid. I do watch Law and Order: Special Victims Unit so maybe Im making it up but I just dont think so. Including that your parent figure is leaving you feel unseen, unheard, unloved and unsafe. Or if I should just forgive and forget. Im about to get back with my husband after a long period of abstinence and Im terrified of that forlorn and sad little girl emerging again, like she does when sex is involved. It doesnt necessarily mean they were abused. From there you can talk more about things and see what comes up. I was sitting in the small dark room and waited until I could not hear him. I was scared. direct physical force, a threat of force, coercion, or somehow taken advantage of). I might be open to a different treatment, but every time Ive tried Ive been told CBT/DBT are the only treatments available to me and that if I dont want to do CBT then I dont really want help at all. We dont offer these therapies and they are not evidence based so we cant say anything about them, but its up to you to find what works for you personally. I get nightmares, disturbed sleep, sudden mood & personality changes, panic attacks and anxiety attacks. Abuse of any kind leads to a loss of trust in all persons around and decreased performance in the work place and even to health impairment. I also remember sitting on his lap when I was younger and telling him that I wished he was my real dad . Katrina, what is clear here is that you know you are suffering. A lot of the symptoms listed above make me think the suspicions are true, and that I was in fact molested. As a small child I spent alot of time with my older brother and his friend and I have memories of massaging them or sitting on their crutch areas. also im sorry i know that this is all over the place but that how the night feels to me, i feel like im putting together a puzzle when i dont have all the pieces. They question your credibility. You deserve some help with this. This is not your fault. I thought these were all symptoms of my personality but now i feel as if there is more to uncover. Ill call him Bill. Hi Elisia, thanks for sharing all this. I cannot even remember any of the good moments. It sounds like you didnt feel safe growing up and your boundaries were not respected. Since then Ive felt incredibly guilty as I wasnt physically coerced or threatened and I feel like because I chose to do it, I dont have the right to say that I was abused despite experiencing severe depression, social anxiety, and having extreme difficulties in relationships, especially when they become sexual. No one deserves to be emotionally abused by another person, no matter what the circumstance. Its not normal to feel you have to say what you dont want or have to talk about sex if you dont want to. You might also want to read our article on what to do if you feel you have been abused http://bit.ly/2zmdGQT. I dont know what to do. Because while the facts of what happened in our childhoods can be questioned, our suffering cant. He would take another cousin thats the same age as me into a room and made everyone leave. For example, I think I might be addicted to porn but after I watch it I feel so guilty and gross, but while I watch it I have this mindset of its happening to me, and I deserve it and I need to please them, that I should do everything to please a man. Hi Anon, we suggest you read through other comments and read our connected article, I Think I was Abused as a Child What to Do Now. In fact my abuser has done it and loves it for precisely that reason, because it lets her explain how the problems her victims have are all really a result of their cognitive distortions! You are the paying client. My father, to this day goes on trips to Disneyland once every two years or more with an old buddy of his. If you dont feel that you can, then perhaps discuss your trust issues with him or her and see what happens between you. But shame is a strange thing. i became a teenager and that dreamt was gone, replaced by somebody always chaising me, trying to hurt me, cut me, kill me, voices. After a few months, things started to get more sexual between us, and I realized once again that I had some issues with sexuality. So recently Ive been questioning if I was sexually abused or molested when I was younger. As you say, you are coping, and thats great. Ive also by and large found that theres no treatments offered for trauma other than CBT and I wont be offered any sort of care, even medications, unless I agree to go through a course of CBT first. I keep thinking about, what if he didnt like my appearance?, or what if I dont do great or less than what he expect me to do? Gosh we are sorry to hear this was your experience Lisa. The only cure offered for my distress was more CBT (and DBT, which has the same fundamental problems for me). The only one who can save you is you. I also feel I have to please everyone all the time and wa t acceptance. Or the counsellor at school? In that time I started to think more and more of that memory from when I was younger. Take This Online Test To Find Out! I turned out ok, because I learned that I had to be better. I do not know how many others he has abused. I would crave for men to touch me even though I was scared. It is never ever too late to seek support to deal with trauma. When I was really very young before I was even in double digits in age I use to draw terrible pictures that depicted obvious sexual abuse it would normally be a picture of a child with clothes cut open or completely naked tied down or chained up with an equally exposed other person normally a taller person the child would normally be crying or begging them to stop. Most of all is really, really heavy shame and self hatred. Other than that, keep going with the counselling. This would be the first thing you should discuss if you have such a visceral reaction, along with immediately sharing that you feel unheard by other therapists, that you feel diminished, and that you want to be taken at face value. We would say there is a charity with a help line here in the UK for men suffering concerning thoughts, you might find these pages helpful https://www.stopitnow.org.uk/concerned-about-your-own-thoughts-or-behaviour/help-with-inappropriate-thoughts-or-behaviour/ you could also contact them to see if they knew of UK-based counsellors who are sensitive about this subject and can help. I much prefer being by myself. Our sessions ended when she began sympathizing more with my wealthy sister in law than she ever did with me and said I was just jealous of the attention she gets. We also dont know what country you are in. Add to that that it was done by a female perpetrator (I am female-bodied as well, although I would consider myself nonbinary), I have found that therapy is a very unsafe experience for me. Is there someone you can talk to? But I am just not sure of whether it actually happened. Again Im sorry for this being so long, Ive just never been able to come out with these feelings to anyone before. We have an article on COSCA which might clear up your questions find it here https://bit.ly/childchildabuse. Now Im wondering whether it was caused by sexual abuse. This happen when 8 or 9 i dont know if i was sexaully abuse or not but i know i went to sleep at night with my covers were over my whole bodyand i woke up the next day with my covers to my stomach or my waist i cant remember i felt weird and i looked under my covers and my under wear also my pants were not on me they were on the ground i ended up telling my mom that day and she never said anything so i decieded to forget about it and its just coming back to me that this happened and really that night i was sleep i didnt feel anything that would wake me up and i never sleep walked or anything ever in my life to wake up without under wear and pants without remembering i also all ways wear pjs when im sleep can someone plz tell im not crazy??? I literally do not have one single friend most people think that is impossible and a lie, but I genuinely do not have a single friend on the entire planet. However my father has never showed any signs of being abusive, and I remember being bathed by him when I was young, and he never touched me sexually or in a threatening way. because I have no recollection of something actually happening I dont know how to talk about what I am feeling or who to tell. If its hard for you to get out nowadays you can also do counselling at home over skype. I Also dont struggle with kissing, and intimacy doesnt weird me out .I did ask my parents about this image, just like Ive asked them if I have cancer, illnesses, and various other things my OCD dwells on, and they were really concerned and just said it wasnt true. As we say in all the other responses, until someone builds a time machine, we cant know. So I was treated as though I was having irrational anxiety about my relationship with my mother as a result of the anxiety disorder I was diagnosed with. The comments on there led to my google search of something, and then I came here and read this article. Wouldnt you just tell that child that they are just someone who experienced something traumatic and unfortunate that had nothing to do with them personally and is not their fault? Now the point of having a therapist is to bring up anything at all that is troubling you. But it might not work so well if all your memories are only fragments, but worth chatting to a therapist who offers EMDR about. I went ahead and did it because I had no clue of what any of this was so I would just go ahead with it. Im just worried they or someone else might have molested me as a child and that scares me more than anything. How do I overcome this? I thought of it as a game but I would then take advantage of the other kids around memaking them feel smaller then meeven tried to play with them like Juan did with me. Could you tell them that you just feel it would be good for you to seek some counselling as you feel a lot of stress and anxiety over it? Karl acted strangely around me and my sister and, at the time, I didnt think anything of it.