I have no idea what to call it. **Potentially Triggering***
Hello.
First of all, I'd like to apologize for posting about myself so soon after registering here. I'm also sorry for the incoming huge post. It's really hard for me to talk about it. Sorry.
Also, despite my ambiguous profile pic - I was assigned female at birth.
Anyway. Well. *ahem*
When I was young, about 6 years old probably, my neighbor... groped me. He is six years older than me, so he was around 12 at the time.
It only happened once. He, my brother (same age as him, so 12) and I were watching whatever on the computer. I was sitting on my neighbor's lap, when his hand wandered between my legs.
He was only feeling me up down there through my clothes, but I remember I felt awful. I really wanted to say "no, stop" but I was somehow frozen. I didn't move, I didn't say anything. It wasn't violent at all, although I vaguely remember that it hurt a bit down there despite it being through clothes, so I think he was being a bit rough. I'm not too sure.
My brother was just right next to us, but I don't know if he saw or said anything. I just knew he was there.
That's all. I know it's basically nothing, it's probably nothing. But it's confusing the heck out of me.
I remember what I felt on the moment, rather vividly, but I have zero clue about what I was thinking after then, how I felt about my neighbor afterwards. Was I acting normally around him? Did I avoid him? Did I care? I don't know.
My childhood friend recently said that I told her about what happened with my neighbor when we were like 10, but I have absolutely NO memory of it.
I thought I had no memory of what happened until I was 14 - at school, during a lesson, I suddenly remembered what it (I also remembered that my brother had asked me a handjob and a blowjob when I was around 6 too, although I didn't do it because I ran away to my mom immediately). I have no memory of ever talking or even thinking about it before that.
I talked about it to my mom (I'm lucky to have a wonderful mother), and I recently asked her when was the first time I mentioned it - she said it was a few years ago only. (Note: I'm 19) Apparently I've never told her when I was a child, despite her constantly repeating stuff like "no one should touch you there!", "you should tell me if someone does!". Yet, again, I have no idea what I was thinking about when she told me such things.
I had avoided thinking about this whole thing for years now - I always told myself that it wasn't important, that it was "normal". I always brushed it off.
But recently I realized that... I think it affected me a lot more than I thought. There are a lot of things that I couldn't explain and... I think this explains it.
For example, the fact that I'm really uncomfortable with sex. Well, I like it in theory. But I really feel weird about doing it. I have - with two girls though. And it just felt... wrong. Not morally, because I know sex isn't wrong, but I just felt wrong, I felt guilty, I felt gross, and my whole body was basically giving a huge "NOPE". I actually threw up the first time I did it with my last ex, and I didn't understand why I felt the way I did. All I could think about was how what I felt was wrong and something was wrong and I couldn't tell what.
There is also the fact that I am irrationally afraid of men. I don't mean any harm, I know men are respectable individuals and I should never judge anyone based on their sex or gender, but I can't control it. Whenever a man is around, I just feel threatened, instinctively. I hate being touched, as in, I frigging hate being touched. So when a man touches me, all I want to do is run and cry and puke and rip my skin off. (But yay for self-control!)
So I've been wondering if these two issues (discomfort about sex and men) had anything to do with my neighbor.
Yet I still react very strongly to it. I talked about it to my psychologist only a few weeks ago, and I literally broke down in tears in front of her (I had never cried in front of a psychologist, ever, even though I've been seeing them for 6 years). She tried to convince me that it was important, she said I probably had a psychological trauma - but I feel so ashamed about it. I mean, it's ridiculous. I almost want to laugh at myself because of how pathetic my "story" sounds. I really feel like I'm blowing things out of proportion, making a fuss out of nothing, and I feel so ashamed about it. I'm speaking in the "sexual abuse" category but I don't even know if I can call that sexual abuse, because "sexual abuse" just sounds so serious and important compared to what I lived.
I don't know what it is. I don't know what to call it. But as weird as it sounds, I feel like I need to know.
PS.: Again, I'm so sorry for the enormous rant. If anyone is brave enough to read through it all and help me out - thank you.
Hiya, cloud First of all, your post was very well written, I just wanted to say I don't think I can really help you, as such, but I do think that sexual exploration, 'games' if you like are fairly normal amongst children I came from a very different era to you, and I remember being smacked as a kid because a few of us were experimenting in a bedroom When I say I was experimenting, well, I was probably only about 4 years old - the youngest of the group - so I was just going along with stuff. For myself, I only really thought about this when I read your post, and it's not traumatic at all. Do you feel your experience has left a mark on you, as you said, making you fear men?
Well, first, thanks a lot for your fast reply!
I know that sexual exploration is normal for children - but I don't really think that was exploration in this case? I clearly didn't want him to do that.
I was curious about sex as a child, but I never actually wanted to try anyway. It was all about theory, not practice. I never played doctors or whatever with other kids.
I'm not sure if my experience has left a mark on me, but it does look like it did. I can't be 100% that that's the reason why I fear men, but it's a possibility.
Although, I'm fairly sure that this is the reason sex makes me feel uncomfortable. What I felt when my neighbor touched me and what I felt during sex later on is very very similar. :/
Well, it's how it made you feel that's important And don't think it's not a big deal.. sexual contact when it's unwelcome is bad enough for us grown women - enough to make work difficult, or friendships strained etc So for a little kid, that's too much to deal with, I should think?
I still feel that my feelings about it are disproportionned. As in, I'm feeling way too bad about this, because what happened is nothing.
Maybe if you look at it, analyse it, scrutinise it, and completely open up to it, you may be able to dismiss it? Possibly its the fact that it's only recently come to the fore that is part of the problem?
(Sorry for the late reply)
I do try to analyze it and scrutinize it, but I was so young, there are things I just can't remember...
Hello TinyCloud,
I appreciate that it has been very difficult for you to open up about what you wrote in your thread. I would like to deeply thank you for your trust.
Do you think it would be possible for you to welcome your feelings about these events (neighbor + your brother asking for a handjob/blowjob) without any judgment? Your body is making you feel horrible about what happened with your neighbor, that necessarily means that it IS important for you, and has not to be compared with any other story that will make you feel that you should not feel that way. Does that make any sense to you?
About if what happened was sexual abuse or not, I learnt that a gap (in age) of more than one or two years between 2 experiencing children can be considered as sexual abuse from the older one. That it has been consented by the 2 of them or not has nothing to do about it, because a younger child is just not mature enough to understand what the older one is really doing. Therefore, even if the youngest child seems to agree with what is happening, that CAN'T be considered as being consented by the youngest one. 2 children of same age that are experiencing will do it in a way that corresponds to their sexual maturity, which is very different from what you went through as your neighbor was 6 years older than you. So, to me what you went through IS sexual abuse. May I know what you think and how you feel about the thoughts I shared with you?
You wrote that you really wanted to say "no, stop" but you were somehow frozen. you didn't move and didn't say anything, then you said that it wasn't violent at all. To me, what you described there was exactly what one could call the effect of a trauma. To me a trauma is just something that is so far beyond any understanding, so confusing (psychologically as if you were facing death) that it just leaves you there, frozen and not being able to do anything about it. Then later, you would just feel ashamed and/or guilty because you did not say no and you did not stop him. You would even think all was your fault in some way. But the fact is that you could NOT do anything, because your brain was absolutely not able to react in any way, it was too confused by an event that it could not understand at all. Therefore for safety reason, it just made a shortcut, it's the "freezing mode". Again, does that make any sense to you?
I hope that I could help you in some way by sharing my thoughts with you about what you kindly (and very well) wrote us here. Please accept my apologize if I misunderstood any of your words or said some things that seem silly to you.
I wish you the very best on your healing path, please take great and gentle care, TinyCloud.
Gilles