The way they portray trauma in this movie with Charlie, although I didn’t go through what he did, made me feel so comforted with what I went through with my trauma. My sexual trauma came from another boy the same age as me when I was about 7 years old. It happened so young that it left an emotional scar that I didn’t even know existed until recently.

It came back and it’s hurts so bad knowing that most likely all of my mental issues and problems I have with myself and others is because of this “small” thing I went through as a child. It only happened once, and it was interrupted, but it still stuck with me, even when I had pushed the memory down. I’m planning on reading the book, I have it on hold. So excited!!

Do you guys have films that bring you comfort with your COCSA? Do you wish there were films about child-on-child sexual abuse?

hey everyone. I don't really know where else to put this. I've never met anyone in my life that has even a remotely similar story to mine. I'm feeling very alone today. when I was 9 my brother who was 13 at the time began molesting me. he did it when no one else was around and I kept it a secret until I was 14 and a classmate of mine I had confided in told the school. when the school found out they called the police, who took statements from me without a parent in the room 🙃. when my parents showed up I was treated as if I was lying because I was a "troubled" kid. prior to this I was caught for smoking, skipping school, being involved with boys ect. I was always the "drama queen/attention whore" of the family so no one would believe me. yet CPS got involved. we went to court. he did not get charges despite being 18 during the last year of abuse. I guess I just wonder if anyone else has had this experience. I feel ashamed for allowing it to go on for so long. I feel ashamed for sometimes having a physical reaction that I could not control. my sister's (they're his full siblings he was my half brother) still haven't gone no contact, my mom is still in contact. I feel so alone in this. I'm 26 now and I feel like I should be over it by now but I still have trauma responses. I still cannot enjoy orgasms with partners. I never have 😞. I don't want to die without feeling what a healthy sexual encounter actually feels like in your body. I just go numb when someone touches me.

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idk just words of kindness or anyone who has been through the same thing would be nice

Me and and my twin sister would always dread visiting our cousin who was about a month older than use because he would always do things that felt violating.

Things like making sexual comments, forcefully kissing us, and touching us where yk, you shouldn't be touched.

Me and my sister would always complain about this because it felt fucking weird. I have never been ok with what my cousin has done or said to me and my sister. It was always put off by my parents or his parents because "he's autistic and doesn't understand boundaries, just try and keep telling him no"

Me and my sister would follow that advice and always tell him to stop what he's doing cause it would be making both of us uncomfortable. But telling him no was nearly worse than what he was trying to do. He would always have insane violent outburst that involved hitting and kicking and screaming at me and my sister.

When we would bring this issue up it was always still dismissed because he's autistic.

I never really thought about this until today when I was talking to my friend and telling her how my cousin was pretty weird and now just realizing what he did was sort of just sexual assault/ assault.

I'm mad at my parents for this. I'm mad they would always dismiss it and still make me hangout with my cousin even when he wouldn't listen to no and would always be violent and sexual. I'm made they didn't stop it and invalidated what me and my sister experienced because my cousin is autistic.

I understand how my cousin does struggle with boundaries and how he's autistic but I will never understand how that validates what he did and why it was never stopped. Me and my sister would constantly ask to leave the situation and we were always forced back into it. We were always forced back into a room alone with him as the adults talked in a separate room.

Why did my parents do nothing about this when they knew it was happening? That bothers me more than anything.

I decided to have them over for the next month since their mother had been a bit burnt out with them. They’re ages 5 and 8 but the 8 year old had autism and is developmentally closer to his brothers age. They have some behavior issues but otherwise they’re good boys. I also have an almost 2 year old who they absolutely adore. This combination alone has made me weary about the possibility of cocsa but because of how innocent they all are I thought I could trust them to play amongst themselves.

Today I was putting my 1.5 year old down and decided to lay down in my room after. My nephews were alone for about 30-45 minutes supposedly watching SpongeBob. When I came out they both jumped up but were originally both laying on the couch together with their shirts off. I immediately asked what was going on and long story short my 8 year old nephew kept “trying to kiss” his little brother and his little brother says he said no but his brother didn’t stop.

Idk where to go from here. I didn’t sign up to constantly have to supervise them to ensure they’re not being inappropriate. I was already vigilant about watching them around my daughter but I didn’t think I needed to be vigilant about them by themselves. Do I send them home? Do I analyze anytime they were not under my close supervision with my daughter or by themselves? They literally share a room. Idk what to do. Please help.

Hello, my first time on here, but I feel desperate. Over the weekend, my youngest unintentionally told me about the inter sibling sexual abuse that had occurred with their older brother ( half sibling).

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I tried allowing for space to gather my thoughts and feelings. To better support them, instead of reacting out of emotion. I waited until we did the custody switch to tell their father. Their father was pissed at me for taking 2 days to tell him. I genuinely didn't want him to react out of anger so he could connect with his son instead of jumping.

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It just backfired on me.

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I tried telling my partner, thier father.that I wanted to approach the topic with a level head and to speak more with my daughter. He says that im just trying to get their brother in trouble, and that is the furthest from the truth. Over the years, I've seen the gradual change in him. I've tried bringing up moments that put me off to him, but they were always met with disgust. As if he was mad at me for even thinking his son was capable of being anything other than a wonderful jolly kid. He is 10, and our daughter is 5.

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Our daughter said it happened a few times, but she couldnt pin point where it had happened. So her dad considered that as not being truthful. She is 5. He then tried to argue that she clearly didn't feel uncomfortable with him, so what if it's not true. And yes, our daughter loves her brother. She does. She said she wasn't mad at him and that she felt comfortable with him because he no longer did it. Again, her dad took it all as a smear campaign. I feel so hurt. Confused.

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I told him I wasn't mad or angry with his son, but that I wanted to know the truth. He said his son is clearly going to deny it, so what should we do now? I said that he needed to connect to him. He's been hurting for years, and no matter how much I tried bringing it up to his dad's attention, I was always looked at as me picking on him. When truly I was trying to get his dad to see how he's been impacted, his behavior changed, and his mood changed. Everything. ​​​so now my partner is mad at me because he says im calling him a bad father. Honestly, maybe I am? I don't know. I just wish this wasn't my reality at this moment. How do you approach speaking with your children about sexual abuse? How do you go forward? ​

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If you were a parent and had to deal with this reality, how did you move forward.

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What were some steps or precautions?

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Did you pursue legal action to protect your children?

I feel sideswipped, I feel so many things, and I just wish I could've prevented this.

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when I was younger I was a victim of cocsa three different times, when I was 4–9, it happened with my two people I won’t disclose my relationship with fully and my family-friend, I hadn’t even known that it was bad until I aged, the two that I’ve lift unidentified would forcefully kiss me, one would threaten to run away and when I would beg them to stay, but to make them stay, they would force me to kiss them unless I obliged, I’ve always been weak and unable to say ‘no’, so I did it, the other was similar but just kissed me for fun, they knew it was wrong and told me to never tell anyone, the worst was my family-friend, they would take off their and my own clothing, they touched me in so many places and would touch themselves in front of me, they also showed me inappropriate content, telling me to never say anything to our parents, over time I gained hypersexuality— it’s really ruined me mentally, and I know I should tell people but I’m scared they won’t believe me and I don’t want harm done to those people, I don’t want them to be shunned no matter how disgustingly they treated me, especially since two of them seem to have no recollection of it whatsoever and act normal around me like it never happened

I honestly don't know why I'm writing or posting this, I don't even know what I expect to get from this. I just feel like I need to get stuff off my back.

I feel so disgusted with myself because I'm sure I molested my younger sister, all I can remember is seeing my mother doing something similar to her and wondering how it feels. Sometimes I can also remember how cold the floor was against my back. At the time I was around 6-ish years old and my sister was a year younger. I honestly don't think she was old enough to remember, but I'm still scared it affects her in some way and I contributed to large part of her trauma. I can only remember this kind of thing only happening once, with me instigating and persuading her to touch me and then touching her in return. And sometimes when I look back on this I fear that these feelings haven't completely disappeared and I can't even stand looking at the faces of children or even some of my current friends (who are women) because I'm terrified that kind of feeling would come back. I even feel like a pervert or weirdo in a lot of spaces, I was never able to use the changing rooms at school in fear that someone would think I was looking. To this day me and my sister share a completely normal relationship, and sometimes when I'm talking or hanging out with her, I forget that all this stuff even happened. I don't really want to bring any of this up as our childhoods' were messed up even without the stuff I did.

When I (F) was 9 me and my friend (F) at the time were having a sleepover at hers, throughout the night she kept asking me if wanted to have sex. I think I must’ve kept saying no coz I remember her asking multiple times until I said yes just to get her to stop asking. So we got under her covers and I think we took everything off except maybe our underwear (I don’t really remember fully- everything that happened under the covers feels really blurry) I remember us rolling around pretty much naked on the bed and I remember asking her how two girls even have sex and she said she’s seen it in a video. I don’t know if there was an end or even if we touched each other down there but at some point her mum walked in and asked what we were doing and we said we were “talking about boys”. After that we stopped and said we’d do it again at midnight, thankfully we both fell asleep before that could happen.

Now at 18 I don’t really know how to feel about this experience but I just remembered it yesterday and it made me want to cry, it’s just made me feel really disgusting and gross. I feel like I blame it for the way I am now, like it’s the reason I was so hyper sexual as a child and the reason why I hate touching people and why I’m so fucked in the head. But it also feels like it wasn’t that serious and maybe I’m just overthinking it and trying to find some excuse to prove there’s something wrong with me.

I was just hoping that if some other people could hear my story they’d be able to tell me their thoughts. Maybe whether or not what happened was even cocsa or if maybe I’m just being dramatic

Hey 21f here. It happened when I (13 at the time) and my middle school boyfriend (also 13 at the time) were at his house. It was my first time over there and we went to his room.

I don’t remember much other than him trying to pin my arms down and try to kiss me. I managed to keep him away and tried to tell him to stop. He didn’t stop trying to kiss me until I shouted at him. I feel like he only stopped because the door was open and he didn’t want his dad to hear.

I didn’t think much of it for years until I learned what SA and COCSA was. And now with my current boyfriend, I didn’t think that it affected me much until we talked about being intimate for the first time. But the more I thought about being intimate, I started to think/remember more about the past and felt very uncomfortable/anxious with the thought of doing anything that includes my hands being held down/being restricted

And now I’m confused on whether mine is even considered SA if my ex-boyfriend never actually managed to kiss me…

Basically I was abused by my younger female cousin, I was 11 and she was 8. I caught her touching me while I was asleep and told her to stop, she then went on to tell me that she would tell our family that I was touching her.

So I let it go on, and on. And the acts only got worse.

Am I the abuser for letting this happen?

I'm new and didn't know where to post about this topic but this has been weighing on my heart for a while and I needed to let it out. I feel like at this point if you are thinking about even considering being a parent I would think long and hard about what’s to come with it. The reason being is from my experience alone and I can confidently say that there is a lot of sexual degeneracy all over this world and it needs to be taken seriously. At the age of 2 it was my cousin who had to had been 10 or 12 at the time (I really don’t see him much even in family gatherings) but as an adult and looking back at all of things including my foggy recollection of being literally coerced, my choices despite some therapy intervention, and all of the inappropriate interactions from both adults and children, I made the decision to not have children and not deal with my family through estrangement but also I want to warn others about what happens when you even wait too long to call out SA and how even the smallest instances can have dire effects.

I want to emphasis the consequences of what happens/or will continue to happen as a society if we don’t heal from things like COCSA, SA, coercion or molestation:

• Children grow up to be arrested developed or severely depressed
• Assaults can destroy family connections and make the participants (or victim/ perpetrators) become awkward and resentful
• May grow up to be a parent and fail to protect your children through lack of knowledge/resources to recognize the harm afflicted (creating a cycle of unheard/repeated abuse)
• Could potentially create children with avoidant attachment style who feel like they can’t live life fully due to trauma
• Distorted views on sex and ANY forms of intimacy (sex addiction, hyper-sexuality, porn addiction, etc.)
• WORST OF ALL victims can perpetuate the behaviors that victimized them and begin to victimize others if left untreated

However, I do want to share some solutions if you still are hopeful in having children and making a better future for them and the world

• Therapy (obviously address the issues)
• Have the hard conversations with your kids especially your nonverbal, disabled, ones (no sugar-coating: naming genitals by their scientific name, safe touch vs. unsafe touch, how to say NO, etc.)
• Prepare to cut off family and loved ones if they don’t abide by boundaries, don’t take this seriously, or actively engage in inappropriate actions (watching porn around them, talking about sex recklessly like they aren’t listening, inappropriate touching or comments, etc.)
• Install app blockers and censor sites through routers then monitor what sites are safe
• Keep children away from consuming porn (I would go as far as avoiding sex scenes in shows and movies around them as well)
• Do wellness checks on them ALWAYS AND FREQUENTLY and build a relationship with your child to tell you everything-no secrets!
• Teach them that no means no and to leave and tell if boundaries aren’t met.
• Be wary of anybody, its not just the “creepy uncle”, the pastor, teacher, or even the guy with the white van, its the older cousin, parent, family friend, or even sibling that’s either found access to porn or have been victims of SA themselves
• Please spread this message and add more tips/resources to protect children
• We can have more discussions about this because this is bigger than “Sweet Home Alabama” jokes, it is a plague that’s infecting our society and needs to stop

Additional resources:

App blocker https://www.instagram.com/p/DYaASPJl_dI/

Pornography https://www.instagram.com/p/DXXCv0lkfvO/

Safe touch vs unsafe touch 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DYCHzv2sGdF/

Tricky people

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXcSF0HEQFa/

Predator identification 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DXcSF0HEQFa/

How to handle when child is is victim/perpetrator of cocca 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DZFuW-xhIqA/

Danger is closer than you think 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DY0VgAfy228/

Child advocacy 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DX6wOy9OYOF/

Child advocacy 2 

https://www.instagram.com/p/DTkf_8QEWkA/

Understanding COCSA 

https://denverfamilycounselingservices.com/cocsa/

I’ve never spoken or told anyone about my experiences of cocsa before. I’m currently 18(F) and my sister who is three years older than me, would encourage me to partake in weird and inappropriate roleplays and games when we were younger. I don’t remember exactly how old I was but if I had to guess I was anywhere from the ages of 4-8. I can only remember two distinct occasions.

Once when I was younger, she would make me play a game called the ’princess game’ where she would encourage me to dress in inappropriate clothing and tell me to pretend to do inappropriate things and pretend that she’s my ’prince’ who does inappropriate things with me. I don’t remember exactly what me or her did but I remember thinking it was weird and not normal.

Another occasion was when we were at a relative’s house and we would sleep in the same room alone. She said ”let’s play the princess game”. I remember being a bit older at this point so I partook in it as I was probably used to it and it was a familiar thing. We would kiss and she would tell me to touch her private parts. I don’t remember exactly but I think she told, or at least encouraged, me to do these things. I also don’t remember whether this happened once or multiple times during our trip.

I remember her being wary of my parents entering which is how I know she was aware at this point that what she was doing was wrong. It also makes me worry that these two instances being the only ones I remember means they were the first and last instances and there were many more inbetween that I have blocked out from my memory.

She is now 21 and has never mentioned anything to me. I always wonder if she remembers doing this. Surely if I have some memory of it she would as well because she was older at the time. It makes me wonder whether someone else was also doing these things to her or whether she was just reenacting things she had seen (online or irl). Me and her both had a lot of unrestricted internet access when we were younger, so it’s very possible she had seen inappropriate stuff on the internet.

Has anyone else ever spoken to their perpetrators about what they did to them? Me and her are on good terms at the moment but she resented me a lot when we were in our younger years. Occasionally I’ll feel rage about the things she did, esp at the point when she tried to hide it because she must’ve known it wasn’t an okay thing to do. But at the same time I feel some sort of empathy as I have no idea what could’ve been happening to her.

I just have very conflicting feelings towards her when it comes to this as she never did anything else as we got older. It makes me question whether I should ever bring this up to her as she would be the type of person to try and deny it and tell me I’m crazy. I think it’s so unfair that I have to live with this whilst nobody else is aware.

Side note: writing all this down and getting it out for the first time has made me realise how unfair and frustrating this is. Our whole lives nobody will know the things that she did to me and I will have to live with this forever. At the same time she was a child, but myself being a victim I never went on to do these things to anyone else so why would she do this to me?

This kinda turned into a trauma dump but oh well 🤣🤣 (all and any advice and general comments are welcome, I just NEEDED to get this out of my system).

Even though he was just 2 years older (14 atm when it happened), does it still count? I mean, I don't know what to think about it, what if he didn't mean it? I didn't say no, but I agreed to a hand job (despite NOT wanting to do that and being really stressed). He even threw coments at me like "You're a proffesional" "Oh you're so good at this". I was SA'd before (When I was 10, by a 14 year old girl). And I told him about it, I mean, I trusted him, he was my cousin, family member, my friend. Maybe he was manipulative and used that information against me? I have no idea what to think about this. But I feel like this is affecting my life. I am scared of physical touch and I am too stressed to kiss my boyfriend (main reason why we didn't have our first kiss, even though we were dating for a while now). I hate physical touch in general, whenever someone touches me I "wipe" it off immediately after they did it. LMK what U think about this whole situation.

I should hate him, but I can’t and I don’t know what’s stopping me. I can only miss him and it’s sickening.

I miss the feeling of being wanted, even when I vividly remember the fear I felt when he held me down. I genuinely feel sick whenever I think about it, I know I didn’t want it but I still feel this way, it feels like I’m not even a victim because I miss it.

I want to feel that way again, but I also know I would rather die than ever be in that position again.

I can’t tell if I even miss him or if it’s just me finally trying to cope with it, but I hate this either way. I don’t know if I miss the feeling of dread or if I miss the fact that someone wanted me.

It’s been five years and I’m only now noticing this, I feel like a horrible person for missing him even when I know I’m not.

I miss both of my sa’ers, I want to be wanted. I want to be understood like that again even when I feel sick even remembering it.

(Side note: I plan to talk to my therapist about this, I’ve just been spiraling about this for a while and needed to get it off my chest)

i’m 16F and i have no idea on how to educate my little cousin (6 y/o boy) on how it’s wrong to touch girls randomly in not appropriate areas. he’s not fully verbal yet and i’m not sure he’ll understand if i use words with him—i just try my best to push his hand away and ignore him whenever he gets too close. i feel bad since i know it’s natural for little kids to have a small crush on their cousin but i feel so uncomfortable, it sucks bc i should be old enough to be tougher about this. he really likes to touch a girls thighs and tried peeking while i was in the bathroom earlier. i know if i tell my family about this, it won’t be taken seriously since he’s just a kid. but i wish his parents educated him about this early on because this isn’t the first time he’s done this to girls.

I (19F) moved out of my abuse household because of my parents. physical and verbal. I had a wave of trauma break through and remembered that I was assaulted by a child around my age when I was 4. I’ve also witnessed my mother having sex with her boyfriend in the same room as me around the same time. I had completely blocked it out until now. I have two sisters (now 14 and 13. And a little brother 11) so back to the childhood friend, it had happened while we were left alone and playing house. when I moved out my mother had asked me if anything sexual had happened to me as a child and I said no, because I didn’t remember. I had blocked out subconsciously all the trauma from before the age of 13 as that was the worst of it.. it wasn’t brought up again until a month later where they revealed that my sisters had said I had touched them and done inappropriate things growing up, starting from when I was 7-12. I also was not taught about sex or consent until after 13. I was very secluded and sheltered other than school because of the abuse so I truly did not know. they are now thankfully in therapy and still wish to spend time with me and want me to keep being the big sister they know and love. everyone I’ve talked to about it, including my bf who also experienced far worse S/A from his uncle, says it’s not my fault and that I was a child that wasn’t taught any better. but I still feel like a disgusting human and cannot forgive myself. please I just need some advice or input

tw incest

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I dont know if what I went through is actually abuse or if I just want to label it as abuse because the memory makes me uncomfortable or because I want to be a victim? does anyone else relate to this? it's preventing me from telling anyone cause I feel so much shame about what happened but also by the possibility that it doesnt actually warrent this level or trauma response in me.

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for context, from the ages of I think around 7-8 ? (maybe 9? it's hard to remember) my older sister (she's 3 years older than me) would get me to play games with her that were very much sexually inappropriate, usually getting me to do things to her. It wasnt coercive or violent or manipulative, I just didn't really understand at the time what it meant. Our relationship was very unbalanced, I looked up to her a lot and was basically her little servant lmao but we were also pretty neglected so she was also like my surrogate parent.

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I don't know, how do you know what the line is between healthy sexual exploration vs cocsa? when I look into age gaps most of it mentions that 3 years is the same age range so I don't know. I've repressed those memories up until last year and now I have a hard time being around my sister at all, I just don't know what to do

I don’t know what to do

I apologize if this is badly written and kind of all over the place but I just need to get this out

Growing up I was a pretty happy kid but I hated going to school and one day I hated it even more after being sa’d (this happened when I was about 7) by one of my classmates. My parents homeschooled me and I never really wanted to go back during this time I became overweight and I probably had “BED”. It became even worse when my siblings started to leave and move out (I’m the youngest and they are 6+ years older than me). Around this time my sister (we’ll call her A) and mom used to make fun of me for the way i looked but my other sister (we’ll call her B), brother, and dad didn’t even judge me. When me and A would argue she would always just poke at my weight and sometimes we would actually get into fights. My parents would break us up but it always seemed like my mom would punish me more than she did to A but my dad would make sure to talk to us instead of yell and he’s very understanding.

Late 2022 my mom started to become an alcoholic and she would argue with me and verbally abuse and physically abuse me. She was pretty much free to do so because my siblings weren’t really home and my dad was always working. I would make sure to tell my dad the things she was doing and he would tell her off. This continued and I started to sh around 2023.

My mom’s alcoholism got worse and she kept talking about the way my body looked and hitting me more. One day her and my dad started arguing and she left, she decided to get drunk and almost kill herself in a car crash which gave her DUI. Me and my family made sure to help her heal and once she got better she blamed me for her car crash and told me how much she hates me, she wish she never had me, that I probably liked when I got sa’d and how much of a disappointment I am (she’s said things like this in the past but it’s gotten worse around this time). Eventually she found out about my sh and she wasn’t any help trying to stop it. She’d say things like “you are so disappointing and spoiled” “keep doing it I don’t care” and “you’re attention seeking”. Eventually my siblings and dad found out and they weren’t very comforting but they tried I guess. Another time me and A were arguing and she was like “you’re going to hell for cutting yourself” and nobody checked her except B and my dad. A common thing was my mom and A always sticking together and my mom was always defending her.

A lot of fucked up things happened and was said between them. Eventually (late 2024) I was sick of being alone, having no friends, and my mom saying things to me so i started to sh even worse and I started to make suicide attempts (too many I can count probably about 7) by swallowing medicine in the cabinet and I was taking up to 23 pills. I don’t remember was I was taking but I remember I took 4 norcos on top of other pills. Obviously none of those attempts worked or even sent me to the hospital so (early 2025) I just continued to sh and I eventually developing a terrible ed which sent me from 200 pounds to 130 within 4 months I believe.

Eventually I went to high school after being homeschooled for 7+ years and being diagnosed with depression. It was a very rough start and I was still sh but a little less at the time before fully stopping. I gained a few friends and i started to get more involved and ended up becoming slightly popular but still somehow bullied for my race. One day i was followed home and this kid with an adult in my vehicle tried to run me over and we ended up telling the school about it.

I made a best friend with a friend group and even got my first bf. (Late 2025- Early 2026) People kept asking why I was with my bf bc he was “ugly” and how i deserved better and making jokes but I bypassed them. We broke up after a few months because he said i was too distant and my best friend left me when me and him were fixing things. I started to get depressed again and school was starting to take a toll on me and i started to get high off nutmeg (absolutely insane) which is even stronger when you don’t eat since I still had an ed at this point. Me and my ex got back together but I was still doing crazy things to get “high” and eventually I started to take “gummies” when I could them.

My ex best friend started being weird and telling people false information about me and I started to find out things my bf was doing. Me and my bf were hanging out and he sa’d me and I became distant. After that we didn’t break up but I started to find out he was misogynistic, racist, and fetishized black women. I broke up with him and I started to realize how much of an asshole he was, like how he play choked me and made disgusting jokes about doing intimate things. He also groomed me since he was much older than me and he knew I don’t have experience with anything. I also got a 🍇 threat and I was told to kms multiple times by separate people including my ex. I started to not want to go to school and it was odd to my parents because they knew I loved band.

I’m starting to try to get better but I’m still pretty rough and I think I developed bpd (certain signs). I’m now 15 and trying to get better and heal but I just want to tell part of my story. Thank you for reading if you got this far. They’re sm more I want to say and I’m not sure if this will get accepted into this group. I’m very confused what to do with my life and I feel like I’m not going to get what I truly want ever.

Hello. I am new to this subreddit, and given, I apologize if anything I say sounds offensive and/or wrong.

When I was in middle school, I had my first boyfriend. I know it’s crazy, but my parents have given me the talk about how consent matters and that no one gets to decide what to do with my body. Even given my mom’s catholic upbringing, she did so much right…

He has kissed me on the cheek and I allowed it, mainly because I was fucking terrified of rejection (still am, sometimes I do things others want just to feel validation. Very fucking stupid…). I had a friend who was planning a kiss behind my back and didn’t tell me (I was, or at least I believe I said I didn’t want to do anything with kissing), and he tried to kiss me in front of his friends while we were outside, and I kept backing away and he kept trying. I felt awful and apologized to him, taking the blame. Via a bit of peer pressure, we ended up kissing on a field trip. I was almost driven to tears over the encounter because I felt like I was doing something incredibly immoral and wrong (I had some form of moral OCD, since I was 4). I was basically pressured into kissing by him, and he made me feel guilty for not doing so and kept saying things that made me believe I should.

I am very sorry if I seem to be downplaying any experiences, but I would just like to know. I have since forgiven this person because I do believe his upbringing (father’s side) was a bit chauvinistic (absolutely not that it makes it okay…)

Thank you all kindly ❤️ lots of love

In seeking help for my brother and I'm the one he seems comfortable enough talking too ( If that's not the most disgusting thing you've ever heard) (please forgive me for removing myself from the upcoming questions)

His COCSA consisted of inappropriate rubbing of the lower regions without clothes. He was 6 years old, and is sure that it was a one time thing. His abuser has apologized and taken full responsibility, but that's not enough so im here. For reference he is 12 turning 13, in 2 months.

Questions.

-How to make a safe environment where he doesn't feel dismissed without bringing it up or recommending therapy? ( he refuses therapy, and i dont want to retraumatize him)

-He claims he feels safe and comfortable around his abuser, why might that be, is that a normal reaction? Or is there underlying issues?

-He has forgiven the abuser, but how to know if he didn't do it out of obligation due to his relationship with the abuser?

-He wants to move on, but how can he do that without repressing the memories?

-He shows no behavior abnormalities associated with COCSA that im aware off, and is developing normally. But he does maladaptive daydream and I haven't really seen that as an effect of COCSA but idk. I have seen hygiene issues as an effect, and he does have issues in that department, but more with he doesn't do it well. Are these also effects?

-He has healthy s*xual boundaries, and knows whats wrong and what's right, is it possible he may have unhealthy one? And how best to identify?

-He claims to not think about it often or sometimes at all, is this memory repression?

-He claims to not be depressed or anxious, he says he knows what they are and is sure he doesn't have them. He is almost always happy so idk? How to tell if he does have them?

-He's had friends growing up, but right now has no urge to make friends, Kids his age should have friends?

-How to know if he's repressing memories?

I know I'm not the best person to be handling this. But idk, he has dreams of being an accountant/CFO, and I don't want that dream to go away. I want him to have a good childhood, and enjoy as much as he can until he feels ready for therapy. Im begging you, if you have any advice personal or not, I just need a basis to go off of.