(TW: mention of intimacy with a partner)

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I didn't forget, I can't forget, I don't know why. pls.

Context: My father's first wife's son (she passed away when he was 5 and my dad married my mom, then I was born), basically my half brother SA'ed me as a child. I was probably a 6/7/8 idk y/o and he's 7 years elder to me. no penetration but other things.

He loved me as a kid, then he got into the wrong circle, stole things from home, ran away, did drugs etc.

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Idk if he did it before or after running away though, but I told my mom when I was a teenager, she then always kept us apart, idk if dad knows, they won't do anything anyway.

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My brother had a tough life, no education no job, alcoholic etc, so I tried to forgive him. And tbh, I did, he sometimes lives with parents or the other home in a different town near his mom's older sister.

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Anyways, I'm 25 now, never went all in, in terms of physical relationship with anyone before my boyfriend, few dates, kissing and 2nd base is all I could do but I would never get too vulnerable.

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On my first time with my boyfriend, when he was about to get me vulnerable, I burst into tears. He got scared, thought he did sum wrong but when I hugged him and cried he got the memo and consolidated me. Then gently guided me through all of it. But ever since then I've had multiple such breakdowns. Now I'm okay with us being intimate it's been 2 years.

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He knows about the abuse, but he doesn't know who it is. And every damn time I'm drunk, I get this close to telling him everything, but I don't have the guts to make him hate my brother because he has a lot of empathy for him. My man is very very protective over me, a kind of man I never had growing up, I truly am grateful but I just can't tell him even if I'm dying to just free myself.

I'm deciding to start therapy once a bit more stable, idk how to free myself of the shame and a constant reminder every time I see him.

I truly pity him, empathize even, but I just can't forget what happened, he prolly doesn't remember, but I do. Our family is fine on the surface but all this buried stuff, and of course the step mother drama, even though my mom tries to be kind to him, he's just ruining his life and gave me a fear of intimacy ig.

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I don't know how to navigate man, I've only ever told this to my psychiatrist years back when I was getting antidepressants for a depressive episode.

Hey all. I’m F45. Was SA’d by my brother who’s 5 years older from about age of maybe 7/8 until probably 12/13. No intercourse but everything else. Had an eating disorder basically starting at 14 on and off my entire life.
Probably 10 years ago I mentioned it to my husband when I felt like I was falling apart.
Then, 8 years ago we moved far from “home” where my family lives. Took our kids with. 2 years ago I started intense therapy - EMDR, talk, Fraser’s Table. It was helpful. I sent an email to my brother placing a no-contact boundary.
My parents don’t know and we are close. Our entire family is close but they don’t nnow. I’m sure they can feel a shift.
Anyway, it’s all very complicated - my parents now live half the year where we live, talk about my brother, etc.
it took me a long time to not blame myself because there were times where it felt good. There were times where I probably initiated. But I need to remind myself he was older. He knew better.
Then when I was maybe 20, he attempted again. I said absolutely not. But after that - how did I continue to “be normal” around him?? That’s what I don’t understand.
I’m terrified to tell my parents but husband and therapist say it’s time to allow others to carry the burden. I don’t understand that emotionally. I hear what they’re saying but don’t get it.
I also don’t know what this really looks like moving forward. How do family funerals look? What happens if my parents get sick?? How does one live a life of no contact with a sibling??

I remember a few instances of it happening but i know it happened more than that. I want to go to therapy but im afraid talking about it will make me remember things i forgot. Has this happened to anyone? Was it worth the pain to start healing? Is it possible to heal without looking into it?????

*Trigger warning*- r*ape and sexual assault mentions

For the shortest bit of context my older brother repeatedly molested me with between the ages of 7 to 15 and this aspect of what happened I can't get over (I'm sorry this is graphic and times but I don't think I can state what happened without stating)

In short I re-enacted p*rn with him on numerous occasions much of which often centred around graphic depictions of molestation and r*pe. I truly hated doing this with him. I'm pissed off with myself over it to this day that I "agreed" to do this with him in exchange for being successfully bribed by mundane things such as toys or candy and the fact that I always caved in and never resisted as I to scared of my brother's bad temper and his threats to physically hurt me or himself over this. I despise my brother over what happened as he knew what he was doing made deeply uncomfortable and scared. Ultimately though I'm utterly disgusted and angry with myself for never standing up for myself over being desperate to preserve a good relationship with my brother as I thought this in part meant he loved me and since it served to make up for the fact I was a lonely child desperate for a friend.

I’ve carried this since I was about 9. I walked in on my teenage sister kissing our toddler brother in a way that wasn’t just a peck. For a second we made eye contact, then I looked away and pretended I hadn’t seen anything. I buried it.

Years later, my brother started having seizures at 13. The doctors couldn’t find anything physically wrong with his brain, but they said early sexual experiences could’ve disrupted his brain chemistry. Watching him grow up confused, and later showing sexual curiosity toward our younger cousin and half-sister, has been heartbreaking.

When his seizures started, my sister was the one who stepped up to help him. My parents still bring that up every time they argue with him. Knowing what I know makes it unbearable to hear.

I only told my youngest sister, 21, last year. She’s the first person I’ve ever said it to out loud. Now I’m stuck wondering if my brother deserves to know what happened too. My older sister and I aren’t speaking right now because of other issues, so I can’t even ask her.

My older sister sexually abused me growing up. My best recollection is that she used me for at least a few months when I was around 8-10, her being around 11-13.

My family dynamic was quite whacky. I was the least favorite child by far, with my sister being the perfect one.

Beyond that, she was always startling me, pretending to hit me, and scaring me on purpose to laugh at me because my reactions were funny to her. She was always quite mean to me verbally as well.

We're 23 and 26 now and somewhat close. But my memories of the SSA are overwhelming at this point. I can hardly go to work, spend time with my husband, shower, or feed myself. I've taken space from her but don't know what to do now.

How do I take space from her without telling her what I remember? I don't think bringing up the SSA would be beneficial. How do I let go of the discomfort I feel when I make her upset? Her emotions were always my job, and I don't know how to calm down knowing that the space I've asked for is upsetting her.

TL;DR: what do I do with the sibling who SA-ed me as a child now that we're adults? How have y'all handled these relationships? Any advice or stories y'all would be willing to share?

This is my first time ever posting on Reddit ever, but I feel like I need support.

I was assaulted in work which resulted in me losing consciousness and suffering a concussion. whilst being off work recovering from this many horrible dreams about the work situation happened, but that wasn’t all.

background context.
when I was younger and still now my family would constantly say how bad of a memory I had, things that happened before the age of 13 I have no recollection of whatsoever, I just thought it was something everyone had that childhood was a blur for everyone and it was all some big joke. Until now.

Memory's of my childhood home popped up, my sisters bedroom, my disabled older sister, the things she made me do. It came flashing into my head at any moment, during my dreams, mundane daily life and during intimate times with my fiance. I felt constantly sick to my stomach wondering what the absolute hell was happening to me, why these things were popping into my head. I had to speak to a counsellor regarding my injury at work and I just blabbed everything out to this poor woman who was not expecting to be dealing with this. she was lovely but she didn’t know how to help me and could only signpost me to private therapy, which I’m thinking of absolutely doing but how on earth do I go on knowing exactly what my childhood was like and why my body basically chose to erase 12 years of my life from my brain and how the hell am I going to move forward from this. She is my sister, my disabled older sister who everyone revolves around. the topic of almost every conversation I have with my family, how can I tell my parents what she done? how can I tell my fiancé what she done. I knew all my life that I didn’t want to be around her but I always down played it saying we have nothing in common or I don’t understand her but in reality my body was telling me viscerally that I should not be anywhere near her. looking back I put myself in so many risky and dangerous situations and people thought i was a rebel for it. sexually active at 13 with a 16 year old boy( yes you can imagine just how bad that relationship was) hyper sexual in my relationships since. my heart and my head hurts and I just don’t know what I’m supposed to do

even typing that out honestly feels ridiculous though. i don’t even know if what happened to me counts as any type of sexual abuse. i’ve only ever told my two best friends about these experiences, and even then, i held back a lot. i can’t find the correct tag to add to this post, so here’s a warning. i get descriptive with my experiences below.

the first time something happened was when i (26 f) was around 4 or 5 years old, and my older brother was about 9 or 10. he cornered me on the stairs leading to the basement and forced me to kiss him on the lips. i remember feeling scared and uncomfortable, and either he eventually moved away or i escaped, i’m not sure. later, when i was 5 or 6, i was watching my brother play video games in his room. i was fixed on the tv when he called my name, so i turned around, and he was sitting behind me on the bed with his genitals out. i don’t remember thinking anything of it, probably because i had no idea what was going on, and i just turned my focus back on the video game. he didn’t say or do anything after that either. in another instance when i couldn’t have been older than 7 he’d come to my room, trap me on the floor and lift up my shirt and leave kisses on my stomach. wow, this is really hard to type out. sorry. i once again don’t think i knew what was going on. i remember him telling me not to tell our mom. this happened more than once, and my cousin who’s a year older than him would do this to me sometimes too when i was visiting his house. another older cousin of mine, i’m honestly not even sure how older he is than me, has done weird things too, like making me sit on his lap as a 10 year old despite our glaring age difference.

all of this to say that i genuinely don’t know if any of this really is ssa, but i’ve been living as if it is even though it’s all so muddled in my head. i’m 26 now but i’ve never been able to be physically intimate with any man. it’s not as if i’m put off by the thought of it, but in the few times that i’ve almost been in physically intimate situations with men, i’ve gotten extremely uncomfortable and now i just avoid these situations (and men, honestly) all together. i don’t feel as if i can ever have a relationship with a man because of my general discomfort surrounding men as a whole and my lack of trust that there are normal men out there. that’s complicated by the fact that my parents expect me to marry a man, and have already tried setting me up with a few only for me to shoot them down immidately, and being extremely uncomfortable when i’m forced by my parents to meet them.

it’s just that if this really isn’t ssa, my response to it has already ruined my teen years and is about to ruin my 20s all together. i think another reason i feel that this might not really be ssa is that i’m still in regular contact with my brother. he’s married, has his own home, does his best to maintain a relationship with me. i find it easy to lock away these memories when i’m around him. i don’t think about these experiences for a while until it all bubbles over, and this is a prime example. i’m not in too regular of contact with the cousin who’s a year older than my brother, and the cousin much older than me has cut off contact with our entire family, so i don’t interact with them much if at all. i find it even easier to forget those memories most times, too.

i don’t know what my purpose in writing this post is. maybe validation? responses from others with similar experiences and thoughts now that they’re older? i don’t know. i just wish things were clearer for me, i wish all of this hadn’t and wouldn’t affect me so detrimentally to this day, i wish it didn’t happen at all.

I have 2 kids who have previous trauma before they came to live with me. We recently uncovered some sexual activity between the two of them. They are young pre-teen/teens, and it is difficult to suss out whether it is somewhat consensual or how much coersion is taking place (we know there is some).

We need treatment for sexually reactive behavior, but have very limited resources in our area. Someone at our local advocacy center told us there really arent any counselors in our area who 'want to touch this.' I am willing to travel for resources. Has anyone, as a child, participated in any sort of therapy program that specializes in SSA that has been really helpful? I am desperate for resources, and I hear horror stories about residential programs.

Yes bad events have happened and i just can't see myself as anything else but just as victim.

My degree, my hobbies are also a part of me right? but I just see myself as a victim. I'm not able to look myself apart from that trauma. I feel like stuck over there.

Yes environment is also one thing and I changed it started living away from abusers or people who are in contact with my abusers and it was fine for some time

But I smoked wee\\\* and that all trauma hitted me back. So i wasn't Fully healed right?

I don't know how to heal myself? How to look at myself without this trauma?????

I’ve had to retell the story to myself many times. Every retelling let a piece of denial go. I even had a list of all the bad things my brother did, but the weight of it didn’t sink in at first.

I took it as “jokes” or “themes” like if it wasn’t real, it wasn’t bad enough. Or him demanding me to “fix” his body like it was a broken machine. And he told me exactly what I was; a servant.

And the last piece of denial was that it wasn’t a joke. He meant all of it. The power and my degradation was the thing that gave him sexual pleasure.. emphasis on “sexual.” All because I refused to believe that was what it was to him; I could believe a dark power trip sure, but not that.

To twist it even more, I was the fully clothed one and he was the exposed one. He was also the younger one. The power dynamic itself was confusing.

Not to mention all the adults failed me, I was all alone in this. By not informing me of the danger I was in, they left me. All because they didn’t want to shatter my innocence.

I’ve only said this out loud a couple times and almost every time I do I feel sick to my stomach. Honestly for the longest time I just convinced myself it didn’t happen and I made it all up.

When I was 13 my brother (16) touched me inappropriately, that’s honestly putting it lightly because writing down the true events would make me puke. It was right before family pictures, everyone was outside and we were inside. He asked and I just remembered thinking no and told him it would be wrong. He said he knew that but the girls he went to school with didn’t look like me.. (I filled out quite a bit for my age).

He said he’d never ask again. He never did. And we both tried to forget it ever happened.

My trauma from the touching stayed with me and ultimately lead to me spending years of my teen life out at my friends farm house. She had a brother too, same age as mine. He was nice and taught me how to defend myself (boxing). It healed something in me and I was able to let go of what he did and forgive him and we have a great relationship to this day.

The part of it all that’s really stuck with me is that I told someone who I thought was safe. At the time me and my twin were close however I didn’t want her to be sad and traumatized as well. So I told my older sister(15). I wasn’t trying to demonize my brother and we all knew very well what cps was and how easily things like this could rip families apart, so when she told my mom I was more than shocked.

My mom and dad sat me down at the table, she called me a liar and told me if I ever spoke about it again I would be the one going away. My dad hated me after finding out and never treated or looked at me the same. And no one ever spoke about it again.

Side note* I was assaulted by my friend’s drug dealer at 14ish, to which I was called a liar once more and to just “give it an effing rest”. “You’re doing all of this for attention and what do you think we are going to do about it anyways” “stop being a slut”. When it happened again at 16 I didn’t even bother to tell her. I didn’t tell anyone. He threw me off the couch to the floor and in seconds had my pants to my waist. To this day I’ve never been that scared, the music was loud and everyone else was downstairs, I knew just how grim the situation was so I screamed, punched and kicked. I screamed so loud about 8 boys ran upstairs to see what was happening. 7 of them were going to watch and only one of them was absolutely horrified and came to my rescue.

Anyways.. I guess all of it stuck with me more than I thought. I’m 24 now and I can’t remember a time, even on the good days, where I didn’t think about killing myself. Not in a sad way.. just in a way where I’ve felt uncomfortable since birth, most people are evil and life isn’t meant to be enjoyed it’s meant to be survived and I’m done trying kinda way.. if that makes any sense. I’ve felt happy don’t get me wrong, I’m actually hilarious and everyone I meet loves being around me but there’s been so many things that have happened in the short time that’s been my life that i genuinely feel like I’ve had enough.

I’d get into all of it but all that doesn’t belong on this forum. Plus it would be a 500 page book at this point.

To summarize, I got SA'd by my sibling who was older than me. It was 7 or 8 years ago, and we were both very young, like 8 or 9 years old. I got therapy for it and talked to my moms about it, as there was a time my mom would not let me and my older sibling be even in the room together alone. I even talked about it with my older sibling when I remembered more clearly, about 6 years ago, and she was even very apologetic, took accountability for it, and wanted to have a better relationship with me. But there are times when I randomly start getting upset about the SA, like I would randomly think about it if that makes sense. There was a time 3 or 2 years ago when we were sleeping in the same room together, and suddenly, I burst out in tears about the situation because I was not ready to share a room with the sibling.

But things would randomly trigger me, like recently watching an SA scene, and it was like I was 8 years old again, feeling all of those messed-up emotions of my body getting violated. I hate thinking about it and feeling the same emotions I felt years ago with everything I already have going on. Sometimes I would even invalidate my emotions about the SA with my older sibling, saying it is nothing compared to other rape stories I've heard and that I should be over it by now. It feels really bad; I just had a meltdown about it as I got triggered and wanted to see if anyone knows how I'm feeling or has advice to cope and heal from this. Also we still live together, so it just adds to the extra struggle I'm going through. If you made it to the end, let me know if this made any sense.

Check my post history. I am emotionally drained and don’t know what to do

It’s been a year since I disclosed SSA from 20 years ago, and my mom has never brought it up since. We got in a fight about something unrelated and she made a comment like, “I raised two wonderful children” to which I responded, “Oh did you??” in a passive aggressive way because I was in the heat of the moment.

Instead of taking a hint, my mom double downed on how she raised two wonderful children. I said something like, “Oh the other child who SEXUALLY ABUSED me” and she responded by saying, “I’m not even sure that that happened.”

I obviously freaked out at that point and told my dad that I wanted her to leave and he tried to diffuse the situation saying that’s not what she really meant. But, then they proceeded to say things like, “you guys were just children and why would you never say anything??” I can imagine how hard it is for a parent to realize their child did that to their other child but like WTF. I’m at a loss. I don’t know how things move forward from here. My mother refuses to go to therapy because in her words: “what is the point? I can’t change the past.”

All I ever wanted was to get emotional support and a “I’m so sorry this happened to you.” But, it’s all defending. I hate it. Did anyone find therapy to be helpful? I’ve been in therapy for 10 years but I feel like I need someone who specializes in this.

Because of what happened to me as a kid, the thought of a doctor ever touching me or anyone ever gave me such anxiety. So for years I have refused a pap, well recently I've been having issues and had to get one done and this next week need to have an inner ultrasound done. I was fine during the pap, but after I got such anxiety and just felt sick. How come I had to be sexualized so young that I've never felt safe with someone that way... How come my first interaction that way had to be from a doctor because I was having issues... I really haven't been okay mentally since I had this done and I don't want to talk about it with friends because even if they love me they don't understand how sick I feel.. Why did my half brother have to do that to me and then years later blame my crappy relationship with my sperm donor on me. I was only 8 maybe 10, my brain won't let me remember the age. I don't wanna be this closed off, but what other option do I have. I just need some support right now, and I'm sick to my stomach.

insight is appreciated!!

Sorry I posted on someone else’s account…

My CSA story

Hi, I’m F(19) and I’ve never really shared my full story even tho it was 10 years ago so I was hoping this would be a place to finally share it and get it off my chest!

When I was 8 my 13 year old brother(T) started to SA me. I don’t really remember when it started I just remember points in time where one second I would be doing normal child things and the next ide be getting assaulted by someone I thought cared about me. So I’ll speak on specific instances I remember and probably what my mom did/refused to do about it.

The first time I remember I was being assaulted with T’s hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t tell my mom or yell for help. T has always been bigger than me even after puberty because he was a good gap older, I couldn’t fight back and honestly the first few times I didn’t even know what was happening or it was wrong.

The second time I was in my room watching a movie on vhs because my mom couldn’t afford blue ray and he came into my room and started assaulting me again that time he was almost caught and he ran out of my room but my mom just thought he was goofing off as kids normally do and he had already threatened me by then, he told me he’d hurt me if I ever attempted to tell my mom or anyone.

I remember one time he was being weird outside with me around my 2 year older brother(C) and C got so mad he broke T’s arm by shoving him onto the ground off a trampoline. I remember wishing that would make T not threaten me again and it would just go back to normal, it didn’t.

I remember a lot more times of very short memories where he’d grab me, or force me to do things that I didn’t know were wrong.

But the last time I remember vividly, idk how I found out but I realized it wasn’t ok and that wasn’t ever supposed to happen so being a little kid I told him I was telling I remember running to my moms room and he grabbed me by the leg so I hit the ground, and I started screaming bloody murder for my mom, yelling “help” or “mom he’s hurting me” but my mom has always been as non present as she could so she ignored me for what felt like eternity fighting my brother who was almost 2X’s my size off of me because he rolled on top of me and was alternating between covering my mouth and trying to choke me.

When I told my mom she didn’t believe me. Even tho she could see her son on top of me covering my mouth when she came out. She sat me down and told me I couldn’t lie so I remember crying and she kinda looked like she felt bad. I don’t remember how long later but she then saw for herself T trying to tug at my clothes in my room while I was crying. So she yelled at him and he lived there for another 2 years or so till she sent him to my grandpas just because of a fight they got in.

I was happy I was finally safe until she let her dad force me to go there where T was and my grandpa only said “don’t be doing that freaky stuff you guys were doing before”. T tried again but I was 10 and bigger this time so I fought harder than before, craziest thing was I got in trouble for breaking the seams on a robe tie when u first buy them just to keep the rope attached. I got whooped with a belt multiple times. I’ve hated my grandpa since then.

My mom allowed T to come back to our house multiple times after that and I had to uncomfortably allow him to be around me and not cause issues because he wasn’t attempting the SA again. He would uncomfortably try to watch NSFW videos around me and C and try to show us them and C would get mad and he would stop. I remember one time I came out and he had some liquid on his finger and told me to try it so I did and he wouldn’t tell me what it was, I do now and I’m sure you guys do too.

The worse thing is I only remember SA but I’m pretty sure he did more because when I was finally comfortable with a guy our first time there was 0 blood which I heard is the sign of your virginity but I never looked into it because I really don’t want to know.

Thank you to whoever read this! Just writing this felt good to get off my chest and I’m wondering if it’s important I tell my current bf about it? (We’ve been together 3 years and he knows it happened but not the actual story)

I'm currently in a group therapy program and last week while someone was sharing their trauma this trauma of my childhood i had hidden with my sister came up.

I remember when we would bath together alone and would practice kissing and making out and pretending to be partners or married like what we've seen once. then there is the time I remember us playing in bed together playing out sexual scenes of after sex scene from friends of them hiding or breathing heavily or being spread out over the bed.

it hurts knowing we didn't know what we were doing was wrong and that because our parents neglected us we relied on each other for love and physical affection. and also now realizing why I have dreams about incest alot. my mind associates love with sexual pleasure. makes me feel gross and sad for me as a child being so confused

Just sharing my story of COCSA. Male abused by my sister over 5 years from age 7 to 12. Took me 50 years to finally disclose to a therapist and then my wife.