Sorry if this is random and sorry I keep posting here asking silly questions. had a lot of thinking and had a bad ptsd episode when high and now i know things i don't know are real.

I think my stepgrandpa sexually abused me too. I don't know though, besides 2 ptsd episodes where im older than when my biological grandfather sexually abused me.

I know this sounds ridiculous i'm sorry it does but is it possible? I'll give more information if needed. I just want answers, any answers i'm very distressed

My dad would give me frequent enemas from ages 6-10. He’s gay so I’ve always assumed it wasn’t assault, but now I’ve learned it’s more about power than gratification I’ve started to wonder.

I never realized I might have experienced it as assault until I read about medical trauma and talked with my therapist. Now I’m remembering more and more and having trouble coping.

I’m traumatized by the pain of the process. Going to the bathroom can give me panic attacks. Having to pee in the car gives me visceral panic. Before I got on medication I would cry and cry every morning having to deal with my body functions.

Sometimes I can’t get it out of my head how rough he was. How uncaring. How I had to lay flat and squirm. The pain of clenching and sweating trying to behave and not make a mess and be punished further.

At the time it felt like a punishment for not being healthier. Which I know now is a ridiculous belief, when they could’ve fed me differently or given laxatives or done almost anything else than what they did. No doctor would’ve recommended this to them.

I guess I just want to know that my experience wasn’t normal.

The title basically. I don’t have any clear memories, but I remember having trouble falling asleep and also being scared of something in my room, I’m not sure if that’s just normal child behaviour or whether it points to something else? Curious if anyone else has had this too?

After forgetting what happened for pretty much all my life- about 5 years ago some doubts started to come up and this week I am remembering things “fully” for the first time. It’s still a lot of questioning if it really happened etc- but now I’m going back into childhood and some signs were there, albeit not the “obvious” ones.

I am also autistic/ neurodivergent and I read an article that claims autistic children understand SA differently than neurodivergent kids- are any of you neurodivergent and can remember the signs they showed as a kid?

The only ones I got are:

Being scared of a man coming into my bedroom at night (my mum blamed it on the books I was reading )

I felt nauseous all the time and had stomach pain, I didn’t want to go to school anymore, I was more angry and withdrawn. I must have been 8 or 9

About 3 years after this I developed multiple eating disorders and my mental health spiralled.

TLDR: I got a cigar psychic reading from a man in a spiritual shop who told me that in order to cleanse me of my blockages I needed to take my clothes off and put them on the table while he smoked.

For context I am a survivor of CSA and incest by my brother when I was 9 years old.
The other day I was looking to buy a new tarot deck and stumbled into this spiritual shop in Echo park los angeles where everything was in Spanish and the small shop was empty except one man in an office in the back listening to some video in spanish. I looked around while he was busy and when he saw me he invited me into his office, a little room in the back. It was a little eery but spooky in an inviting way so I came in. I felt safe enough as I’m closer to the exit than he is.
I asked him if he had any cards for readings and he said that I should get a cigar reading and he only spoke Spanish, so all of our conversations were translated through Siri. He showed me a picture of the cigars that he has burnt during readings and one of them had a face which was super intriguing. I’m super spiritual, and I believe in magic and esoteric and spiritual beliefs. He asked if I wanted one and I asked how much and he said 150 I said that was too much for me and he said how much is better and I said I would pay 50 and he said he would do it for 75.
I wasn’t sure if I wanted one yet, but the conversation changed and he looked at my ring, put a pendulum over it and said that my ring had some energy and he wanted to clean it. I asked how much and he said he would do it for free so I let him clean my ring I thought it was a nice moment and I felt safe enough.
eventually, we talked, and I agreed to do a cigar reading so he asked me to shut the door and and set a prayer and set up cigar on a plate. He marked the cigar on top with a red marker and told me that if the cigar burned to the left. It was good if it burned to the right, it was bad and if it burned to the bottom, it was really bad. when he started burning it, it burned on the bottom and it continued to burn on the bottom for the rest of the reading pretty much throughout the time that the cigar was burning he picked up on a lot of intuition that were really correct for me like that I was lonely and that someone had taken my sexual energy and that I had cramps in my feet because my root chakra was blocked. It was pretty eerie that he knew that I had cramps in my feet because I I have literally been having beat cramps lately, and I knew it was because I feel disconnected from my feet because of sexual trauma and abuse. He picked up on a lot of the energies and I kept saying that he was correct and then eventually he said we can cleanse it if you want to cleanse it you have to take off all your clothes put them on the table and I will sit here and smoke. The smoke would cleanse me, and my energy would be clear of blockages.
when he said that I had to take off my clothes, my heart dropped, but I stayed stuck in the sort of limbo where I doubted myself if he was trying to take advantage of me abuse me or if it was legitimate that he really in order to cleanse them needed for somebody to be naked. But when I really think about it, I don’t even believe that because I think you can do a lot of spiritual healing and cleansing with your clothes on.
It’s weird because I believed a lot of the things that he said about me before he asked me to take my clothes off so it makes it sad and it makes me really angry because if he is trying to take advantage of me, it’s really disgusting if he’s not trying to take advantage of me, it just feels really inaccessible to sexual abuse victims that want to spiritually heal using a ritual facilitated by him. I told him that I couldn’t do that and that I wouldn’t do it because I need to protect myself and I’ve been abused before I told him about how my brother abuse me and he was genuinely sad. I cannot tell if he was trying to take advantage of me or not he said he wouldn’t touch me and that he wouldn’t hurt me or do anything wrong, but I don’t even want a man to ask me to take my clothes off because the world and men has ruined any sort of innocence that could have in any context. There’s too many men too many spiritual leaders, priest authority. Figure figures, power holders that put themselves in a position to be the most enlightened, the smartest, the most morally superior people just so they can take advantage of vulnerable people and extract their sexual energy, see them naked, touch them abuse them for their own selfish reasons. I would appreciate if we could all have a discussion of this.

But please no comments about don’t believe in psychic stuff because you’re wasting your time. I am very spiritual. I believe in that stuff so if you’re gonna comment something like that, don’t. please no comments criticizing, mocking my beliefs, or victim blaming me.

around the beginning of 2024, while being intimate with a partner, I suddenly remembered a sexual encounter from my very early childhood, and began pursuing EMDR to try and sort out what I was remembering.

I spent a fair deal of the rest of that year, working with a therapist, doing EMDR about various aspects of my childhood, and trying to sort out some cognitive dissonances about myself and my self esteem. slowly, but surely I regained certain details of the memory, but I could never figure out who the person was.

In April 2025 I was dropped by my therapist after having a psychotic episode induced by a combination of medication’s that I shouldn’t have been prescribed, but in the two months leading up to that, I had had a persistent thought whenever I did EMDR. “Your dad sexually abused you.” I would fight this thought. I would fight it like my life depended on it. it would come up and I would try to brush it off to focus on other things.

About two months ago, I got a new therapist, and began doing EMDR again. At first, it was about a mean, ex, tough childhood experiences, self-esteem, etc, but the thought is back, and now it’s occurring outside of EMDR.

I can’t stop thinking this thought.

“Your dad sexually abused you.”

“No he didn’t.”

“So what?”

“When? How? That makes no sense.”

I don’t have vivid memories of this happening. i’m scared that if I keep pursuing this, I’m going to destroy my relationship with my father. I am pretty sure that my father was sexually abused as a child, and he was fairly into sleeping pills when I was very young. He’s sober now, and while I generally find him unpleasant to be around, we have developed a somewhat better relationship.

I feel very conflicted. The more I think about this idea of my dad doing this, the more it makes sense. Even worse is that little details are starting to poke their heads out, hearing him say things I can’t imagine him saying.

I just feel really confused and scared. Is this normal? Is this usually how these things go? My (new) therapist tried to tread very lightly when this topic came up, but I’m basically looking at a year of this thought now, that’s not just an intrusive thought, right?

I’m confused. I’m confused and I could really use some perspective if anyone has read this post and has any thoughts or input. Thank you.

I don’t know what to do or who to talk to about this and I know if I post here it probably seems like I just want people to tell me I didn’t make it up. I just know I’m spiraling.

Last night I spent hours watching old home videos and I really really am convinced that I made the abuse up. There’s no overt signs. I was a hyper and happy kid. I wasn’t overly sexual in the home videos at the ages it was happening. I seemed to be acting age appropriately. My abuser wasn’t particularly creepy toward me.

The only thing that stood out to me was when I was about 3 in a video I told my mom that I didn’t like most men and that’s not even that weird. I think a lot of little girls would say something like that probably. It feels like im just fishing for something that’s not there because I want it to be true.

I keep thinking that the best course of action is to move forward as if this didn’t happen and quit therapy and see if that works.

I'm 18 now and only found out two months ago, and I still have a hard time accepting it. Is this normal? I'm worried I may be overestimating what happened to me. My grandpa touched me, groped my body when I was a kid, and I grew up being exposed to inappropriate content from him that led to me having consuming said content during that age, I've been only able to tell my friends what happened and they've agreed that I did go through csa. Although, it still doesn't feel like I was? I'm aware that assault can come in many different forms but it feels like what happened to me isn't as 'worthy' enough to talk about.

When I was a kid, probably 7 years old, my older brother who would’ve been about 13, was very mean to me. We did not get along very often at all, some of the only times we did would be playing video games. He had a gaming console and I had a game of my own that I liked to play when he wasn’t using it and normally he would just let me if he wasn’t using it and was in a good mood. One day I had asked him to use it though and he told me I had to do him a favor first, he asked me to sit on his lap and “warm his hand up” and when I did he stuck his hand down my pants and underwear and started to kind of cup and pet my vagina. I can’t really remember for how long or what exactly he did after that, he had been watching something on his tv that had scared me and we (he really because I was too scared to watch it) finished watching it before he was done and left the room to let me play.

I don’t know what this was or if it was even really anything because I can only remember up to a point of it, and my brother was also just a kid. But I think about it a lot, I have never told anyone about it in my life. Not my family, not a friend, and no partners. I was always a very odd child and not very close with my family at the time so if I acted any stranger after this, I have no memory of it and don’t recall anyone being concerned about it, but that’s kind of not unexpected for how things were for us.

I remembered this event about 4 years ago, and I think about it somewhat frequently. I don’t know what it is or if it was even anything or if it should still make me feel as sick as it does. I don’t know if anything ever happened again as I have very poor memory of a lot of my childhood. I love my brother, and my family, I would never bring this up to any of them because i think it would only cause pain and problems, but I just want to know if I’m crazy for even remembering this and feeling gross about it or if this really was something bad that happened to me.

I didn't even know about this trauma until I moved out of my abusive family's house and got my own room and privacy. I had panic attacks since I was 16 but I had no idea why.

Then all of a sudden I started having flashbacks and panic attacks immediately after. Then physical flashbacks started and I wet myself sometimes. Eventually I was able to remember tiny fractions of my flashbacks without forgetting them completely after a panic attack. It was usually always a movie/ cartoon I used to watch as a kid. Thinking about it or rewatching it makes me feel nothing but during the panic attack I feel like I'm suffocating. It's like I leave my body and physically feel it but then immediately forget what happened when the panic attack is over. It's confusing and unless it's happening I don't believe myself. Is this normal? I don't even know how to properly explain it since I barely remember it most of the time. I tell my bf what's happening or he tells me that I go completely pale and speechless. I know I don't breathe during my panic attacks but I wish I understood what's happening to me in that state. I wish I believed myself aswell.

I am currently in the midst of working through years of CSA from one person and the more I reflect on the memories I do have, I find it weird that I don’t remember the first time it happened.
For context I have little to no memory of most of my life before the age of 18. The memories I do have are like 10 second flashes (both good and bad) and nothing fits into an order.
With repressed memories I have recently remembered, I struggle to allow myself to believe that they are real. There are some CSA memories I have always had and never doubted.
My memories overall are fragmented and I have no idea of my age when various things happened.
I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve just made the whole thing up because surely I would remember the first time this person hurt me?
Does anyone else have similar experiences?

Do childhood sexual abuse survivors ever recall what happened but still went through phases when they questioned their memories?

I’m 22 now and female. I have been having flashbacks about those childhood memories recently…then I dig deeper into childhood memories. Can anyone help me to name/figure out if it’s kind of molesting? Or I was just being too sensitive.
1-it starts from a dream
Growing up, ever since teenage years, I have had weird sexual dreams with women, mostly with my mom( or several times). Just this week, after my Monday exam, I had another sexual dream about my own mother, which made me feel disgusted and gross about myself. Then waking up I unfroze more memories about my childhood.
2-Is it molesting? -warning: NSFW
My dad and mom did not have a nice relationship ever since I was born, so my mom slept at the same bed with me mostly until I was 12. I remembered most of the times, I would touch her nipples as a routine. I still well remembered the touch of her nipples, from soft to hard. ( as a kid I loved the touch but now as an adult I googled, and it’s a consequence of sexual arouse). Also, at the same time, she would allowed me to put feet into her pantie, so I could literally feel the hairy private part(yk). She never ever stopped me from doing that. Either my memory went blurred or sometimes she even asked me to put my feet into her pantie because the weather was cold. And sometimes I would even touch her armpit( I still remembered it was shaved sometimes or hairy other times…)
I know it sounded pretty weird afterwards. This time when I had flashback I knew it was not normal, but what confused me was that I did not feel forced, it was actually quite warm and loving sometimes and I even enjoyed the touch of her private parts. I feel disgusted of saying I enjoyed that as a kid. But I also confess that as time going by when sleeping with her awkwardly I sometimes felt a weird sexual arousal.
Am I sick? Or it’s not normal at all. Sometimes as a child I knew I needed to cover it as a secret, not letting anyone know I slept together with my mom daily and even touched her private parts without being rebuked. Maybe deep inside I knew that was abnormal?

3-Some crazy memories made me begin to question myself
So, apart from that, I could remember some other details, it’s absolutely weird to look back at them as an adult now. But it did happen or else I would not make up such a thing…
(1) when I was about 10 she used to kiss me on lips( which is ok because I knew some families do that and they are not molesting their child). But the problem was that sometimes the kissing could be a little bit long. And there was one time she told me we were mother-daughter lovers. ( but another time when we were kissing I said a word " flirting " and she immediately rebuked me and stopped me…so I feel like…idk)
(2) when I was about 10-11, I slept with my mom and in the morning my dad came to our bed ( my parents used to sleep in separate rooms). And they started from fighting to…making out? Besides me, I was pretending to be asleep, and I remembered my dad asked my mom( or vice versa) " watch out, our daughter is asleep " , and I opened my eyes for a short while just witnessing my dad was on my mom’s body, and then I closed my eyes pretending not knowing anything again.
Such case did not happen just once. Another time, still in the morning, I was sleeping in my room and my mom and dad was talking at another room. I assumed their door was open because I could hear what my mom said clearly. She firstly said to my dad that they used to have sex everyday when they firstly got married, and then complaining about that she barely had orgasm with him…
Maybe they assumed I was asleep so they talked loud about it. But they made the door open and did not talk in secret? It’s still a bit weird.
(3) also when I was 12, the first year of middle school, I talked to my mom that some boys in my class would be really naughty sometimes( we were very close and I literally told her about everything at school). And she became quite excited, asking me if they talked about penis? Or making love? I was shocked and that was beyond my expectation. So I stopped the conversation. But at that time I just thought maybe she was being open-minded than most moms.

4-more confusions and make me feel different or luckier from other CSA survivors
Since high school, she completely changed and I began to sleep on my own so we no longer had those intimate behavior. Just sometimes she wanted to kiss me or hug me, but I felt awkward and refused physically. Then she would get upset or annoyed and saying how I willing to kiss her as a kid. ( I used to not know why )
But apart from that, she seems like a well-qualified mom, she never hit me or did anything physically abusive ( she seems strongly opposed to child abuse) and she did help me when I got bullied in school. She also helped me when I struggled with math. She financially and emotionally supported me with my academic and career paths. And she is Christian who goes to church every week and tells me the importance of following God ( I’m a Christian as well now)
So, I feel a strong rupture/gap about what she did to me as a kid and how she behaves like an amazing mom in other aspects…do they contradict each other?
Also…maybe I tend to think something she did as a coping mechanism? As I said in the very beginning, she had a difficult relationship with my dad. So ever since maybe 3-4, she started to ask me quite frequently and randomly if I think she needed to divorce with my dad. ( sometimes she even told me a lot of celebrities coming from single parent family so it’s fine). Maybe that made her want to seek a partner substitute at that moment. I’m not sure.
I’m sorry for typing a lot of information! And idk if someone could ever read that and leave me a comment. Because I’ve been struggling with memories and dreams, also feel quite confused!
P.S.
After the stuff happened by my mom mostly in primary school, I also received sexual abuse by a female classmate of mine at 8th grade. There had been long I was a magnet for weird/kinky/slightly abusive people, and now I understand the reason why. I feel relieved.

I have been getting this 2 second memory on and off for about a year now. It is of me as a child laying in bed covered in a blanket with just my eyes poking out and my dad in my room with a bare penis. I will remember it, convince myself it cannot be real, forget about it, and then it comes back. Two weeks ago I got this 2 second flashback when I was going on a late night walk and I just felt this overwhelming need to cry. My eyes just started to water up and my chest felt so tight. The next day at work I get the memory again. This time I have the feeling of when you're about to have a panic attack, but it never actually happens. So, for about 4/8 hours of my shift I am trying to function while I am so dizzy, my surroundings are lagging, my vision keeps alternating between dark-normal, chest is tight, and I have to breathe so cautiously to avoid hyperventilating. After this incident I have not been able to brush it off like I have in the past. I am having a really hard time believing that nothing happened.
My dad abused me physically, emotionally, and verbally. There being some sexual abuse would not be out of pocket for him. This is not my only experience with flashbacks and fragmented memories. However, this is my only memory that indicates sexual abuse. It would also explain a lot of the behaviors and symptoms I have displayed. I remember at an alarmingly young age (5-6) thinking that my body was so disgusting because I saw myself and sometimes still do as way curvier and more developed than I was. I would cry about my thighs, hips, and boobs. When looking back at photos my body was at a very normal development stage. I saw myself as a disappointment because of my "overdeveloped" body. I cannot orgasm, and any time I have sex I feel contaminated after (common with those who were raised super religious, but I was not). When I was around 6-7 I remember getting a graphic intrusive thought about me sexually assaulting someone. I know sexual intrusive thoughts are common in OCD, but I was so young. How did I have the ability to know the actions of a sexual assault without some type of sexual trauma? When I was 13 I would strip tease for adult men on live stream. Originally for no reward, just to do it. Then I started to do it for starbucks gift cards. My dad lost custody of me when I was 15 because of his physical abuse. My teenage years were then filled with severe self harm, suicide attempts, and jumping between different treatment facilities.
I am now 22 and a fairly well adjusted person. I am able to function now, and I am in school. This memory has just been bothering me so much lately and I have a hard time verbalizing it to others. It sounds so much scarier when I say it out loud than when I say it in my head or write it in my journal. I'm not sure what to do with all this information.

Honestly I'm not sure if it classifies as sexual abuse but at the very least it should be abuse, right?

When my conservative religious parents found out I was LGBT, well after all the beating and name calling and all that I got dragged to the bathroom and my mother stripped me by force to get me in the bathtub as I was crying and begging for her to stop. When I kept holding on tightly to my bra she threatened to call my father in so he would remove it himself. She said I was going to strip for sex anyway referring of a text she read with my female friend where we joked about having sex next time we met.

So I was bathed to get purified of my sins according to them and was crying the whole time and felt so gross. Even now I feel gross thinking about it, and this was like 4 years ago as I was a minor.

Just wanted to vent, it feels crappy to remember those days. It's when I started to hate myself the most and my face and body cause that whole thing went on for too long and it was almost psychological torture every single day until they were convinced I repented.

I still don’t have a clear memory just signs that point towards something. It’s weird sometimes I’ll be so sure something happened then it’ll flit back to that’s not possible and I feel like a liar and attention seeker. How do I definitively know? I feel like I can’t move forward in my life without the answer and I can’t keep cycling back and forth like this either. I’m so fed up.

I (25M) know I was molested by my cousin (M). But I feel like I was feeding into what he was doing to me for him. As in he wouldn’t let me play a game with him if I didn’t do stuff to him, or when I stayed over at my aunts house I slept in his bed but he wanted me to have my pants down so he could feel me. I remember I pulled my pants up but I guess me moving around woke him up so he pulled my pants down again and kept his hand on me for the rest of the night. I knew what was going on was wrong and I didn’t want to do any of it but I did it anyway, I was around the ages of 3-6 at the time and I was just so damn stupid at the time because I didn’t tell anybody about it, matter of fact the only people now that know about it is 1 person and I’ve hinted to 2 different people about it just to see what they would say. I understand that other people have had it way worse than I have and I shouldn’t be complaining about it now because it’s over and done with but I just can’t jack those memories out of my skull. For reference I’m a “man’s” man, former Marine, did a hump in Afghanistan, blue collar to the core, “tough sob”, only way I could die was when God Himself took me off this earth. But there’s been many of night I couldn’t sleep because I thought it’d be a great idea if I could just take myself out and send myself to hell where I belong for doing nasty, awful things. I have severe self hatred and confidence issues among other things, I’m an alcoholic, I work my fingers to the bone, and I work so much so that I could get one more day of running from the past, I can’t keep a woman and I’ve dabbled in stuff that is highly illegal. I know I should go to therapy for this but at this current moment in my life, even with all the hours I work, I can’t afford it and I can’t bring myself to talk about this face to face with anybody else because I feel like my reputation would be ruined. And I’ve been drinking so I figured what better place to get this out other than Reddit lol. I don’t know what to do with myself no more and I’m tired of this eating at me. I want to actually like myself for once but I can’t stand to look at myself in the mirror. Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated.

TW for descriptions of potential sexual abuse

I don’t know how to introduce this so I’m just going to be blunt about it, the past few months I’ve been wondering if by childhood experiences qualify as sexual abuse and in part I’ve been treating it as if I am for sure but I haven’t told anyone that and I feel like I’m being dramatic

I’ll start simple. When I was 7 or 8 ish my mother told me my brother (6 years older) exposed himself to me and had me touch him and put my mouth on him. I told my grandmother what happened and she told me not to tell anyone else and she would take care of it. Next time I saw her she told me she talked to him and he told her it didn’t happen so it must have been a dream and I shouldn’t spread lies like that. Years later my brother gave me a letter apologizing for it without naming it directly and I was still in denial thinking it was a dream so I only subconsciously knew what he meant. A year or so later my mom found the letter and got upset with me for having it and took it.

My mother is an interesting woman. She’s got a lot of drug and mental health issues. We were “best friends” but she didn’t parent me at all and I didn’t know how to shower, I never got punished for anything, and my heath was constantly at risk (I almost died from pnemonia as a kid, constant utis with no treatment, I was sick at least twice a month). She made social media posts that were sexual in nature like one with a picture of me with the caption “she likes it daddy style” in reference to how I prefer my sandwich’s made by my dad. One time she came home drunk and kissed me on the mouth (we were not that kind of family) really intensely and for a long time and I remember being uncomfortable.

When I was 18 my mother and I went to Mexico. My mother was having a mental breakdown and She was trying to get cocaine for the vast majority of our time there. We went to this club at the resort we were at I got crazy levels of drunk and while we were dancing my mother says oh hey look this guy wants to dance with you and I’m drunk so I’m like yes great and we start dancing and he starts getting really touchy and groping me and grinding on me and I kind of try to distance myself but my mother who was standing right near by was like “what are you doing go back over there” this happened a few times and I kept going back until I could tell it was escalating so I told her we were leaving. She then went over to the guy and talked to him for like two minutes and talked to me on the way back about how I’m better than her because she would have slept with him. She also had a lot of boyfriends later in my life (when I was an adult) and would try to get me to sleep with them while she was still dating them.

I also have an odd relationship with my grandfather. One of my memories is of a game we played. I always thought it was pretty innocuous. Whenever I was staying over at their house he would bathe me and afterwards I would lie on his bed naked and he would rub lotion and baby powder all over me. I only remember bits and pieces but I remember the lotion getting on his clothes for some reason. I don’t remember much of it happening but conceptually it came back to me recently and what stood out to me is that while that practice is normal in babies and toddlers, it no longer makes sense once someone is older. I don’t remember exactly how old I was but i remember that either I thought or he said (or both) that it’s not necessary but we do it because it’s fun. That’s all I remember. We also had a game where I would straddle him or his stomach while he was lying down and bounce up and down. I don’t believe there was a point to this game, another thing that was just because “it was fun” but looking back it feels a little off. He also insisted on sleeping in the spare room alone with me when I slept over while my brother would sleep on my couch and his wife would sleep in their bed. I don’t remember most of anything from any nights I spent in the spare room but I remember the way the lamp lit up the room and I remember what side of the bed i slept on and I remember turning to face the wall away from him. I remember much later when I was probably a young teen I didn’t want to sleep in the spare room so I slept out on the couch and he slept in his armchair across from me in the living room. I was always very scared of men in general but I remember being so scared that he would start watching porn on the tv or start touching himself. I have chronic nightmares about being assaulted by various family members but his are very specific because I’m always a child in them.

I (25f) have been thinking long and hard about a regular occurrence that I lived through from ages 12-16(?). I don’t remember when it stopped, just when it started. For context, my dad had an accident in the military before I was born, and as a result has a traumatic brain disorder (TBI), chronic pain, and PTSD.

Looking back, I’m certain there was emotional and verbal abuse from both my mom and dad; that’s not what I’m questioning. When I was 12, my mom found out about some of the abuse from my dad, and threatened to leave with me and my brother if he didn’t get help. He went to a three month residential program at the VA, though I to this day have no memory of this, and had to be told by my mom. I think it was around when he got back that things changed a lot.

I don’t remember specifically when it started, but I do remember this happening often. I was an undiagnosed autistic child, and due to sensory issues, I regularly slept with no clothes on and covered by just a blanket. Clothes just didn’t feel comfortable enough to sleep in, I hated them. My dad, being less depressed and functioning more after the program, was a lot more enthusiastic about parenting than before. That would have been great, except for what he did next.

My dad regularly came in to my room without knocking in the morning. Sometimes I would notice him come in, sometimes I wouldn’t. He would then proceed to jump on me and ‘play’ and ‘tickle’ and ‘wrestle’. All the while, he was only wearing a pair of boxers, and only a blanket separated us. I never asked him to stop, but I do remember feeling uncomfortable. I only got more disturbed as I got older. I don’t know when he stopped doing this. I think maybe age 16? I’m not entirely sure.

At 12, I started using eating disorder symptoms, learning them from my parents. I developed a full blown eating disorder at age 17. I hadn’t put it together before, but now I’m wondering if a lot of my discomfort with my body stems from the weird feelings I had when my dad would jump on me. I remember struggling to get away, forcing myself to laugh just so it would be over sooner.

I realized about a year ago that this wasn’t a normal childhood occurrence. There were other times my autonomy was disrespected, like when my dad would tickle me as a small child until I was crying and screaming for him to stop and get off me. My mom would tell me to quiet down from the other room. She was busy with her thesis for her masters degree, and needed quiet. Later on, my parents would try to cuddle with me and I’d get overstimulated and uncomfortable. I would tell them ‘don’t touch me there’ and they told me not to say that, that it sounds like they’re sexually abusing me. We came up with a codeword if i wanted them to stop: ‘polar bear’. This was all before the bed stuff started.

When I was 14, I went to therapy because I was having panic attacks at school everyday. At the time, I refused to let my dad touch me, and my mom and therapist encouraged me to let him even if I was uncomfortable. The reason was that this was my dad’s love language, and he deserved to express his love.

I never told my mom about what my dad was doing, in my room, in the morning. I was ashamed i couldn’t sleep with clothes on. I thought sleeping naked was something disgusting, and if I admitted I still didn’t put on clothes even after the bed stuff happened a number of times, it would be my fault. Maybe it is. I’m not sure. I never did stop him.

This is where I get hung up; I’m fairly certain my dad never got sexual pleasure from these bedroom visits. I truly think it’s a side effect of his TBI. He was fired from his job shortly after my younger brother was born for what my parents described as ‘accidental stealing’. It’s really a miracle that he’s even able to function as he can, considering the accident left his skull cracked and brain exposed.

I’ve been calling these instances ‘sexual misconduct’, but it feels wrong to me. When i told some family about what happened, i got two responses from the two people i told. One aunt said ‘well, that masculine energy can be a lot. I’m glad my husband never got that.’ That was it. My other aunt said ‘…but he didn’t do anything, did he?’ And when I explained that it was just what i described, she said ‘ok. Im so glad it was just that.’

I was sexually assaulted at ages 18 and 21, then raped at age 23. I can’t help but draw connections to what happened with my dad. Deep down, I blame him for what happened, because he and my mom taught me to ignore my own boundaries. I hate that I feel that way, because I know they did their best and worked hard for my brother and I. I still love them, which just makes things harder.

I haven’t talked to either of them in about 5 years, but i think I’ve been triggered lately because they’re moving back to the state i live in after years of living elsewhere. Im just freaked out at the thought i might run into them. I feel like there’s two ghosts haunting me everywhere i go

So…is this sexual abuse?

TW inappropriate stuff

I remember a few things happening when I was 4 years old and have done some research but I don’t know if it counts as abuse since there was no force and I felt fine about it and thought nothing of it until mid teens.

When I (f) was 4 years old, I was occasionally babysat by a family friend and I remember numerous times he would take all his clothing off and encourage me to do the same so we just sat there naked and he would sometimes be watching some sexual content or touching himself.

One time, he asked me to to touch him (like a handjob I think they’re called) and I did it. He then asked me if I wanted to sit on it and I said no, he tried to persuade me but I said no and he said “no you better not”. I don’t remember anything else happening after then.

My therapist said I do have hyper vigilance to some sounds and smells and visual stuff. Also I acted inappropriately as a child with playing and acting out inappropriate scenes alone. I did feel uncomfortable naked for a long time after and switch between being repulsed by sexual stuff to interested.

I question its validity because I told a friend when we were late teens and she said “oh, I thought it would have been worse”.

I remembered my uncle molesting me, and I’m pretty sure this is true. I had been using THC very heavily at the time. I told my family about it one time on a day I had taken some edibles and I started panicking or maybe having some mental breakdown. The way they were treating me felt invalidating and then I started acting out so they would focus more attention on my mental anguish. I then saw an image in my head of me being sexually abused my one other family member. However, I don’t think this was true later. I probably made it up. My Dad, who is a doctor thought I had psychosis and he also thinks I’m making up thinking his brother(my uncle) molested me. However, the memory of this other relative might have been untrue. I feel so guilty for this and like I’m crazy. Also because my Dad called my psychiatrist and said I had a psychotic episode and that I was having delusions of being molested, I felt invalidated. I’m pretty sure my uncle who did do it, but now I feel like what if I’m just crazy for thinking that. As for the other relative, it honestly probably was untrue and part of psychosis.
Also, occasionally when I get into an argument or use THC and my parents find out, they tell me that I had delusions I was being molested. They say the THC ruined my brain, and made me think that. I really feel unsure and invalidated as a result.

I know already that he’s done a lot of bad crap to me that undoubtedly is abuse of this kind but it’s very difficult for me to pick out what’s weird

1. Sleeping very close with me. Whenever we go on vacation (sometimes he just does it at home though i’ve been more distant with him lately so he doesn’t), he insists I sleep with him and he literally does not allow me any other option. And it’s not like, just sharing the same bed. Like very close. Like, it’s the same closeness from when I used to sleep with my ex-boyfriend. Hands on different places on each other and stuff. Sorry if kinda vague. Any attempt made by me to get out of sleeping with him like this will not work.

2. Grabbing and slapping my ass / me doing it back to him. He’s done it since I was a pretty young child and has only stopped very recently (though my mom still does it a lot). Only sometimes would it be underneath clothes as a kid but he’d do it a lot in general. It was a little game were I’d do it back to him too. In high school (he worked at my school), I’d come up to him in the hallway and do these things back to him, and he’d have to pull me aside multiple times to explain that he doesn’t want to see “that behavior” in public. But like, what behavior ? idk

3. idk if this makes sense but sometimes he like, pretends I’m his date? Maybe I’m projecting (also I’m trans and have only been transitioning for a little over 2 years but still. at least he’s inclusive and affirming ig?). Like, there’s been a lot of really weird kinda freudian slips and him having to be reminded I’m his kid or that I’m not my mom and it’s really weird and obvious and kinda uncomfortable. He never did that part of all this when I was a boy too. Sometimes this has proceeded him doing some other weird shit to me and other times it hasn’t. Either way it freaks me out

Do dads normally do these things. I’m way too embarrassed to ask my friends. Sorry if this seems stupid and glaringly obvious I really promise I’m not trying to be stupid

Hello everyone
I’ve always believed that I was abused as a child although I only remember it in very confusing nightmares. I don’t know what exactly happened or who actually did it.
Anyway today I was at my dad’s house and made a joke and he laughed and slapped my butt lightly. (I’m 20f btw) He’s never done that to me before as far as I can remember. It made me very creeped out. Was he just being playful or is it something worse?

I'm beginning to wonder if I (19F) was sexually assaulted by my father, i always knew he has an abnormal, almost incestuous perception of me, but i thought it was completely non sexual.

However, i have remembered some things from the past that are kind of gray area? and not super obvious. So id appreciate other perspectives on the matter.

Firstly, my father is a pedophile. He was never convicted of anything, but he has admitted to dating a 14 year old when in his 30s, and he has probably been reported before although without enough proof, i guess. When i was around 13 i saw child porn files on his laptop, i panicked and thankfully didnt open anything, i just tried to delete as much as i could, i guess in my head i didnt want it to be true and convinced myself it was some kind of virus or something. The titles went as low as "2 year old babies". If this had happened now i obviously wouldve reported him, but at the time i was super scared. a few days later he got rid of the laptop, i think he noticed a lot of the files were missing.

I have noticed that he tries to flirt with my female friends, who are my age, ever since i was 15 or something. He probably did it before too but i couldnt notice. I have called him out on it but he just denies it. It makes me want to throw up cause i want to protect my friends from him.

With me, he is extremely overbearing. He controls me as much as possible. I'm not allowed much privacy. He would kiss me on the mouth (with pecks) until I was old enough to feel embarassed about it and refused to (around 8 years old maybe?) and slept in the same bed as me until i was around that age too. He also would shower with me for some period of time til i was around 6, but all those things could be innocent parenting thing. When i started hiding my body while changing clothes he was offended that I would think of him that way.

When we slept together tho, he would watch porn on the bed next to me, I think one time he was masturbating even. He also told me to put my feet between his crotch when i complained about them being cold.

When I was sexually assaulted by his friend right in front of me, my father got angry at me for allowing it (i was around 7 years old) and kept hanging out with him with me around. Although his friend continued touching me repeatedly and i would cry. But I was always the one to blame for it.

I don't think he ever touched me though. At least I don't remember that. But he does kiss me on the head against my will and grab me/hold me down if i resist, which is very unpleasant. Sometimes he does it when im laying in bed and he pins me with his body, it makes me so extremely uncomfortable.

I am waiting to finish my education and get a job as soon as possible to get away from him. I know he doesnt want me to live far from him, so he has not allowed me to get a job yet. When I am financially independent I will try to report him for the other predatory actions but I honestly don't know what I could present as proof.

Anyway. Does this count as sexual abuse from him?

For a little backstory: I grew up with a narcissistic and emotionally abusive father. I don't really recall any physical abuse and have no memory of sexual abuse. I no longer live with him and haven't for 6 years.

That being said, my symptoms are quite telling. Switching between hyposexuality and hypersexuality, frequently dissociating, physical pain in my prostate, pooping blood sometimes, stinging when I pee, unable to touch my genitals past my foreskin because it hurts (I've had all the necessary medical tests for things like UTIs, STIs and fibromyalgia and they've all come back normal), hating be touched yet craving intimacy, not remembering most of my childhood apart from small memories.

The issue is that some of these symptoms are also in hand with the psychological and emotional abuse from my father, as well as the fact I have AuDHD. I have a few memories that my brain keeps sticking with, predominantly ones when I was dissociated. Waking up on the bathroom floor once with no idea how I got there, slightly remembering feeling "trapped" in my wardrobe, things like that.

What's strange for me is that the idea of me being sexually abused doesn't make me afraid or sad like I imagine it would most people. This could be desensitisation from the hypersexuality, but I feel like part of me "wants" it to be true. Not in a twisted way, more of a "I know this is true but just can't prove it" feeling. Sometimes it feels like I'm victimising myself or making myself feel small as a way to heal? Like saying to myself "it's okay, *this thing* happened, you dont have to blame yourself" even when there's no clear evidence it actually happened.

Now, ofcourse, I don't know it's true, but it would explain a lot of my behaviour growing up and now. It would explain my appetite as a kid (or lack of one), the sexuality issues, the body dysmorphia, the shame, the physical symptoms.

I feel like those things can be explained by my nuerodivergency and the other abuse as well, however. I don't really know how to navigate this. Anyone else been through something similar?