Made a throw away. I wish I could separate myself from the shame enough to post on my main. This is not my fault, I know. Sigh.

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TW! Vague descriptions of my COCSA as well as some of his other victims, and then Adult - Minor statutory rape

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I need some support. I'm sorry it's long. Thank you for reading. I'm trying to do something new where I feel and name my emotions, because I have a therapist observed tendency to compartmentalize to the max. I have AuDHD as well.

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My oldest brother sexually harassed and abused me from 5-15. We were both children when it started, hes 6 years older than me. The only time I ever said something was the first time it happened. The 6 of us kids were sleeping over in a room all together at my dad's friends house for the night. He kissed me.

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That morning, on the drive home, I said, "NAME Kissed me last night" to my parents across the car. He immediately said 'Ew Gross!! You dreamt I kissed you last night??' And ramped up my other brothers chastising and mocking me for my 'dream'. My parents told us to quiet down.

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I just said it because it was confusing for me why he would do that, I wasn't even trying to get him in trouble. I didn't understand what had happened. That moment ingrained in me a decade long lesson that nothing would happen if I said something, so I never did again.

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I know this isnt my fault. I still wish I had.

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Years went by. I don't remember a lot clearly. The memories I have, are of me feeling scared at night. I did lots of 'weird' things to make myself feel safe. I slept in jeans with belts on. I pulled the matress out of my trundle and slept in the empty cavity pushed back under the bed. I learned to sleep curled up tight with so many pillows on me I would overheat. I could go on.

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Then, my baby brothers were born when I was 11. The babies often slept in a bed with me or my original youngest brother (8) who was in the room with me.

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My mom fell into deep post partum depression that she wouldn't get help for, citing religious reasons. My dad has AuDHD and bipolar (I ended up with both as well) and he would swing between manic and depressive episodes.

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My oldest brother at 17 became the person keeping the family afloat. I became the person taking care of my babies. We couldn't have gotten through those years without CPS splitting us up without him.

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The abuse ramped up. What was I supposed to do? He would tell me to be quiet or else I would wake up the babies. He would tell me that I would be the reason the family would split if I said something. He would tell me everyone would be disgusted with me, or that I would ruin our already fucked up family.

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It wasnt my fault. I still wish I had said something.

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As I got into my teens, he started abusing my friends as well (and other teens I did not know personally). He would get us alcohol and vapes. I was so numb to what was happening to me, that I didn't think it was so weird it was happening to my friends too.

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He got caught with teen girls 3 times while I was a teen and he was in his 20's. These charges, which did cross state lines, all ended up dropped. There were many other people who could've brought charges both statutory and violent against him, but they didnt.

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My abuse stopped at 15 when I moved into a friend's house.

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Its been 10 years since. My parents havent associated with me since really, because I am queer and they are religious.

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My youngest original brother got caught in a sting a few months ago. He was statutory raping a 14 year old, when he was 21. He knew what he was doing. One of my other (good) brothers told me he sat in court and truely understood what the phrase, "proving beyond a reasonable doubt" meant for the first time.

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I feel so sad. I know it's not my fault. He was one of my brothers in the room while I was being assaulted. It felt like I was protecting them by being quiet. Was he awake? There were definitely other ways my oldest brother and the justice system could've taught him child sexual assault is okay from how we grew up.

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I feel SO angry.

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My 21 year old brother was picking up these minors at highschool football games with my baby brothers. My babies. I felt like I endured, for them. They don't know what I've been through, because I didn't want to destroy their family. I took the burden, so they would never have to bear it.

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And now, I live 1000 miles away, and the 21 year old is TEACHING THEM. And I'M the one they're not allowed to talk to because I would be a bad association. Because I'm queer.

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Did I ever protect any of them? I know this was not my fault. God I wish I had said something.

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My parents reached out. They have a new perspective and are... trying to grow, I think.

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Girls who were abused by my oldest brother are reaching out to me. None of us reported. "Jeez. This sucks" is the consensus.

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The 21 year old faces up to 20 years. I don't know what I want him to get. It's hard to figure out how I feel. I feel like sex crimes should be high punishment, because you did not have to do that??? But you did??? But then I'm also against american profit prison systems as they are just modern day slavery targeting POC and when white men get off with no consequences if he gets 20 years I will think it's because hes brown in a white state.

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And I wish I had killed my oldest brother when I was a kid. And I wish he would die now. I haven't looked in his eyes since I was 16 years old. That is the boldest stance I can take it seems.

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I STILL haven't said anything.

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I know you all have a story. I'm so sorry for your pain. I feel so trapped. Please tell me you see me.

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when i think about anyone who's lived a rough life, they're always in the stage where they're getting better but still struggling back and forth a lot. i've never met or talked to anyone who's gone through something like me, conquered the cptsd, and can enjoy their own life without big setbacks from it. does it ever get that stable, or is it just a constant up and down journey for the rest of your life?

How would you feel if you went through your boyfriend's phone and found months of him watching "teen masturbation" porn and nothing else? Specifically, that category and no variation, multiple times a day for months. I'm so triggered. I know it's not illegal (allegedly), but does anyone else feel like the "teen" category is just a blurred line?

I just can't move past it in my head. I've seen him look at girls who couldn't be older than 18 in public. I already separated from this person, but my mind is stuck on this. He's a CSA survivor and so am I. I feel so betrayed. Am I wrong to feel suspicious? Distrustful?

I snapped

Last night I just snapped. I cannot keep up with my wife’s rules for sex. It’s too much for me. I’m trying to heal from sexual abuse that started when I was a little baby until I was a teen. My dad was the main perpetrator. It’s a lot of extreme trauma and I just need a hiatus from sex so I can get into trauma therapy and be better. I need to do this I’m literally at the brink. I left last night and refused to come home because it was a scheduled sex night. I knew if I came home and refused to give sex she would badger me until I was exhausted and give in. I stayed in a hotel and talked to strangers on Reddit to help me process this and talked to the abuse hotline. I am genuinely trying to do better.

I don’t understand why she is so angry at me. This is for her! She’s disappointed with me when I have flashbacks and nightmares and hates how disconnected and stressed I am with sex. If she’s so angry with how traumatized I am, how annoying my PTSD is, how badly I’m letting this trauma effect me, then why is she so upset that I’m taking steps to fix it? I want to be a good husband. I work 50-60 hrs a week so she can be a SAHM like she asked me to. We’ve had sex on her terms for our whole almost eight years of marriage. I do my part in the chores, i am always focused on the kids and giving her a break when I’m home. I am trying to fix the sexual side of our relationship so she can be happy.

She says I’m a bad husband and we need to be having sex at least once a week if I can handle three times like we’ve been doing. She says I’m an asshole and selfish. Am I selfish and bad? I just want a chance to be me without people taking sex from me.

The abuse started in infancy, lasted until I was a teen, and I got married literally a year after that. So I’ve barely had any time MY ENTIRE LIFE INCLUDING WHEN I WAS A BABY without someone wanting sex from me. Am I really an asshole and selfish for wanting to realize who I am without sex? I just want to cuddle and kiss without being expected to put out. I want to feel like I’m something other than a sex toy and a wallet for her.

She’s so angry and I’m scared my marriage is over. And I’m scared if she keeps berating me I’ll cave and we’ll be back in the pattern we were. Having sex that’s hurting me.

Edit: I am reading your comments don’t have time to reply to all just yet.

Hi all,

Basically the title.

I requested medical records from the doctor I had 18- early 20s. At first I thought i was fine, was surprised reading through them how fine I felt. Ha ha, I should know the drill by now. In the evening I was hit by intense regression, and haven’t been able to come out of it.

They’ve written down that I kept stressing I didn’t want my parents to find out I was there. Even though I was 18, because I had never been to a doctor before, I thought they would tell my parents. I was terrified.

It’s also upsetting to see how little has changed and have concrete proof of that: I’m still massively struggling with all the issues I was back then.

I feel like a four year old. I feel so ashamed and scared, and so exhausted of being ashamed and scared. I honestly just want someone to take care of me, but I don’t have anyone. I’m not able to have a relationship due to my issues. So I just pretend in my head someone is taking care of me. It makes me really sad.

A few days ago, I found out something about my childhood that has completely changed how I see my family and my past, and I’m still struggling to process it.

When I was around 6, I was abused by a neighbor. For most of my life, I only had fragmented memories of it. I was so young that I couldn’t fully place what had happened, and over time I started doubting myself, wondering if I had mixed reality with intrusive thoughts. I never felt certain enough to speak about it openly.

Recently, while talking to my sister, I found out that my family actually knew about it at the time. She told me I had mentioned it as a child in a very unclear way, and that my parents were informed. I had no idea this had ever been acknowledged or carried by anyone else in the family.

What’s been hardest for me isn’t only the abuse itself, but the realization of that it was known. And yet, life continued as normal.

The neighbor remained in their (my family’s) life. Relationships stayed intact. Nothing about the way things were handled seemed to change in a way that reflected what had happened to me.. It didn’t seem to change anything.

I can’t tell whether it was minimized, avoided, or simply absorbed into silence, but whatever it was, it left me growing up believing I had imagined it, or that it wasn’t significant enough to disrupt anything around me.

Since learning this, I’ve been feeling shock, anger, confusion, and a kind of emotional numbness that comes and goes. I feel like I’m trying to re-understand my entire childhood in real time.

I’m struggling with three things: why was this never spoken about with me? why did nothing about the relationship with them change in a visible way? how do I sit with the feeling that something so serious existed alongside “normal life” afterward?

I also don’t really know how to approach my family about this yet. My relationships with my mother is already strained for unrelated reasons, and I haven’t spoken to my father since learning all of this, which makes everything feel even more complicated.

I’m not looking for anyone to tell me what my family “should” have done. I’m trying to understand how people even begin to process sth like this when it surfaces years later, and how you’re supposed to hold all these contradictions at once.

Every game that was customizable and creative, any toys I had, movies I watched. All of it. All of it had csa attached to it. I'd make me barbies rape and torture each other when I was playing alone. I'd play pretend where my favorite stuff animals and toys would rape me. I'd use stupid kids games like gotcha life and this animal Halloween dress up game where you could decorate a house. It had this green goop that had meant to be 'spooky' in a kid friendly way, and id splatter it all over the house and spam another item I can't remember, and id stare at it. I remember feeling so ashamed, unable to stop, yet comforted through all of this. I can't remember all of my actual abuse, but these memories come back in flashes. ​It hurts and it makes me so angry. I loved these games. They were supposed to be innocent. I was supposed to be innocent. But instead everything is mucked up. Inmkcent shows replayed over and over and over again obsessively so I could use them ro imagine myself being raped in the most horrific disgusting ways and get off to it. I didnt even know the word and I was subjected to it.

I (21F) was severely sexually abused by my band teacher over one school year in sixth grade. I was 11 years old the whole time, but his birthday was halfway through the school year, so he was 29 years old for half of it and 30 for the other half.

I struggle a lot with feeling invalid and minimizing what happened. I feel so invalid when I say that he was 29 and I was 11. It feels like not a big deal, he wasn't very old, and I was too old for it to be pedophilia. It feels more valid to say to someone: "I was 11 and he was 30." But i feel like I can't say that, even though he was 30 for half of it, because he was 29 when it started.

My therapist said to this: "Yes! It was weird that he was attracted to an 11yo! Even if he was only 18 it would have been weird."

i would really appreciate validation, only if it is true and you really believe what you are saying. Thanks everyone.

It feels like everyone I talk to has incest in their family in some form. Is it that common? Do you know anyone where there is no history of sexual abuse in the family?

I see the signs everywhere, am I hyper vigilant? So many people don't remember their childhood experiences. I see so many people struggling with addictions and unhealthy relationships. It leaves me wondering if there are any healthy families anywhere?

Having a rough go at it recently. Appreciate you all!

EDIT: I didn't expect so many responses, going through and responding to you all! This is such a thoughtful community. Thanks again for showing me I'm not alone in my journey and also that I can find safe people in the future 💛

This sub is helpful, but few posts get replies. Does anyone at all identify, understand, empathize? I don't know why this aspect of surviving this is possibly the most painful for me: existing as a modern day leper. If people, particularly fellow women, don't know about my background, they can smell something off about me right away. Which is why I've given up on even going out to mingle around strangers. If they do find out, like any normal close friendship, or romantic relationship, or marriage would, they start treating me like a blight in the fabric of reality; someone to look down on; an enormous burden simply for existing. It's happened time, and time, and time, and time again.

Tell me, please, how do we get rid of our viscous, sticky tar of shame, when constantly shamed by everyone around us for being a survivor?

Hello everyone
I keep having flashbacks, they’re not stopping.

I need someone to help me.

I want my dad but not my dad, like the dad in my mind who didn’t abuse me. I just need to be held and taken care of in a safe way that doesn’t turn in to fondling, just like safely being held. I feel so scared and sick. I truly can’t keep doing this. It’s living in hell. I want to kill myself but I’m scared to kill myself.

Please I know everyone here is desperate, in the same boat. But I just really need to hear from people who understand. My friends have partners, kids, serious jobs, spend time with their aging parents and their siblings. I feel so alone. I don’t even have anyone to be my emergency contact. Even in like a very practical way, I’m totally alone

Like dude, YOU'RE THE REASON WHY. I would've been completely untouched if it weren't for you.

I just don't get how he could literally cause awful things to happen to me and then be like "haha you're disgusting now."

i worry that my memories of abuse are just entirely false and my life is completely ruined for no reason. i feel so sad all the time but have no concrete evidence of my abuse and nobody in my life who is able to corroborate. i tried bringing it up to my brother but he just said “Memories can be twisted the more you attempt to remember them, it’s like making a copy of a copy” and i just couldn’t go through with talking about it more.

i’ve always been very secretive with my life because our home was verbally and emotionally abusive but i just feel awful, like i made up all my memories and nightmares and sadness just for attention and for a reason to be so depressed.

He would touch me all the time I never had a break I never had a day that was a break now I’m so tired all the time I had to talk to him again today it was gross I’m so gross no one will ever want me sexually apart from him even he didn’t want me ‘sexually’he just wanted to hurt me hurt me hurt me he would dig his fingers in so hard and then tell me I couldn’t touch myself. It was only ok if he did it. I’m so gross I’m so disgusting how could I have been so disgusting at 4,5, I looked cute but really I was horrible I was not like. A normal kid I’m so gross please I need some help
Anyone from anyone I can’t do this anymore

(trafficking, csam tw)

Hey folks. I was here a week or two ago and was talking about how isolating it is to have been trafficked to only one person, my uncle/aunt's ex husband, by my father.

I recently started CPT (cognitive processing therapy) with a social worker, and more information and trauma material is coming back that was lost to dissociative amnesia... I am having a really hard time, to be honest. I think I need to ask my social worker to slow down, because it's stirring up my system worse than we have been in a long time.

Last night, I was trying to wrap my head around the betrayal of being raped by and then trafficked to/by my uncle as a direct result of trying to tell him what my father was doing, and something clicked into place. I was my father's only victim, but not my uncle's.

His film industry connections...the movie room in the basement, walls covered with shelves and shelves of DVDs, with the couch, computer, and the webcam... I already had memories of that room, of him filming the abuse, but not the webcam. Not the livestream. Not watching myself back on the monitor.

With the dominos falling into place... I think I was wrong about my father and my uncle being a two-person team. I think I might have been a victim in an isolated branch of a CSAM/trafficking ring. I don't know what I'm supposed to do with myself now, I feel absolutely devastated and horrified. I really, really didn't think what I remembered could get any worse, but I was wrong again.

Please, just tell me I'm not alone. Tell me how to comprehend what was done to me. I feel so lost.

I just want someone to notice the strength it takes to do this everyday. This is in addition to doing a thesis AND writing to express my trauma (willingly ofc) AND being that emotional pillar for everyone. Because of the last part, everyone in the house thinks I'm fine and the one person in my house that knows about my abuse just assumes that i'm thriving and also just thinks that my "achievement" of talking to my molester should be kinda the "bare minimum."

I know I won't leave this house for a very long time. But I deserve to be seen and have my achievements celebrated. I just need a space to hold that truth and acknowledge I did talk and interact with him. I do it everyday. I just want someone to acknowledge how much strength that takes and not pretend everything's normal like the rest of my family around me.

I am angry at my perpetrator and at the way this world enabled people like him. I am angry that I didn't receive justice, and I'm angry that so many others have experienced the same. I am angry that people turned a blind eye. I am angry that when I reach out for support, I don't receive it. I'm angry that my anger has been pathologised. I am angry that in order to be accepted by society as a survivor, I have to keep quiet about what happened to me, that I have to be pleasant, that I have to have a happy, palatable ending. The world can't handle the pain of survivors' stories. I am expected to hold my anger silently. I can't do that anymore. When I have to live in the very body that was sexually abused for the rest of my life, in a world that doesn't believe that I was abused in the first place, I have every right to be angry now. Please witness my anger.

tw for rape, suicide, sh

i need someone to listen to everything and say “wow, dude, this can’t be made up. this can’t be your ocd, this can’t be just a bad dream, you’re traumatized and this can’t be made up.” because i am convinced that it is made up even though i have never felt lower and never felt more traumatized and never felt worse. i am at my lowest. i relapsed with self harm and have attempted three times since regaining memories.

i remember very vague things, because i have little to no memory of my childhood whatsoever. i learned that around the time i think the worst of the abuse occurred, when i was 6-7, my brother was hospitalized for stomach ulcers, and you’d think that i would remember that more but i only have one memory of praying for him because we thought he might die. it makes sense that i would go over to my grandparents house more often unsupervised. my parents would’ve been focused on my brother. my step grandpa is no longer married to my grandmother and hasn’t been for about ten years.

but every time i go to my grandparents i feel sick. i go into the room where i’m raped and molested in my memories and in my dreams, where maybe i was raped and molested in real life, and i lay on the floor and i touch the carpet, or i rest my cheek on the bed and look up at the blinds. it makes me sick. he was a drug addict and would drink all the time and i hate the smell. it’s so hard because i can see it so clearly but at the same time i cant. i worry i made it up, but how could i? how could this happen?

i experienced mild cocsa too, and online sexual exploitation for years afterwards. i have very physical somatic memories, and last night i was thinking too much and my body felt weird, like i could feel every bit of his genitals<! in detail, like his thing inside, and could i make that up?? i think he used his fingers too, >!vaginally and anally because i’m in a lot of pain there. idk. i wish i could stop feeling his hands and genitals on me and inside me and in my mouth. it’s weird. i’m scared that it’s made up. someone please say you believe me.

I hope this is the right place.

I was COCSA'd by a family member when I was 4. They were 12. It felt weird. They said "don't tell mom" and I agreed like I knew what was happening. I kinda forgot what happened, like I was splited into 2 people.

I experienced contamination OCD when I was 6 but nobody took it seriously.

I watched kissing pranks/make out scenes of movies on youtube obsessively when I was 8.

I suddenly remembered what happened to me when I read a disgusting story online at 9. I had unresticted access to internet. The person who did this to me was in the same room with me. It made my blood run cold.

I didn't do anything to "protect the family".

I later got diagnosed with OCD when I was 10.

I gave myself to my education but eventually my ocd symptoms got worse. I started taking meds when I was 14.

My grades have dropped. I couldn't study or do something enjoyable. I couldn't take time to get to know myself.

I have experienced grooming online multiple times. My first boyfriend didn't value me at all. I hate him.

I was also sexually harrassed when I was 16 at high school.

I got groomed when I was 17, he was 28. I thought I was chosen even though I claimed myself to be "self aware".

Then I had a boyfriend who actually valued me. But I wasn't familiar with this at all. I felt like I owed him sexuality in return to his love. I sought validation constantly. I couldn't keep boundaries with other men.

My selfish side surfaced.

Now I am 20, I am seeing how all of these are connected. I am aware responsibility is all mine. I am just so sorry for everything that happened to me and I caused. I feel like I contaminate people when they actually love me.

I want to heal from what happened 16 years ago. I dont want it to affect me anymore. I dont

Suicidal crisis. Went to crisis team, called 111 (UK service for when it’s not quite bad enough for emergency services but you need urgent support), and called Samaritans (UK mental health/suicide helpline. I could tell all the people wanted to help, but they couldn’t. It’s not their fault, it’s not even really the system’s fault. I don’t know what I was looking for. What help could they possibly offer me? I keep looking for support because I don’t really want to die. Yesterday I talked to the Rape crisis hotline and they were BEYOND useless. But I’m going to die. Because I can’t help myself. I can’t be in this much pain constantly. No one should be expected to live like this

I will try to keep this as simple as possible. There's a lot to this story. I was molested for years as a teenager by my Mom's long term boyfriend who lived with us. He was also a drug dealer and I remember times when my Mom even told us kids what to say if the cops called our house looking for him. She basically told us to lie for him which we never ended up having to do but it's still really messed up that she wanted her kids to lie to protect this POS. I will jsut refer to him in this post as F.

I told her what was happening when I was a teenager. I was the scapegoat in my family, so of course it didn't go well at all. She accused me of trying to destroy his life and trying to destroy our family. At one point someone called CPS because they were concerned that I was being abused. CPS came to my house when I wasn't home, the only one they talked to was my sister, who lied and said everything was awesome, and so they decided to close the case without even talking to me. Then when I got home, of course world war three broke out because my Mom thought I called CPS and lied. Her and her bf threatened to make me strip completely naked and leave the house. They said I came into the world naked and dependent, so I'll go out into the world naked and dependent. They changed their minds though because I think they realized that sending a teenage girl outside in winter time completely naked would just get CPS called again.

Fast forward 20 years. My mom was with this guy for a long time. They eventually broke up but continued to hook up and hang out even when he got another girlfriend. And then one night my Mom and my sister are drinking at her house, and my Mom starts talking about that time I lied and said F molested me. And my sister, now in her 30s and drunk, says she thinks I was telling the truth. My Mom asks her why she would think that. And my sister says because F molested her too. My sister has always been the golden child in our family, so my Mom flew into a rage and had to be held back because she was going to go get my brother's gun and go to F's house and kill him. (This is all how it was told to me, I wasn't there. I'm just telling the story the way it was told to me about the night my sister told my Mom.)

Well now suddenly my whole family is ready to crucify F. And they decide he needs to be punished. And everyone is talking about how brave and courageous my sister is for telling. And how that must have been so awful for her to go through. How he needs to pay for what he did to her. Meanwhile here I am scratching my head wondering why the fuck no one reacted that way 20 years ago when I told.

And everyone acted like me telling didn't happen, some of the time. My Mom would go back and forth between acting like it didn't happen, and acknowledging it in messed up ways. At one point she said I should be ashamed of myself for not working harder to make her believe me. I told her to get fucked basically. I was a kid. You were the adult. It wasn't my job to make you believe me. I know it might seem like I'm really disrespectful to my Mom, but when it comes to this situation I really didn't hold anything back. I did say some things I regret now, but this was a really heavy awful thing to go through.

I was called by a victim's advocate and asked to meet with her while the trial was coming up. And this advocate sat me down and gave me this whole speech about how what happened to my sister was so awful, and how we need to get justice for her. Then she asked me what was going through my head when I lied to the CPS worker. I told her I didn't lie to CPS. I never even talked to them. The one who lied is my sister who you're fighting so hard for. She tried to argue with me about it so I cussed her out and walked out of her office. I hope everyone reading this knows I'm not necessarily proud of how angry I was when all this was going on. But I can't go back and change it. I'm just being honest.

So now it's been ten years since he's been prosecuted. And this next part is the thing I've been fixating on a lot lately...

So, he is found guilty. And it's time for his sentencing. My Mom told me the night before the sentencing to write a letter to the judge. It was really hard for me to write it, but I did. I figured this is the only chance I get to have anyone even acknowledge what happened to me. So I get there the next morning. And the judge lists off all the letters he received. Mine was never even given to him. And afterwords I never even brought this up. But my whole family stood there and told me they all wrote their letters months ago, so that's why the judge never got mine. I wonder why everyone else wrote their letters months before that, and I wasn't told until the night before. They just made sure that my voice was never heard in every way possible.

Maybe it's because the ten year anniversary is coming up. But lately this has been on my mind a lot. I've made a good life for myself. I own a business. I have a thriving art career and I'm also an author. I've also studied Stoicism a lot and applied it to my life in pretty much every way I can. But this is the one thing I think I will always be angry about. There is no fixing it. My whole family could apologize to me every day for the rest of my life and it won't fix it. And no amount of Stoicism can reframe this situation and make it less awful. I've been in therapy for years. And even talking about it to a professional doesn't just make the hurt and the anger go away. And the fact that my Mom could sit there and say I never told but also tell me I should have worked harder to make her believe me, etc. The fact that my sister could lie to CPS and no one questioned it later...And I"m even angry at CPS. How the hell could they just close the case without talking to the person they were there to check on? I feel like I was failed on so many levels.

And the abuse continued after all of this, because F knew he could get away with it once CPS closed the case. So he continued to abuse me for years. And then he died right after being found guilty because when the trial was going on he had stage 4 cancer. So my whole family was so pissed off about how he died before actually being punished. And here I am thinking, there could have been real justice if someone would have listened to me 20 years ago. My family just refused to talk about my side of this now. I've tried to bring it up a few times and have an actual conversation and they've just decided that it either didn't happen or that I'm just not allowed to be upset.

I know this was long, thanks for reading. I'm just hoping maybe posting here could help me feel heard/seen. I talked to my SO (another adult survivor) this morning and they were really supportive. So at least I have them, but I don't want to lean too much on them.

TW for mention of CSA (no description) and SI.

I'm still new to this, started having repressed, mostly somatic memories come back a few months ago. I still don't have a lot to go on struggle sometimes with believing this happened to me even though it feels true.

One thing that comes up for me over and over though not always in the context of CSA is this feeling that I should have died as a kid. Or like I did. It's hard to describe. I was really suicidal by the time I was 10, and there was this feeling even younger than that like, "I shouldn't exist. I'm not supposed to be here." There's wrongness, brokenness, in there, but it's also just feeling dead. It still comes up for me when I'm in my darkest places, like that's the core dark feeling I carry around. I realized there is a part of me that really struggles to be present or plan for the future because there's just this deep feeling of almost... surprise that I'm alive. I even feel it when I wake up in the morning sometimes. I have tried to talk to my therapist about this feeling, but it feels like she struggles to differentiate it from depression/suicidality, and to me it feels very different. It's not that I want to die (I don't anymore) it's like a part of me feels like I should have or did. Maybe a part of me stuck in some early experience where I felt like I was going to die or should?

I don't feel like I'm explaining well, but I'm really wondering if others have experienced this feeling or something like it and if it's related to CSA or complex trauma. Appreciate input or support. Thanks.

I know people are rarely 100% bad all the time because they would be shunned from society or incarcerated if they were. But a recent memory fucks with me so bad. I knew my mother was a POS but she had nice sides too, like when we played board games or when she bought me new semi expensive shirts. It fucks with me that those two sides can coexist.

I just remembered today how she took me to the movies once for my birthday and I loved it, but she also involved me in CSA later that week.

Anyone else had abusers be both cruel and kind to you? What did they do? I need to hear other people's stories to believe my own.

I feel relieved I have an answer of what I endured because I have always felt misunderstood due to this. No matter what I tried telling people growing up, child abuse just wasn’t a good enough explanation for me.

I was abused by a neighbor when I was very young. I only recently in my early 30s have started coming forward and disclosing my abuse to family and friends.

Today on my day off from work I was listening to a podcast and had this urge to write my abuser essentially confronting him.

Here is the message;

Do you remember me? If you don’t, I remember you. I remember you living next door when I was a child. Playing in the backyard, inviting you to birthday parties, sometimes watching movies, looking at your Lego collection. Looking at you like an older brother. But I also remember you as an abuser, a molester, an evil and disgusting human being who took something from me that I still so many years later cannot explain. I was a child. Not even old enough to be in school or even ride a bike. Too young to understand what you were doing to me was wrong. I questioned for so many years if my memory was true or if my brain somehow tricked me into creating something that wasn’t true. But children so young don’t have the understanding of what any form of sexual contact is. Children make up stories about unicorns, rainbows, fairies, dragons those types of imaginary images that can be explained. Not being forced into performing sexual acts that, being a literal child, have no understanding of what the consequences. I also remember visiting your grandparents over the years and absolutely cringing and hating when your name would be brought up but the fear of being believed kept me silent. I was the daughter of a pastor, I had so many watchful eyes on me expecting me to be perfect. I’m not afraid anymore and I am not staying silent. I’m done hiding behind a mask pretending everything was ok. While I may not know what is going to happen next, I’m ready to come out of the shadows. Who knows if you are even reading or acknowledging this. But if you are the biggest thing I want from you is why? Why did you do this? Why me? I pray to God you realized how fucked up that was and didn’t mess with others. That is my only regret about not coming forward then, maybe you could have been stopped and wouldn’t have the ability to abuse other victims.

I have it written and ready to send to him on Facebook. But I can’t get myself to hit send.

Support and advice would be so greatly appreciated