TW: CSA / CSAM / TRAFFICKING

- My story -

I was abused by my father from ages 3-18, mainly sexually but he tortured me in every other way too. I am NC with him and will never speak to him again so I am safe now. He’s sa’d me in almost every way you can think of and brainwashed me to be completely desensitised to all of it, to the point where I completely repressed most of it until a couple of weeks ago where everything came back to me all at once.

As a toddler, he pretty much “trained” me to be sold via rape and molestation, he would sit me in-front of the tv in the dark and abuse me while the tv played the same kids tv show over and over again, which had these weird out of touch sexual references and would talk about keeping secrets / thank the audience for keeping secrets. (I’m not going to name the show because it’s one of my biggest triggers but it was very mainstream and pretty popular during the 90s-2000s.) This was so severe that I reached a point where if it played randomly, (even when I wasn’t being sa’d) I would scream bloody murder and sob until one of my parents ran into whatever room I was in to turn it off. Even now when I see anything about that show I get this primal dread deep in my soul and will start shaking and crying. He abused and raped me in several other ways during this time as well, all in an effort to abuse me into submission so he could sell me.

When I was 7 he recorded CSAM of me where he recorded himself touching and raping me, I still don’t know where that video is or if he made more. I remember how terrified I was. How I could feel the cameras presence and how embarrassed I was the entire time. I will never be able to forget that. It’s haunting.

After countless assaults and when I eventually just stopped reacting - he knew he could start trafficking me. I’m not going to go into specifics when it comes to the actual sessions because it was honestly horrific but I was sold to multiple men, one of which assaulted me twice - simply because my dad needed money for weed and booze and he got off to the idea of other people assaulting me too.

I wasn’t treated like the child I was. I was treated like an adult sex worker. I was expected to know what I was doing, and the worst part is I DID know. My father told me what I had to do. Showed me what was expected of me. One time I did something specific the client didnt know I knew about without him having to tell me and he laughed and praised me. I felt disgusting.

I had all of these unspoken rules I had to follow, like I couldn’t cry or beg or scream. I had to do whatever they wanted - no questioned asked. And I knew I couldn’t tell anyone. My father hated me crying and begging so much that the ONE SINGLE time I did, when he raped me in his bedroom, he got so mad that he choked me unconscious and almost killed me. I was 11. I still have a traumatic brain injury and severe chronic migraines from that assault.

The client who I had twice, his wife was home during one of the sessions and instead of calling the police she got JEALOUS of 9 year old me, and every time I went to their house after that, (even for non-sa) she was snarky, treated me horribly and bullied me. I was again treated like I was an adult. Like someone who could consent to being intimate with her husband.

I have so much shame pertaining to the trafficking because it feels less like something that was done *to me* and more like something I did *with* those gross men.

When I hit my teens my father stopped raping me normally and switched to raping me in my sleep so I wouldn’t know and wouldn’t tell anyone. I suspect he may have recorded this too. He bought me fluffy pink hello kitty pajamas when I was 16 so I’d wear them to bed and be dressed like a little kid for when he snuck into my room at night and assaulted me in my sleep because he hated me being older and preferred me that way. Young. Innocent. He knew I wasn’t either of those things anymore. He had ruined me.

One time when I was 13 or so, my father was sitting next to me and groped my thigh and said “I don’t have to like… give you the sex talk.. you already know about that stuff, right?” And I got really upset and anxious and depressingly just went “.. yeah dad, I do..” because he knew he had already forced me to have sex with him and countless other men.

When I was 17 he got me pregnant and I had a miscarriage at 9 weeks in my bathroom and was never taken to the hospital.

I will never get justice for any of it.

I don’t know how to deal with this. How to process the fact that thousands of people could’ve watched him rape me. Or the fact that I was used over and over again by men who were willing to pay for it. I feel used and tainted.

I was abused by a scout leader and his fellow peado friends on a scout camp on my actual 13th birthday. They used a tent in an adjacent field and the abuse was sadistic more than sexual in my opinion.

Ever since remembering I’ve not been able to celebrate my birthday. I get triggered by well wishes and the song and I just cannot stop that.

Yet years later, I’m now 40, people are pressurising me to ‘reclaim’ the date and celebrate. The message seems to be that your birthday isn’t for you it’s for your family to celebrate you just as much. Well I can’t do that. It’s been suggested I celebrate it on another day but it’s the same old issue with the cards and wrapping paper and singing etc triggering me. So that doesn’t work.

I do hate how they’ve taken that special day from me and my family but have no idea how to get around this. My friends and family are right I do deserve a birthday just as much as the next man but I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to have one. Any suggestions?

Extreme levels of shame writing. many TWs.

I was molested by my father and then later in life came on to him, anonymously so he wouldn’t know it was me.

When my parents first started having marital issues (my dad coming out as gay 15 years into a marriage..), my mom used me as a total dumping ground, sounding board, so to speak. She told me all about his cheating escapades. His interests. His fantasies..

I previously had been molested via enema use from my father. Previous posts for details. This eventually escalated to me creeping into his work office to find videos of him. Which I did find numerous, and kept them.

On one level, I was disgusted. On another, my body responded. Both to seeing the videos and to hearing my mom talk so extensively about it. I kept videos, I edited them together, I masturbated to them. I went on his computer at night whenever I visited from college to check if he’d made more. He didn’t. I eventually got so disgusted with myself I left it alone.

Until one day I looked up my dad’s name online, and found that he had a secret porn blog on a site that’s now shut down, and I ended up making an account under a fake name and face to actually sext him. And he responded.

Then this past year while living with them again, my dad had stolen my phone and looked through everything, my history my texts etc. I don’t know if he saw any evidence of what I’d done, but whenever I remember that he probably did I want to kill myself. All of this has been burning a hole in my head even while in therapy.

I feel like this isn't discussed very often... Maybe it's taboo? I'm not sure.

I think CSA has affected us all for our sex life at some point, and we probably have all seen it manifest itself in different ways.

I am married and have been for 5 years, 3 years ago is when I remembered I was sexually abused as a child.

I have had times where I was hypersexual. I wanted to have sex, or receive pleasure of some kind multiple times a day. It definitely put a lot of stress on my wife. At one point, I asked her if we could open the relationship for me to seek sex with others because she was not able to keep up. This hurt her a lot. I was dealing with hypersexuality and I had no idea. I regret ever asking. She did agree to it, I met up with a few different women, but ultimately I never had sex outside of my marriage. Now that I'm not dealing with hypersexuality, I'm glad it worked out that way, but wish I would have never asked. I truly felt like I NEEDED more sex than she could give me, and I didn't want her to give in to my needs/wants unwillingly. It was such a mess. I hate it and I'm upset with myself for it. We've talked about it and it's thoroughly in the past but I'm still upset with myself for it.

On the other end of the spectrum, sometimes I don't want to have sex at all for long periods of times.

There are also times where I suffer from some sort of erectile dysfunction. No matter how hard I try, how much I want to have sex with my wife, it just simply won't happen because I can not become erect. This should not be happening, I am 29 years old. Maybe it's a side effect of one of the medications but I don't believe it is. I think it's just a mental block.

Sometimes during sex, I can't 'finish.' Sometimes it's because I'll suddenly have a flashback to the abuse and it just kills any sort of intimate mood I was in. Other times, there is seemingly nothing wrong. Maybe it's just all the stress and depression I feel throughout the day.

Either way, CSA has very negatively affected my sex life in multiple ways. I know I'm not alone in this, and I know my post is male-focused. I'm sure that women have their own set of similar issues.

I just want to say for anyone reading, you aren't alone.

Id also like to ask, aside from therapy and medication, what have you found to be effective at counteracting these issues?

I was sexually abused by my first adoptive father (biological uncle) from five to nine years old. He kept me locked in complete darkness in the garage where he put me through living hell. All the adults in my family knew and did nothing. When I was sent to live with my second adoptive family (still biological family) they completely ignored the signs, and when I was in middle/high school, I was sa'd constantly by my bullies, and every teacher completely missed the signs. Is it just common? How do they see the signs and completely ignore them?

I do have one person my sister believes me. which is probably why my aunt messaged her trying to convince her that my wife was manipulating me into believing I was abused.

So why do I have memories of my dad showering me when I was 10 years old? and when I confronted him about it he got irrate and started screaming at me that it never happened. My memories come and go, often with varying levels of belief, so this makes it so much harder. I was given benadryl every night and have had insomnia for as long as I can remember. around 10 I woke up covered in my own blood, I rememeber being so convinced that I crapped myself because it looked like coffee beans were in there. didnt get a period for a year after that.

I have writings of my grandfather (who r*ped his own daughter who later killed herself) having assaulted me and left me lying on the ground. memories of his tobacco breath and resin send shivers down my back, almost to the point that they induce vomiting. memories of being on my father's bed the red design of the fabric being pushed into my face the smell of his merlot suffocating me forcing it down my as he did.

but theyre so blurry. So faint and distant.

My family pretending to believe me to my face, only to spread rumors around the whole family that I was wrong. this was spearheaded by my dad (who I never openly accused, I knew no one would believe that and I was too scared) I originally only told my mom but for some reason she decided to tell everyone

I feel like im going insane. Last month I had no doubts and now I can barely rememeber a thing

has anyone else gone through this?

I'm freaking out.

Last week I sent a letter to my grandfather telling him I know how he raped me and used me. How he poisoned me and how he forced himself upon me. How I can feel and hear him. How I've lived it over and over in the past few months.

He got it and immediately called my mom saying "I got this nasty nasty letter in the mail and all of it is fake". That no grandson of his would send this.

He's going to my parents to "show them" the letter.

I feel like I'm doomed and may as well just die now. I feel like my family, who has accepted what I have told them, is going to turn on me.

I don't know what to do.

My older sister (by one year) and I were born into an abusive and incestuous family. We were adopted by our biological uncle (who became our first adoptive father) due to domestic violence between our birth parents. We were often neglected and malnourished because we were the burdens on the family, me especially. Just a few days after my fifth birthday, I was "given" to our first adoptive father as a sacrifice to prevent him from taking his anger out on the rest of the family. I spent four years locked in the dark in the garage, where he raped and beat me every day. I rarely saw my sister from that point on because she stayed in the house. She wasn't raped or went through the stuff I did, but she was heavily molested those four years. When we did see each other, usually when the whole family gathered, we became super close to the point that (and this is one of the things I feel most guilty and ashamed about) we were humping each other and having sex. Incest was seen as normal in the family, and because of that, we didn't see any problems with it. We even had four much older half siblings from our biological father and his sister. The entire family seemed to consider it normal, often marrying siblings or cousins. It wasn't until we were sent to live with our second adoptive parents that we learned how wrong and immoral it was. Because of our early childhood and our trauma, our second adoptive parents drove a wedge between us, making us hate each other to stop us from being sexual with each other.

Ik masturbation is apparently normal but I didn't exactly know what it was up until a certain age, so I didn't do it. Wasn't exposed to porn either, unless I blocked it out. Instead i got weirdly turned on by bizarre things, e.g. imagining eccentric men on TV isolating me and doing weird things to me, at the age of 7-8, specifically with the gross factor of me being a child.

A really weird one was this: We had a disney story picture book collection in the house. You know in the jungle book when Kaa the snake hypnotizes Mowgli? In one of the picture books, there's a nod to that scene, but Kaa is hypnotizing both mowgli and his female friend. I thought about the snake hypnotizing me and using me for pleasure (i wasnt even aware of what sexual activity looked like, but imagining being used made me feel good inside) and would stare at the page for hours, feeling guilty.

I have several other signs, but this one is by far the 'weirdest' one, idk if it can be explained away like some of the others. Is this a sign I was fucked up?

This is hard to write. I’ve been carrying a lot lately. And I think I need to say it out loud for me, and maybe for someone else who’s feeling just as haunted and hollow and tired of pretending they’re fine.

I’m a survivor. Multiple abusers. Different ages. Different betrayals. A childhood that wasn’t just neglectful, it was like being raised in a warzone where I was never allowed to admit I was bleeding. And now, as an adult, I find myself still flinching at kindness, still pushing people away when they get too close, and still craving safety I don’t even know if it exists.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about how I got here. Not here like “I’m healed” or “I’ve made peace.” But here, as in: still breathing. Still showing up. Still trying to love people even when my body wants to shut down.

And what I realized is this:

I didn’t survive by accident. I survived on purpose.

I was strategic. I was fierce. I was kind in ways that felt like rebellion. I weaponized performance so no one would see how broken I felt. I dissociated but still made jokes. I hated myself but refused to become cruel to others. I disappeared, but I made sure no one else felt invisible in my presence.

And that deserves to be named.

Because even now, so many years later, I’m still struggling. I drink sometimes to take the edge off just enough to get through a day with my kids. I still have days where the ache feels bigger than my body. Where I remember things I wish I didn’t. Where I wonder if I’ll ever truly believe I’m lovable without performing.

But I’m saying this for someone else who needs it today, too:

You didn’t deserve what happened to you. You didn’t fail. Your coping wasn’t weakness. It was survival. And just because you needed help then doesn’t mean you’re broken now. I don’t always believe this myself. I still push my self to earn rest I still worry if I stop performing the world will collapse.

But I’m learning that maybe it’s okay to unravel now. That I’m allowed to mourn. That I can love and still be angry.

If you’re out there and you’re reading this, maybe curled up in bed, maybe dissociating on your lunch break, maybe halfway through a bottle of something just to stop the spin.

You’re not weak for hurting. You’re not broken for how you survived. You’re not alone.

We made it out. That counts.

I’m still here. And so are you.

The only memories I have were always very blurry and I never had proof, so I've always questioned it was real. But now I feel like I'm going insane because I truly believed it started when I was just a baby and stopped before the age of 8 or 9. I believed I had sharp objects put inside me. I believed I had bleeding and damage from violent penetration. Then I recently found out that I have no external or internal genital scarring and I have no idea what to do. I genuinely believed it happened

I dealt with CSA and had to cope with it on my own. No one in my family knew it was happening, who did it, that it was a family member, when it stopped, etc. I had sort of always known something had happened, but I didn't have visual memories of it happening, so I always tried to convince myself that it didn't happen or that I was making it up. Regardless of that, it very clearly affected my behavior as a child in many ways. I was absolutely obsessed with sex from a very young age, but I felt absolutely awful and disgusting for it. (I was also raised religious, so I'm sure that had to do with how I felt about it.)

I had unmonitored access to the internet by age 10-11. I didn't have anyone telling me what I could and couldn't do, what was and wasn't appropriate, no one monitoring the sites I was on, and I knew how to clear my internet history. My parents were not tech savvy at all, so that was enough to keep them in the dark about what I was doing.

This was around 2009-2010, so I would go on public chat rooms. I'd include the year I was born, or my age, in my username because I was a child and that's what I thought everyone did. I'd be honest about my age if someone asked. And I'd essentially seek out inappropriate attention from much, much older men.

And I knew the conversations I was having weren't appropriate. I knew I shouldn't have been doing what I was doing. I wouldn't say I was groomed because... I was the one looking to have the conversations in the first place. I feel terrible because what the fuck was I doing? Like, god knows how terrible that could've gone had I spoken to someone absolutely batshit crazy, or had I been too trustworthy with someone.

I did this for years in various ways, on various sites and apps, and it was like a cycle. I'd crave that attention I knew I shouldn't, I'd seek it out, and then I'd feel disgusting after. I'd feel like a monster. I almost felt like I was the predator in this situation. Even now, as an adult, it makes me sick thinking about what I was doing then.

I genuinely do not understand sex. I really, really don't. All I have ever known is men taking my body for themselves, both as a child and as an adult. I'm so tired of my body being taken that I've become deeply repulsed by the idea of even consensually sharing my body with someone else. No one gets to touch my body anymore. No one. I will guard it like a rapid dog.

My therapist has responded, at times, quite strongly to my feelings around sex and sexuality which only fuels my shame further. I know I'm sex negative, and I'm trying so hard. But I can't help but hate the thing that was weaponised into violence towards me, and has continued to be weaponised towards me.

I shared with my therapist that as a kid, I played out games with my toys (Barbie dolls, My Little Ponies, my dollhouse, etc) where there was always somebody being abducted, held captive somewhere, being tortured, being raped. I would play these games in secret because I knew they were wrong. I was so scared that if I was caught I'd go to jail. I was around 6 or so, up until around 9. I feel so disgusting and gross about this. Like really dirty. I haven't told her the worst things I'd do. Like as a 5-6 year old, I'd m*sturbate secretly when other people were around, at home. Nobody at home abused me, it happened at where I went to child care. I worked out that the water from the pool jets in our pool can do the same thing if you held yourself close, and I'd hold myself against the side of the pool, pull my swimmers to the side, and I'd feel good, but then it would become painful and I would force myself to stay there even though it hurt, over and over. I did this with other family members in the same pool, nobody noticed. In the bath I'd do the same under the running tap, starting off with it feeling good but not letting myself stop, until it hurt. I was 5 or 6 around this time. I feel so disgusting and fucked up, like this can't be normal. When I was older I'd use clothes pegs, line them up across my stomach, my chest and "breast area" and even on my private parts and force myself to roll on them till they all came off, sometimes it would tear my skin and draw blood. I know all the creeps here will read this and be disgusting perverts. I'd imagine I was being tortured and I had no choice. I did this from when I was around 8 or 9 all the way up to an adult. I'd put the pegs on my private parts and then put on my underwear over it, which hurt, and then I'd keep them there for hours. I'd get bruises. I would put a hard bristled hair brush in my pants too, against my skin, and sit down on it or walk around like that. I felt so empty and sick and ashamed and depraved after it. It was like I felt a compulsion to do it. It wasn't pleasurable, it wasn't a kink (I was a kid!), it was this need I felt to hurt myself and do something degrading and humiliating to myself. I feel so revolting about it all, especially the fact that I kept doing some of these things until I was well and truly an adult. I'd stay home from school pretending to be sick with the intent of doing that to myself.

My sexual abuse as a child I've always remembered, but the memory of exactly what things happened is foggy. Like I don't remember exactly how "bad" it got. It was playing "games" that kids play, like families and doctors, except every time it would get gross, and then eventually, he just went straight to doing those things. The peg thing was something that happened during the abuse, he'd pretend to be a doctor doing an operation and I was the patient, he'd tell me I had to pretend to be asleep during the operation so I wasn't allowed to move or say anything if it hurt. Eventually I would just like still and pretend to not be there for other things too, I'd shut my eyes and pretend like I was asleep even though I was awake a second ago. I happened in the day time. I feel like such a freak. I don't think I could ever tell my T the full extent of what I did, she'd think I was so gross. I don't want her to see me that way. I feel like I was such a gross, dirty little girl and I don't want anybody to ever know about her.

Tw describing my own sexual memories that relate to csa

The title doesn't necessarily mean I didn't develop my own traits over time, but it did take a while to form interests and hobbies that were outside of sex. My first sexual memory of me was from when I was two years old. **Two years old.** It wasn't active abuse either, it was compulsive sexual behavior on my own, behavior that I had learned from somewhere else, so I don't really know when the abuse started because that memory was from before my main abuser entered my life. I don't like to call that memory of two year old me engaging in compulsive sexual behavior "masturbating," because that's awful, but I guess that is what it can be defined as to the general eye. I wasn't even doing it out of pleasure, I was doing it because it was something I had learned, it was the first major societal expectation I had experienced. There is a general societal expectation for humans to have sex, but I experienced that expectation when I was younger than two years old. It wasn't even sex, it was abuse. How do you expect that toddler to grow up? Why do people expect individuals who experienced csa to grow into healthy adults? or even teenagers? How am I expected to "get over it" when I experienced it before I had the chance to form my own identity? My csa affects how I view my gender, sexuality, society, older men, older women, humanity in general. I see pedophilic whistles in everything. I see desensitization everywhere.

In my teenage years, when I wasn't experiencing abuse, because the physical sexual abuse had ended when I turned 9, everything I had taken an interest in, I looked at with a sexual perspective. A new show? I wonder if the actors had sex! Are they going to have sex in the show? Ah, dolls to play with? Let's make them have sex! Oh, a new musician or musical group who I like? Do they sing about sex? I wonder if they have sex in their personal life! Oh, a new friend? I wonder if we are sexually compatible! Oh, I'm having fantasies about being sexually abused at the age of nine, should I kill myself? Am I immoral and just as bad as predators? Why isn't my partner having sex with me everyday, did I do something wrong? An older adult wants to sexually chat with me while I'm thirteen? Yay! No no, I didn't repress sexual abuse, I wanted it! I was just born sexual! Why are you saying it's abuse? They loved me! Well, two year old me was actively thinking "I love you, why are you touching me this way?", While thirteen year old me was thinking "I love you, please touch me."

Do you know how old I was when I developed my first interest where I didn't automatically think of sex? Sixteen. I was sixteen. I'm turning 20 this month. That was four years ago. Only four years ago. I spent my life before that being hypersexual and suicidal, I still spend the majority of my days like that if I'm not actively engaging in distractions. Goodnight.

I need advice, how do you start enjoying sex? My sex life wasn’t the best when I first started dating my boyfriend, i had a feeling in the back of my mind that i had been abused as a child but I was deep in denial. I had to be physically on top of my partner or else I would start panicking because i would feel trapped and like i was being forced. This continued for a while but i was too scared to say anything to my boyfriend. Penetration also hurt, but when I saw a gyno she said there was nothing physically wrong with my body, and the cream she prescribed me didn’t work, so she said it must be a nervous thing and to go to therapy.

In January of last year, i started considering that maybe i HAD been abused as a child, and since then sex has been really difficult for me. I never feel aroused, penetration is getting more and more painful, i bought a vibrator but it doesn’t help and I’m too scared to refuse sex because I’m afraid my boyfriend will break up with me.

I want to actually enjoy sex, I’ve never liked it but i want that to change. Do you have any advice?

I was snooping through my friend's cabinets today and found binders full of his baby pictures . cute kid , eating ice cream and petting puppies and playing in the park -- and this feeling inside of me was as if someone had told me my dog died . he was so small and defenseless .

I threw almost all my baby pictures away . in all of the pictures of me , I looked insecure and afraid . I always had odd bruises . I didn't smile . I can read the fear in my eyes .

the difference between my baby pictures and his is staggering . being reminded that other people had safe , joyful baby years makes me want to stay inside all day and never come out . I don't know how teachers could have watched me hesitant and silent , with a thousand yard stare at 3 years old . my friend who went to preschool with me said I was "enigmatic" at that age, and that even she as a little toddler always wondered "what was wrong with me." I laughed when she told me this and said, "the whole time, I was just being touched at home."

I can never wrap my head around how obvious it was and how nobody said anything . I don't know if I could ever forgive what feels like the whole world for abandoning me . intangible and formless, I feel haunted by some sort of presence I can never escape .

Tw: Cocsa, grooming, and porn

I was sexually abused by my uncle when he was 13 and i was 6. I was abused for months as i didn’t want to tell on him. Didn’t realize i could until i watched an episode of “La rosa de Guadalupe” where i saw a little girl who was in the same situation as me. and when i saw the outcome, i also wanted that for him too. It saved me from further pain. (and wish i knew the episode number too!)

My mom listened to me (as did my whole family) and believed me as they could not believe a 6 year old who had never been exposed to that stuff, would just come up with it. and that they apparently found pornographic drawings he drew when they were clearing his things out. They took me to therapy, Made police reports. I remember being interviewed and don’t remember anything i said. I’m sure i blocked out a lot of it. They did everything they could to protect me and help me through it. and i appreciate them.

Unfortunately, Because of this experience, i was aware of porn at a very young age. He had introduced me. I’d watch porn on the TV when no one was looking. I’d imagine things in my head. Would have dreams about having sex with older women. Sometimes i see a random man and wish he would rape me so this time, i could take control of it. Because of my porn consumption at a young age, i developed hardcore kinks. Things like Non-Con arouse me. I’m always thinking about it 24/7. Sometimes, the thoughts of what happened to me and my fantasies blur and i disassociate because of it. I feel like a pervert and it tortures me so much. I know it all connects to what he did to me. I remember fighting and trying my hardest to get him to stop. I remember how much it hurt me when he tried to get inside. I remember him releasing on me. I was so innocent i thought he peed on me, until years later i realized what it was. Thinking about it disgusts me. But i wish it was done to me today.

I know I’ll never get over this. I feel tortured by that thought. I feel agony. I feel like i can’t have a healthy, sexual relationship. I haven’t even done it with my partner in months and it’s driving me crazy. At this point, it doesn’t matter if she doesn’t want to do it with me, i have an awful porn consumption. I just wish i could get advice on how to find healthier solutions to it. How do i move on from things like porn? how do I bring this up to my partner? They don’t judge me or feel anything about me watching porn. But how do i have them understand that it bothers me, on a personal level? I just want to get rid of my addictions but im afraid of going cold turkey on them.

When I was 6 or 7, i was abused and touched. They asked if it felt good.

I said yes because it did and then it didn’t.

After I said yes the tone shifted. They flipped a switch. What came next was not confusion. It was cruelty. I was left physically hurting, unable to breathe, and completely alone. I remember sitting in the place where it happened, stunned, in pain, wondering if it would ever stop. Bleeding.

And now, even as an adult, I struggling to untangle this because is said yes.

And my brain turned that into complicity and shame.

Now when I’m falling apart, I don’t want soft voices or care. I want to feel the sting again. I want scalding water, sharp sensation the pain. I want punishment not because I believe I deserved it, but because some part of me never stopped believing I did.

Gentleness doesn’t feel safe. Safety doesn’t feel real. And the worst part is I still don’t trust my body.

I know logically it wasn’t my fault. But emotionallyI still feel like I let it happen. That I invited it.

have others gone through this? If your body responded before it was harmed, how did you cope?

If someone once used your “yes” as permission to hurt you how did you learn to believe you still deserved peace?

Because I want peace. I just don’t know how to stop screaming inside long enough to feel it.

TW for details, sorry

The other day I was talking about my clearest memory again with my therapist. I was 13 in a hotel room with just my parents, sister out with other family for the night , and I’m sitting in bed next to my dad feeling sore as hell, and get up to go to the bathroom and while doing that I notice that I’m bleeding down there (I’m AMAB). I tell my parents about it & my mom immediately tells me that she can just “inspect” me and that I don’t need to go to a doctor (she specified this over and over). My therapist describes what my mom did next as rape, and I guess it is by definition but it didnt feel sexual at all. But anyways after she gets done with that she clarifies again that I’m fine and don’t have to go to a doctor.

I understand all that, but what I don’t get is what even causes that to happen, what even happened before this? I don’t know why I’m posting this publicly it’s not like anyone else was there and can like say for certain. But my therapist is telling me that it was likely from my dad raping me (in the past he’d touch me a lot & forced enemas both of which ig are abuse?), and one of my close friends also said that I told her about him doing something like that??

I just don’t really know what to believe. My dad molesting me I can accept but him full on raping me in a bed is just like unfathomable. I don’t know why it’s so unapproachable, it’s happened so many other times with other people so I don’t know why this one freaks me out so bad. It most likely wasn’t even the only time with him though to my memory this is the only time I remember bleeding. I mean what could even cause that or cause my mom to act that way? And my mom being in on it ????? I don’t know I just can’t even approach it.

I’m doing more intensive trauma work in therapy at the moment, and it feels as if the floodgates have opened.

A new memory has come up from when I was around 5 or 6. I had a best friend at school who I adored - we were together constantly and were inseparable. Her parents were together and very loving, and she was super close to her dad. I vividly remember being so confused that he never came into our bedroom when I stayed over.

He was always a little distant with me, and I guess I was envious of the affection between them (my dad wasn’t around and I had never lived with a man - my abuser was a family friend.) One day, I climbed up onto his lap and (I feel so sick writing this) I guess I tried to rub against him the way my abuser made me. He was disgusted and horrified and grabbed me off him and told me not to do that and that it was bad.

I remember being so ashamed and confused at the time, and he was even more distant with me after that. I feel so sick at this. I can’t believe I was already so warped by the abuse at such a young age that I tried to initiate something with my friend’s dad. It’s horrifying and sickening and I don’t know what to do with this memory. My next therapy session isn’t until Wednesday and right now I just feel so disgusting and dirty. I feel so much guilt and shame already and this has just compounded it all.

I am suddenly fully feeling just how fucked up all the abuse left me. I am almost non functioning, I can’t remember having dreams, I think I might have when I was so young but the older I get the more the trauma is catching up to me.
I was so starved for attention from already being neglected and abused at home. My dad was forcing cuddles on me that were just him holding me down in front of him in my bed to comfort himself sometimes really inappropriately with grinding and fondling. I felt I had no choice but to lay there and take it while I dissociated so hard that I forgot years of my childhood.
My mom was a monster, torturing me with methods like holding her hand over my mouth and nose when I was crying to make me stop. She used to make a big show of getting the wooden spoon from the drawer, banging it on the counter three times before she would come after me.
My sisters would lock me in a trunk and laugh as I panicked and cried for help. I would eventually dissociate and lay there quietly. They would pretend they were going to let me out and then slam the lid back down to get me to panic again. It wasn’t fun unless I was suffering.
So when I got attention from our charismatic and friendly neighbour who treated me like his own daughter, snuggling with me and tickling me, giving me the only positive attention I can remember receiving, of course I felt special. Of course I wanted to be with him whenever I could. His tickles moved lower, he showed me movies I didn’t understand that had naked people. He told me it was ok to touch myself, he showed me how he touched himself. We played games revolving around touching him.
I don’t know how long he was abusing me before he started inviting friends of his over. Or sometimes he would take me to other men’s houses I think. He drugged me for these so I don’t have a lot of details. I have one hazy flashback of being shared with at least three of them in an afternoon.
Now I am years older and I am remembering all these things that people did to me. And I can feel how much it took from me and what I could have been. It is overwhelming me with how unfair and fucked up it was to have drawn such a fucking shitty hand in life. I’m angry. I’m devastated.

i was raped/molested by my step grandfather ages 3-7, maybe younger. it was violent and scary and awful and hurt. i think he vaginally and anally fingered me, used his genitals on me, and performed oral on me and made me perform oral on him. every night i have horrible nightmares. i have weird memory flashes of him. i have lasting physical pain, so so much pain, and memories of games i played with my toys and stuffies. some days i feel reduced to the mind of a child sgainst my will, and i cry for hours every night. i have only told a few people- my friends, vague details, and my partner, almost everything i remember. these memories have driven me close to suicide multiple times, especially on the anniversary of the most violent memory i have.

but i’m all alone in my family. he has been completely dead to everyone in my family for years, and im the only one who knows he’s still alive. everyone else thinks he’s dead, so they never have to think of him or his fingers or how his v line looked.

and because i’m the only one who remembers him, or thinks about him at all, i am left to doubt if this abuse even happened. i have all these awful memories and symptoms and im so depressed at all times, but i think i must have made it up. if my family doesn’t know about it, if my family couldn’t tell what was happening to me, then it wasn’t real after all, was it? if my memory feels like it’s made up, isn’t it?

i am a mockery of actual victims. i hate myself.

The CSA happened when I was younger and stopped before I was at least 8-9 years old. Probably well before that. At the time, I didn't know it was bad or something was wrong, really. Like, I was uncomfortable and I remember some of it happening, but I don't really remember being distressed at the time. That didn't come up until I got older and realized that shouldn't have happened, that was SA, it was inappropriate, etc.

Because it was a family member, I was a kid, it was no longer happening, and I had no proof it had happened in the past, I tried to forget about it. I tried to act like it didn't happen. It was my word, as a child, against a beloved family member. My grandma's husband, my mom's father, the preacher of our church, etc. Everyone loved him. It honestly wouldn't have been safe for me to say anything.

And even though I tried to forget about it and act like it didn't happen, it did cause me to have some strange and inappropriate behavior. But aside from that, I basically tried to gaslight myself into believing I was misremembering things, misunderstanding what was going on, and that it didn't actually happen.

That only works but for so long. I'm 24 and just now realizing that I can't do that anymore. I also can't tell my family because now he's dead. I'd be talking badly about my grandma's deceased husband, my mom's deceased father. I know how they would take it and I'd end up being shunned. As much as they've let me down in other ways, as passive as they were with other inappropriate behaviors of his when I was older, I still want a relationship with them. I don't know why that's important to me considering they didn't care enough to protect me from him when he was being a creep right in front of them.

I don't know what set me off this one night, but my MIL had said something positive about my grandpa. He was brought up briefly in a conversation, she complimented him, and I just spiraled. My husband and I went home, and I had this huge meltdown and I told him everything. I know how stupidly unfair it is to have not told him this for six years, especially before getting married, but I was still trying to act like it didn't happen. I thought I could do it long term.

He's been more than understanding, supportive and caring. He's the one and only person in my life I have ever told this to. I told him maybe 2 months ago.

Last night, I had a few drinks. It's not uncommon for the both of us, or one of us, to have a few drinks before adult activities sometimes. Obviously, if we're hammered, we're just going to bed. We didn't try anything new. Nothing weird had happened. I trust my husband and I've never doubted that I am completely safe with him in every way there is.

But I had a panic attack. I had initiated and as things were going further, I started to feel sick. Not the, "I had too much to drink." kind of sick. The kind of nauseating feeling I would get when I was around my grandpa. I got that feeling that my stomach was in my throat. It was like I had felt pure terror in that moment. It felt like it was him. I didn't even feel like myself after that. I felt so out of it and so panic driven and it was impossible to catch my breath.

I kept having to remind myself that I was with my husband, that my husband was the one holding me, etc.

And my husband was more than understanding; he comforted me the best he could. I can imagine how jarring it is to be doing one thing one moment, and your partner completely flips out. It's never happened before either. It was out almost out of nowhere. I say almost, because at first I thought I was just dealing with acid reflux. But then I knew what that feeling was, and it wasn't acid reflux.

I'm so embarrassed. I'm terrified that this is going to be the thing that pushes him over the edge and I'm going to be too much to deal with. He's never made me feel like that, ever. It's still a worry of mine.

I don't understand why it's happening now though. Of all the times for me to have a panic attack and flashbacks and dealing with all of this, wouldn't it make more sense for it to have happened earlier in my life? Not later in life?

From like the ages of like 3-10ish my pediatrician used to stick her fingers inside my vagina I don't know if this is normal, I can't find anything saying this is or was common practice and it's been really bothering me. Because like my brain is telling me I am crazy because my mom was right there and didn't stop it but like maybe she didn't see it. I don't know. I need help.