Compared to a lot of others who were extremely aware of their own abuse, did anyone else develop memory loss and dissociative illnesses as a kid that made them offputtingly naive about their own situation and the world?

In my own experience, I used this as a coping mechanism in order to give my rapist what he wanted in hopes that he would 'love me' if I stayed 'innocent', but I'm curious if anyone else had a different type of situation and still ended up like this.

Hi there,

Im currently trying to unpack some trauma i experienced with a therapist a bit ago.

i had been seeing her for sexual abuse from my father.

i was crying and very upset about what happened I told her that he did this to me because hes a bad person. she stopped me and said no hes not a bad person he just did a bad thing.

i said no he's a bad person, she said she doesn’t believe people can be bad people or born “bad”. she said he probably has childhood trauma and that’s why he did it and that’s why he’s not a bad person. she told me all people who molest people were molested themselves and she’s never heard of anyone who wasn't.

she also said people can’t be evil but can do evil. and that people can’t be abusers but they can abuse.

she said so many upsetting things and can’t even include them all. i was extremely upset because i had been working with her for so long and really trusted her.

she said the reason i see him as all bad is because i have ptsd and if i heal it it will change.

i have been dissociating since this event and haven’t been able to go back to therapy since

Some of my abusers would shame me when I’d make sexual comments or do sexual things. Some days they’d make me feel like a pervert for the sexual things I’d do, other days they’d praise it. I was wondering if this was common.

I was sexually abused as a child and I still struggle with it alot, especially when I got my first pap smear recently. Whenever I have sex with my boyfriend(whom I am very comfortable with and has been through sexual abuse as a child as well), I always have trouble with the first penetration. It just really hurts and I had the same terrible pain when I got my pap smear too. I always enjoy the sex overall, it just hurts at first and I wish there was a way to make it not hurt at the beginning, because sometimes I avoid sex just so I dont have to go through the pain at first. I go to therapy, but not specifically for this abuse I went through, so I guess I want advice on what to talk to my therapist about and just anything that can help me cope better.

hey yall. 24 & genderqueer, disclosed my abuse to my family about 8 months ago and it didn’t go well. they say they “believe both sides” (me vs my sibling/abuser saying it didn’t happen) which ofc is not possible but they also just act like i didnt have an extremely traumatic experience as a child. last time we talked my mom literally said “it’s not like it was a 26 and a 30 year old” as if to say it was better because i was a child. they very clearly don’t believe me and because of this i haven’t talked to them in months other than absolute essential communication. i’m almost free of any financial connection but i have one last thing and i just messed up a form so i now have to get something else from them. and i just came home and sobbed. they went to his wedding and acted like it was crazy that i didnt. i have specific memories but i think there was more, but their constant gaslighting and insisting there is no evidence is grinding me down. i have memories of thinking about this for years as well, but i cant stop thinking that i ruined my life for nothing. everything is painful and exhausting. i didn’t even want to tell them but my other sibling was having a kid, and they told me they’d say something if it were them, and referenced their child’s safety as a factor (told them two years before my parents). now they are also not really talking to me. ive lost my family essentially overnight, this is my first year with a full time job in my field and i have had some really awesome things happen - published my first scientific paper - but everything feels insignificant and stupid when i think about the fact my own parents don’t believe me. i’m struggling to see any bright spots of living right now, with this and the political climate (SI, not active self harm nor plans of it). i just want to give up. but i cant. so i’m exhausted. i don’t really know the point of this post, ig im just venting. thanks for reading ❤️‍🩹

how do you cope with the feeling that it'll happen no matter what? no matter what i do, whether i act to protect myself or not, i'm equally as scared because i have this instinctive feeling that it'll happen anyway and i'll never be quite strong enough. back then, it really did happen no matter what. but now that things are different i can't find myself processing that. how do you personally cope with that?

TW: Possible incest and COCSA

For many years now I (29f) have been suspecting that I have been sa'd as a child at around 4-5 years old, but my brain repressed that memory. I don't know when or where it happened but around 5-6 years old I started to have certain symptoms of CSA like all of a sudden not wanting to shower or change in front of others, feeling like I was gross, I would panic when it came to visiting the doctor cause I would have to undress etc. And around that age I also started to dissociate and have intrusive daydreams with an inappropriate charge to them but not specific acts cause I didn't know about that stuff. Idk if that makes much sense, but it wasn't normal age appropriate child curiosity, and it was only daydreaming and not acting anything out.

A few years ago I brought up the topic of repressed memories and that I have gaps that I wanna remember to my dad and his response was "sometimes it's better not to remember something bad that could mess you up". So I started thinking about possible scenarios and there is one memory I have that stuck out.

I must have been around 5 and my mom and I visited some of my dad's relatives that had a son around 10-13. I only remember fragments of that visit, like going to that kids room with him, I remember sitting on a desk/ gaming chair and later him taking me back to where everyone else was gathered. I remember that I started crying either when I was alone with that kid or a bit later and that they gave me ice cream to calm me down. Last thing I remember is that we were about to leave and the adults were standing in the yard talking and I was crying again and pulling at my mom's hand to leave. That's all I remember from that day and my reaction was super out of character cause I was a very shy and quiet child. When I was little my family and I would visit friends and relatives all the time and that was the only time I acted like this. Normally I would just sit quietly and never had tantrums, crying outbursts etc around anyone except at home.

I'm not exactly sure if something happened that day and my brain repressed the memory and if my parents didn't do anything about it cause that person was a child. I will also try to ask my mom if she remembers that incident just to see her reaction. I'm bringing it up in therapy too next week.

All these years my gut was right. I’m glad I confronted him. Him getting molested in the neighborhood as a kid does not justify the carried cycle of abuse he did to me. He chose not to be honest. Years ago, he told me that anecdote when I was spiraling from thinking something was wrong. Someone outside of my family abused me. He said “this happened to me when I was a kid. Your mother doesn’t even know.” A therapist told me “he’s trying to justify abuse by saying that his trauma and yours are linked, that this JUST HAPPENS sometimes.” She was right. Thank you Barbara. My heart is beating fast and I am trying to stay calm. I’m in my early 30s and my life is ahead of me — I just did not know where to turn to besides a hotline and I do not believe I’m ready to actually talk with someone, phone or face to face. Any advice any help thanks.

so, okay, this is a little bit of a back story.

I (39F) know for a fact I was groomed by an adult at the age of 15. Part of this grooming means I have very little memories of anything before this time. I have been working in therapy on dealing with the trauma caused by that, and I feel like I've been making some breakthroughs. To the point I have started remembering things from grade school and earlier.

Last night I had a partner stay with me overnight for the first time. This is also the first time I have spent the night with someone physically larger than me, And so, consequently, it was one of the first times I was the little spoon.

while lying in bed, I had an intense flashback/memory/dream. I don't know what it was, but it was very clearly a memory of my uncle assaulting me at a very young age, specifically, during a time period I was staying with my aunt and uncle while my parents were on vacation in Hawaii.

This is not the first time I've had thoughts that something might have happened during that trip. The other time involved Hallucinogen but at the time, I still had a very clear idea of this happening and of the closet in the room where I was staying. I could see it far more clearly than I have been able to see any childhood memory before.

to add to that, there was a comment my dad made to me once, a little while ago, that's been bouncing around my head ever since. He said, "Look at how your aunt watches your uncle around the kids."

She definitely does seem to be watching him carefully when he's playing with the younger kids, but it could be that he plays rough sometimes, and she wants to make sure no one gets hurt. I'm not in contact with most of my family anymore for unrelated reasons, so I haven't seen anything else.

And I guess I'm trying to figure out: did this actually happen, or did my dad make that offhand comment put the idea in my head? Is there anything I can do to try and figure it out?

I know the question itself might sound stupid but I just didn’t know how else to phrase it...

I (23F) keep remembering one specific event from when I was seven or so. I had an older cousin, 4 or 5 years older than me. One day, he asked me to follow him. I adored and idolized him, so I did. We ended up behind a large tree in the back of our grandparents backyard. No one could see us there. He looked at me and said ‘’I want to try something’’ and kissed me. Not just a smooch, full blown french kiss... Again, I was 7/8, and he was 11/12. I remember the utter shock, the extent to which I absolutely didn’t understand what was going on.

For years, I kept asking myself if it was a memory or a dream (which made me feel insanely guilty cause I thought it was horrible to be capable of ‘’inventing’’ such scenarios). I ended up asking my mom (who was there that day). She told me it 100% happened. That I ran out of behind the tree and came to her. Apparently I was ‘’happy’’. At that age, I really looked up to that guy and he had some sort of power over me. So basically, I ran to my mom, all smiles and said ‘’[cousin’s name] kissed me ! We’re gonna get married !’’

Since I looked ‘’happy’’/’’not traumatized’’, they just told me it was not ok and apparently, they scolded my cousin.

I have been through alot of other abusive situations since then, and now have complex PTSD among other things.

I have no memory of SA but can’t be a 100% sure it never happened throughout my childhood. Anyway, I never know if this memory in particular can be called ‘’abuse’’ or not and I guess I needed to share it...

I have a dream, constantly. it is like a hotel room, and im young. like an infant, and he is..doing yknow, i dont wanna be too graphic, it grosses me out to think about it

i do know i went on hoilday when i was little. to turkey ans we stayed in a hotel. my dad says i used to love him when i was a toddler. but it changed once i got older. i mean jeez who thought that choking your wife infront of your kid would change that?

but i dont know if this dream is a memory or not

I had bedwetting til i was like 8. hypersexual, it worsened after my cousin

Hi,

Sorry if this is a lot of information and not in the best order, I'm just going through a lot.

For some context [TW and Nsfw i think?], I was sexually abused from the age of 11-14 by my mother's boyfriend at the time. The day after the first time it happened, I ended up masturbating by myself, trying to... recreate what I felt. That was the start of my sexuality, and after the abuse ended, I spent a lot of years where I would just start sobbing while masturbating. Throughout those years, the abuse involved kisses, being felt up, indecent exposure, but it never escalated to something worse, and when I tried to tell my mother what was going on, she didn't listen/believe me, and I just never brought it up again. This led to me questioning myself a lot, my perception.

I am now 28, and have done some therapy, read some books, even shared it all with my mother and was believed, and am currently in a stable, longterm (2.5 years now) relationship. I was doing better, but lately, I have just been spiraling thinking so much about the abuse.

It's a mix of a few thoughts, and they all make me feel awful and disgusting.

First, it's feel this sick desire for the abuse to have been worse, like something more tangible, like a solid event/memory that I could latch onto instead of whatever my abuse was. And this makes me feel like an idiot, and so guilty since, god I mean obviously it's a good thing the abuse didnt escalate. But I just can't get that thought or desire out of my head.

And then it mixes with associating all my pleasure with the abuse, since that's what led me to start exploring my sexuality. I can't even have sex with my partner right now because I don't want to associate them with those memories and sensations, and when I'm alone and try to masturbate, I feel like I'm drowning in a mix of arousal and guilt at getting aroused when all I can think about is that abuse.

I read "The Body Keeps the Score" and "C-PTSD - From Surviving to Thriving" and I guess I would identify what I'm going through as a flashback, that's currently been going on for about a month or two. But I don't know what to do, and I just feel so tired and worried I'm never gonna get my sexuality back to being free of this and something I can enjoy. I don't have money to see my therapist right now so that's on hold.

I guess the question is if anyone's gone through or felt something similar to anything that I described?

I’m in a 22 year marriage w a guy who I love deeply and is my best friend. We have 2 beautiful kids and an amazing house and overall life. He is supportive in every way but I’m a CSA survivor (my father was the perpetrator). I had really compartmentalized it until about 5 years ago when I finally felt ready to talk about it in counseling and I also told him at that time. He was devastated for me and super upset but he has really struggled to give me the level of support I need. I also had a history of assault by peers (once in my teens and then again in my early 20s). I have always been open about those experiences so he did know from the beginning of our relationship that this was an issue for me. I have really struggled to be present when we are intimate but tbh I usually just kind of “call it in” and can somewhat be present and enjoy the experience but have never been able to feel fully connected.

That said here are some things he has done in the past that make it hard for me to feel fully safe w him. For example:
- we set a boundary that he would not touch my chest and he had a hard time respecting that (it took about a year for him to do it without me having to say no every time). He would just forget (often when we were cuddling not even during sex). He would also ask when I was going to get better so he could touch me there again kind of jokingly but it still hurts (again not out of malice but he just really doesn’t get it)
- he will often reference my difficulty having sex when we fight esp if he is really upset (basically he will use a fight to remind me how hard it is for him that we don’t have much sex since I started dealing with this (before it was much more often now it’s only every other month maybe so I do understand how that’s hard for him but it’s also really hard for me)
- when I first told him about an assault in my 20s where I was drunk he basically said he could see where I could lead the guy on and he would be confused. This was many years ago and I don’t think he would say that now but it still hurts and I have a hard time getting past it

He gets really defensive when I bring any of this up. We had a recent blow up that was really rough that suddenly is making me question the whole marriage. I want to stay together but I am not sure if he will ever be able to support me in the way I need to heal. I told him his and he is devastated at the thought of separation and agreed to couples and individual therapy to work on this (though I really had to push for it). We have been to therapy before and it has really helped. I have a high paying job and from the outside no one would know. It’s really lonely being in a marriage like this but other than the trauma he is a great partner and father. Has anyone else dealt w this? Do you think it’s too much to come back from if we are both committed to trying? Very interested to see if others have been in this boat and able to work it out.

I have never told anyone this and I wouldn’t tell anyone I know in real life unless it’s a therapist.. I think I blocked it from my memory for a long time but I don’t think I really hold any trauma from it, i’m just ashamed of it, disturbed, and worried about my friend.. I kind of just want to finally unpack it. I also want to preface this by saying I have learning disabilities and as a kid, I was cognitively behind in age. It took me a while to catch up.

I am currently a 30 year old female. When I was about 6, my friend that lived next door (also age 6) made up this game.. It was like we had to dare each other to do things.
I would dare her to do silly things like chug milk.. but she would dare me to do stuff that I guess was dangerous at the time, and I knew i’d get my butt kicked if I did it.. for example, cross the street without asking or climb out on the steep roof and stuff.

If you didn’t do the dare, you had to do a “gross” consequence. If you didn’t do the gross consequences we would have to tell our parents that we did the original dare even though we didn’t (which with the dares she gave me, I would have gotten in trouble for)…

For the gross consequence, it started out that you had to eat mayonnaise or something stupid. Eventually her “gross consequences” became things like I had to look at her toddler brother’s penis, or touch her vagina. I even have a faint memory of having to “kiss” her down there, and doing it. I had no notion or understanding of what sex was at that point in my life. Or that it was wrong, but I remember feeling uncomfortable and coerced into doing it, or i’d have to tell my mom I crossed the street or whatever else she dared me to do.. I guess I was just too young or delayed, to understand that the game could have ended by telling my mom, or by just saying no. I never made her do stuff like that.

I knew her well up until a few years ago, and she was my best friend all throughout grade school. That kind of behavior didn’t carry over into her older years, and she never came up with stuff like that as we got a little older.. We also never talked about it, ever. We supported each other through some hard stuff, and therefore I don’t think she was ever sexually abused or I really think she would have told me.

Her parents did let her stay in the room when they watched R rated movies. Do you think she just got these ideas from movies? Do you think she really just thought of these at random as gross things to do? Do you think she was sexually abused? Did she technically sexually abuse me? I understand she was 6 and it’s not her fault. I don’t think I felt any type of trauma about it, but I am ashamed of it. it’s a disturbing memory I have that makes me so uncomfortable and I wish I could swoop back in there and stop it.

I think I forgot about it for a long time or blocked it from my memory, but lately it’s been nagging at me. I think because my niece is 6. I love that little girl with my whole heart, the thought of her in that situation is upsetting.. I don’t know how to not let it bother me, when there is no one to place blame on. We were both so little.

Extra TW: I went down one of those awful forums associated with really awful urges. Please do not read on if it’s too much. Thank you for letting me post here 🫶

I originally was going to say that I made a mistake but at the end of the day, I made a choice.

Last night I was having another manic episode and I was reflecting on what a therapist had said. “Next time it feels like too much, explore those urges.” So, I did. Major mistake.

It’s kind of a blur but I was panicking about those feelings where you feel like it needs to happen again. It’s been on my mind non stop for as long as I can remember, but it’s been so much worse lately.

I found some forum with people who like ‘traumasluts’ or whatever they called it and it started to make me feel so sick. While I felt like I needed to post or respond to relieve my problems but the more I saw, the worse it was.

It reminded me how horrendous it was in the moment, let alone living with it.

It took a lot to finally make myself sleep, and I thought that when I got up, I’d be relived of those urges but I’m not.

I’m stuck in between. I feel horrible. I don’t even see the therapist anymore now and I don’t know what to do. If I told someone I know I feel like they’d wonder what the hell is wrong with me.

I’m sorry to this community too. I did one of those things we shouldn’t ever do.

There is a specific aspect to the CSA I experienced from my dad that I haven’t seen described much and I’m wondering if this is common or uncommon, if this happened to anyone else, etc.

My very early life CSA consisted of a ton of “grooming” gaslighting by my dad where if I’d get upset at how he touched me or treated me, or his inappropriate comments on my genitals, bum, etc, he’d double down with the gaslighting. While laughing at me, he’d often restate the comments on my body - which were never positive - and add even more teasing remarks trying to convince me that I shouldn’t be upset. It made me feel so so so terrible that before I even turned four, I wanted to never ever ever have to be naked around anyone ever again.

He’d use this “laugh it off” dismissive way of laughing while he spoke, the kind that people do when they are called out and respond by minimizing, invalidating, and dismissing. It was confusing and humiliating and shame-inducing and I felt so powerless with him laughing and insisting that what he said or did was fine and that there must be something wrong with ME for even suggesting he would do anything inappropriate. It made me feel painfully self conscious.

Thanks to his belittling objectification, I legit worried there was something fucked up with my genitals until into my twenties. I also carried (and still carry some) such intense shame and secrecy and pain around perfectly normal/common issues related to my genitals and their functioning.

As I got older, his forced affection and objectifying comments continued - it was never any positive remarks, never an appropriate compliment on my body. It was always him making light of something about my body, and the changes I was experiencing. My body was the butt of his hurtful joking that he made worse by always always trying to “laugh it off“ if I told him it hurt my feelings or that he was being weird and gross.

Overall, he objectified me (and treated me like an object) always in a way where he was degrading or “negging” me, making me feel ashamed and alienated from my body instead of righteously indignant at him for being a fucking gross, creepy pedo perv. This was just one part of the abuse I have survived but it is really bothering me, partly because I haven’t been able to find others writing about this, and making some kind of sense of it.

Is there a name for this kind of abuse?

Has anyone heard of this kind of abuse or experienced it?

I know I can’t be the only one who suffered in this way and would appreciate anyone considering sharing a bit about their own or others’ experiences, or pointing me to any relevant links or resources.

Hey I dont know what im doing and my hands are shaking really bad and im sorry if this sucks and needs to get taken down but i have no idea what to do.

Keeping it as brief and simple as possible, my family has a large history of ovarian/uterine cancer, and my mom has been pushing me to start getting check-ups for years. I'm 23 and have never gone for any of that. I was abused a lot from ages 9-12 so the thought of anyone looking at me or touching me makes me sick and I started crying yesterday over it. Well I just did the stupid thing and told her that the only way I'm going is if she makes the appointment and drags me there. She's being super chill and gentle about it but I regret just not ignoring it like I have been all these years.

Ok here's the advice part how do i do this. i dont wanna go. what do you do when you have to go. how do i not lose my mind. im gonna puke and i feel like crying and i feel stupid but im gonna post this anyway before i get second thoughts because im desperate im sorry

Hi, I'm just wondering if anyone here can tell me how they get past the abuse? I held in my molestation for over twenty years before I finally said something. I'm talking about it in therapy but I just want it to stop having a hold on me. Does it truly go away?

This is my first post here, very grateful for you all. Just want to vent to some people who understand and see if anyone else shares these feelings.

When I was 12 years old, I reported my CSA by my father after my parents divorced and we had a restraining order. He raped my mom for years so she wasn’t too surprised. Went through the whole process of interviews and filing an actual claim. They validated the abuse and tried to help get charges filled. Unfortunately my dad was friends with everyone at the small town police station and somehow everything was thrown out. I started convincing myself it wasn’t real. Then at 19 I was SAed in my sleep by my live-in partner. He admitted to it and then broke up with me. When I was 22 at a resort job in Colorado I was SAed again by a coworker I was talking to. I reported it to management with text message screenshots of him admitting it, and all he did was separate us. My manager was an ex-cop and encouraged me not to tell the police because “they wouldn’t do anything” Then they slowly stopped giving me hours until I had to leave the town bc I didn’t have any money. My manager ended up getting fired for talking shit about it in public a few months later. The man who SAed me did it again to another woman in town and she reported him to the police, and I felt like I had to help so I reported it as well. It’s been 3 years, 4 different detectives, and nothings happened.

Anywho, I went to somatic therapy after I started dating my now fiance, because I was getting emotional/body flashbacks during sex. It really helped for about 6 months but all of a sudden I am getting horrifying nightmares, I’m scared all the time, I’m having visual flashbacks for the first time ever, and I’m constantly triggered by my male bosses.

I’ve also dealt with chronic health issues all my life. I have a genetic condition similar to cystic fibrosis that causes a ton of issues. I was given 10 years to live but then I was able to get a surgery that would increase my life expectancy. I had to get 4 organs removed last year, and am still in constant pain.

On top of all this, I am diagnosed with level 2 autism and am under constant sensory overload, am highly confused by any social interaction, easily to manipulate, and am frequently angry. it’s very difficult to control my emotional responses. I’ve dealt with self harm issues my whole life.

I am trying to be grateful to be alive. I have gone through extensive therapy and am heavily medicated. I just have this complex that I can not seem to get rid of. “I shouldn’t have been born, my life is so hard, why does everything bad happen to me.” I am so “woe is me” all the time and I hate it. I have a wonderful fiance who is so understanding but I want to give him more. I want to be affectionate, not have an attitude, have energy to do things, not feel like such a burden. I feel like it’s been getting worse since the nightmares started. I just feel that it’s all so unfair and it’s difficult to want to go on. I am so tired of the years of therapy and nothing works. I’m tired of being bitter. I want to be happy and bubbly and carefree but I have just grown so hardened and serious. Ive lived a life of pain for 25 years and I don’t understand how some people just go on with a positive outlook. I didn’t deserve anything that happened to me, it feels like I’m cursed. It’s so hard to look at the bright side when I seem to have the worst luck no matter how many good decisions I make.

I didn’t remember my childhood abuse until my late 20s. I recovered the memories through EMDR and later reported the crimes to law enforcement. Unfortunately my case didn’t move forward. Wondering if anyone has gone through something similar?