*edit* i'm new and didn't know about the trigger thing but i gave as many details as possible so this may have some.
Ok, this is a long story. But I am really confused right now and just looking for some clarity. Maybe some people who do not know me, my family, or my situation at all will be able to offer some input. It is really long but if one or two people would stick with it, that would be awesome. I am also going to give a lot more details than I usually do so you can better assess the situation. alrighty.. here goes
I am 20 years old and for as long as I can remember I have been involved sexually with something or somebody. My earliest memory I was 2 years old playing "doctor" with my cousin (we are the same age. i'm like 23 days older than him). We did this every chance we got through age 8 or 9. Slowly intensifying as we figured more stuff out. I guess you could say it started out innocently enough.. toddlers marveling at different body parts, but it didn't really stop at all. Our families went to the same church and "doctor" also happened with other kids (up till age 8). boys and girls. With the other kids there was a lot of looking and touching (i remember alot of 6 year old sleepovers that me and my best friend should have been more supervised at). With my cousin by the time we were 8-ish we were using mouths and fingers a lot more. Our parents caught us "in the act" a few times when we were really little but just separated us and never said anything. my older brother (2 years older than me) also knew what was happening behind the church shed and tried to get me out of the situation, but never told on me.
Up until around 7 all of this was mutual. It wasn't stuff being done to me, I wanted to do it too. I even initiated it, etc. Pushing 8 though, idk what happened but it wasn't fun anymore, I was afraid of my parents finding out and getting in trouble. I remember my cousin having to beg me to continue and eventually I would give in. It would be about an hour of "come on.. please" and then i would just feel defeated, lay on his bed and say "fine. i'll be still, do whatever you want". Around 9 though, he got sent to a children's ranch for behavior problems and when he came back around the age of 10/11 it was just over. Like a mutual "we don't do that anymore and we're not going to talk about it" kind of thing.
the next problem though, was my older brother. I don't really remember the age it started with him. But it was a year or two before I got my period at 12 so i want to say i was about 10 or 11 (so as it stopped with my cousin, it started with my brother). i really don't remember either the first time or how it started. i wish for the life of me i could remember. but from when it started till 12 and a half there was a lot of inapropriate-ness going on. to describe what happened physically... he would finger me, there was a lot of me touching him, him touching my chest, there was genital contact/rubbing, he tried to have sex with me towards the end of it but our bathroom was small and we couldn't maneuver it and i freaked out so he stopped trying. i'm pretty sure i'm still a virgin though, i don't recall "it" ever going in.
this is where it gets tricky and why i'm confused. none of this was ever forced. from when it started till when it ended i remember going back and forth on how i felt about it. half the time i enjoyed it and what we were doing, the other half of the time i wanted his penis out of my face and for him to leave me alone. we were homeschooled, but my mom worked. so by homeschooled i mean me and my bro were left home alone all day to get our work done (which did not help the situation at all). i remember a specific time when i would go to him and dare him to start something with me. but i remember other times when he begged me till i caved, or i was cornered, or he just did something out of the blue without me knowing or asking for it beforehand. examples.. i would go to use the bathroom when he was showering (it was a rule the door had to be unlocked when we showered so the rest of the family could pee) and you couldn't see through the shower door unless you pressed yourself up against it -which he did-. or he would just come out and start touching himself. he would come up behind me when i was working on schoolwork and start putting his hands up my shirt, he would just randomly expose himself, walk around naked, i would be working on homework and i would glance up and BOOM, it was in my face. and he kind of acted like he was doing me a favor by showing me his erections which bothered (still bothers) me a lot. later after all of this happened though the same story of "come on. i did my part, i showed you. it's your turn, you owe me" etc. he would come in when i was showering and try to open the door on me. you get the picture.
i remember telling him that when I got my period everything would stop. and he agreed. at almost 13 when i got it, he held to his promise and everything stopped physically (continuously anyway - there were a couple random moments in the garage at around 14/15). after it stopped the questions started though. personal questions like "do you touch", "are you growing hair yet", etc. just questions that i did not want to answer but felt obligated to. by 16 all of it had stopped. but that is the age i got my laptop and that is when i found pornography. i was hooked from day 1 and i still battle that addiction.
otherwise, i have never had a boyfriend. there was a guy that i liked in my youth group and we held hands and kissed once when i was 18 but that is the extent of my sex life outside of family.
all through high school and starting college, i saw the entire situation (from age 2 till 15) as something that i was equally to blame for mainly because there were moments that i enjoyed it and nothing was ever physically forced. my cousin is now a marine. we have a good relationship. there was one moment around 15 that all the cousins were outside playing manhunt or something and just randomly we were alone on a team and he said something like "hey remember what we used to do as kids?". i said "yeah".. and he continued "yeah.. that was really screwed up"... and i said "yeah" again. that was the end of it. it has never come up with my brother (who is now a firefighter/EMT and just got engaged last week).
i became a christian at the age of 5. walked away between the ages of 16-18 but came back to Him entering college. all through middle school and the first couple years of high school i remember just spending hours praying for forgiveness. i knew i only had to do it once but it made me feel better to do it every time i thought about it (which was every day). i never told anybody back home cause my brother was model christian in our church. this would ruin his reputation and i didn't feel it was my place to do that to him. i also knew i would get in trouble with somebody (especially scared of my parents hating me for it). everyone knew how good the kids in my family were. we were so homeschooled, perfect, and innocent to the outside world, especially the youth group (which made me hate the other kids in the youth group because they didn't have a freaking clue when they made fun of me for being "sheltered and cute"), that i wouldn't dare ruin that reputation by telling somebody. also i'm embarrassed beyond imagination about it. awkward shy kid who never spoke a word unless forced to. that was me. i highly doubt any people back home will ever know.
coming into college i found a great church and a girl a couple years older than me took me aside one night and idk what happened to me, maybe it was the just the first chance i found someone willing to listen who didn't know my brother so it was "safe", but i word vomited out the entire story. the next 6-7 months we just worked on building up our relationship. she trusted me and over time i was able to trust her. it was a mentoring/accountability relationship. she helped me get more into the bible and praying regularly, and dealing with my porn issue and self harm issue. then last august she decided to bring this all back up again. pretty much said "listen.. i remember way back when you told me about your brother. lets talk about/deal with this". she was also the first person to tell me that he abused me which i refused to believe. up till then i was still putting the blame 50/50. i also put the entire thing in the past. my brothers and my relationship was great. we didn't talk about it, i didn't hold it against him because i was just as much to blame.. it was like it never happened. and i was 100% ok with keeping it that way. then she told me that this was a deep issue that affected me majorly and my whole life turned upside down.
i hated her at first for what she said to me. my brother did NOT abuse me. he loves me and cares about me, it doesn't affect my life now, and i refused to believe any of that. but then i learned about God's grace and how it works (rocked my world when that happened btw), and when i looked at the situation for what it was without all of my shame for what I did getting in the way.. I can see how not all of what happened was my fault. and how it totally affected me. it affected my self worth/image/esteem because when my brother stopped wanting my body and started calling me "fat", i though i was a piece of crap and starting hurting myself. i am scared of sex, boys, and relationships. i never want to get married for the sole reason that married people have sex which i see as being the most disgusting thing on the planet. i refuse to ever do it. i have a hard time making guy friends because guys make me feel weird. i don't get emotionally attached to anything or anybody. i love people and when they are in my lives, but if they die, leave, move away, etc. it doesn't phase me one bit. it's a way of protecting myself. i don't NEED people. i can take care of myself, etc. i don't cry and i usually don't feel or show strong emotions (happy on the outside, numb on the inside is another way to describe that). all of this in the past few months i've been able to connect back to what happened in my childhood.
the problem, though, is this. i've been having a lot of doubts about it recently. the few christian women and friends in my life that know the situation have invested a lot into me. they're fighters, prayer warriors, they love me, and they're willing to help me through this entire situation of figuring it out and starting/continuing the healing/recovery process. but i have this feeling that i'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. kind of reversing back to my old mindset that what happened was not abuse, it was me being a dirty little kid because it was all i ever knew (i mean.. i was 2), and I just need to forgive myself and move on. talking intimately with them and accepting their help means i'm just looking for attention. i'm not going to lie, when people invest time in me like they've been doing.. i love the feeling i get from it. and then i feel guilty for that. i also know that i won't have these people forever. this is a college church.. we have a max of 2-4 years together before people move on with their lives. i can't afford to get in the habit of leaning on other people because one day this will end. i have to know how to take care of myself when i'm alone again.
from your opinion of everything i've told you.. i want a cut and dry answer. would you tag this as abuse or not? should i continue to seek/accept my friends and counselors help for it.. or am i blowing things way out of proportion? either way God has forgiven me, I just need to forgive myself. But in the mean time if this is no big deal, i should stop wasting everybody else's time just because i enjoy it when they love on me.
thanks. and sorry this is so long.
Ok, this is a long story. But I am really confused right now and just looking for some clarity. Maybe some people who do not know me, my family, or my situation at all will be able to offer some input. It is really long but if one or two people would stick with it, that would be awesome. I am also going to give a lot more details than I usually do so you can better assess the situation. alrighty.. here goes
I am 20 years old and for as long as I can remember I have been involved sexually with something or somebody. My earliest memory I was 2 years old playing "doctor" with my cousin (we are the same age. i'm like 23 days older than him). We did this every chance we got through age 8 or 9. Slowly intensifying as we figured more stuff out. I guess you could say it started out innocently enough.. toddlers marveling at different body parts, but it didn't really stop at all. Our families went to the same church and "doctor" also happened with other kids (up till age 8). boys and girls. With the other kids there was a lot of looking and touching (i remember alot of 6 year old sleepovers that me and my best friend should have been more supervised at). With my cousin by the time we were 8-ish we were using mouths and fingers a lot more. Our parents caught us "in the act" a few times when we were really little but just separated us and never said anything. my older brother (2 years older than me) also knew what was happening behind the church shed and tried to get me out of the situation, but never told on me.
Up until around 7 all of this was mutual. It wasn't stuff being done to me, I wanted to do it too. I even initiated it, etc. Pushing 8 though, idk what happened but it wasn't fun anymore, I was afraid of my parents finding out and getting in trouble. I remember my cousin having to beg me to continue and eventually I would give in. It would be about an hour of "come on.. please" and then i would just feel defeated, lay on his bed and say "fine. i'll be still, do whatever you want". Around 9 though, he got sent to a children's ranch for behavior problems and when he came back around the age of 10/11 it was just over. Like a mutual "we don't do that anymore and we're not going to talk about it" kind of thing.
the next problem though, was my older brother. I don't really remember the age it started with him. But it was a year or two before I got my period at 12 so i want to say i was about 10 or 11 (so as it stopped with my cousin, it started with my brother). i really don't remember either the first time or how it started. i wish for the life of me i could remember. but from when it started till 12 and a half there was a lot of inapropriate-ness going on. to describe what happened physically... he would finger me, there was a lot of me touching him, him touching my chest, there was genital contact/rubbing, he tried to have sex with me towards the end of it but our bathroom was small and we couldn't maneuver it and i freaked out so he stopped trying. i'm pretty sure i'm still a virgin though, i don't recall "it" ever going in.
this is where it gets tricky and why i'm confused. none of this was ever forced. from when it started till when it ended i remember going back and forth on how i felt about it. half the time i enjoyed it and what we were doing, the other half of the time i wanted his penis out of my face and for him to leave me alone. we were homeschooled, but my mom worked. so by homeschooled i mean me and my bro were left home alone all day to get our work done (which did not help the situation at all). i remember a specific time when i would go to him and dare him to start something with me. but i remember other times when he begged me till i caved, or i was cornered, or he just did something out of the blue without me knowing or asking for it beforehand. examples.. i would go to use the bathroom when he was showering (it was a rule the door had to be unlocked when we showered so the rest of the family could pee) and you couldn't see through the shower door unless you pressed yourself up against it -which he did-. or he would just come out and start touching himself. he would come up behind me when i was working on schoolwork and start putting his hands up my shirt, he would just randomly expose himself, walk around naked, i would be working on homework and i would glance up and BOOM, it was in my face. and he kind of acted like he was doing me a favor by showing me his erections which bothered (still bothers) me a lot. later after all of this happened though the same story of "come on. i did my part, i showed you. it's your turn, you owe me" etc. he would come in when i was showering and try to open the door on me. you get the picture.
i remember telling him that when I got my period everything would stop. and he agreed. at almost 13 when i got it, he held to his promise and everything stopped physically (continuously anyway - there were a couple random moments in the garage at around 14/15). after it stopped the questions started though. personal questions like "do you touch", "are you growing hair yet", etc. just questions that i did not want to answer but felt obligated to. by 16 all of it had stopped. but that is the age i got my laptop and that is when i found pornography. i was hooked from day 1 and i still battle that addiction.
otherwise, i have never had a boyfriend. there was a guy that i liked in my youth group and we held hands and kissed once when i was 18 but that is the extent of my sex life outside of family.
all through high school and starting college, i saw the entire situation (from age 2 till 15) as something that i was equally to blame for mainly because there were moments that i enjoyed it and nothing was ever physically forced. my cousin is now a marine. we have a good relationship. there was one moment around 15 that all the cousins were outside playing manhunt or something and just randomly we were alone on a team and he said something like "hey remember what we used to do as kids?". i said "yeah".. and he continued "yeah.. that was really screwed up"... and i said "yeah" again. that was the end of it. it has never come up with my brother (who is now a firefighter/EMT and just got engaged last week).
i became a christian at the age of 5. walked away between the ages of 16-18 but came back to Him entering college. all through middle school and the first couple years of high school i remember just spending hours praying for forgiveness. i knew i only had to do it once but it made me feel better to do it every time i thought about it (which was every day). i never told anybody back home cause my brother was model christian in our church. this would ruin his reputation and i didn't feel it was my place to do that to him. i also knew i would get in trouble with somebody (especially scared of my parents hating me for it). everyone knew how good the kids in my family were. we were so homeschooled, perfect, and innocent to the outside world, especially the youth group (which made me hate the other kids in the youth group because they didn't have a freaking clue when they made fun of me for being "sheltered and cute"), that i wouldn't dare ruin that reputation by telling somebody. also i'm embarrassed beyond imagination about it. awkward shy kid who never spoke a word unless forced to. that was me. i highly doubt any people back home will ever know.
coming into college i found a great church and a girl a couple years older than me took me aside one night and idk what happened to me, maybe it was the just the first chance i found someone willing to listen who didn't know my brother so it was "safe", but i word vomited out the entire story. the next 6-7 months we just worked on building up our relationship. she trusted me and over time i was able to trust her. it was a mentoring/accountability relationship. she helped me get more into the bible and praying regularly, and dealing with my porn issue and self harm issue. then last august she decided to bring this all back up again. pretty much said "listen.. i remember way back when you told me about your brother. lets talk about/deal with this". she was also the first person to tell me that he abused me which i refused to believe. up till then i was still putting the blame 50/50. i also put the entire thing in the past. my brothers and my relationship was great. we didn't talk about it, i didn't hold it against him because i was just as much to blame.. it was like it never happened. and i was 100% ok with keeping it that way. then she told me that this was a deep issue that affected me majorly and my whole life turned upside down.
i hated her at first for what she said to me. my brother did NOT abuse me. he loves me and cares about me, it doesn't affect my life now, and i refused to believe any of that. but then i learned about God's grace and how it works (rocked my world when that happened btw), and when i looked at the situation for what it was without all of my shame for what I did getting in the way.. I can see how not all of what happened was my fault. and how it totally affected me. it affected my self worth/image/esteem because when my brother stopped wanting my body and started calling me "fat", i though i was a piece of crap and starting hurting myself. i am scared of sex, boys, and relationships. i never want to get married for the sole reason that married people have sex which i see as being the most disgusting thing on the planet. i refuse to ever do it. i have a hard time making guy friends because guys make me feel weird. i don't get emotionally attached to anything or anybody. i love people and when they are in my lives, but if they die, leave, move away, etc. it doesn't phase me one bit. it's a way of protecting myself. i don't NEED people. i can take care of myself, etc. i don't cry and i usually don't feel or show strong emotions (happy on the outside, numb on the inside is another way to describe that). all of this in the past few months i've been able to connect back to what happened in my childhood.
the problem, though, is this. i've been having a lot of doubts about it recently. the few christian women and friends in my life that know the situation have invested a lot into me. they're fighters, prayer warriors, they love me, and they're willing to help me through this entire situation of figuring it out and starting/continuing the healing/recovery process. but i have this feeling that i'm making a mountain out of a mole hill. kind of reversing back to my old mindset that what happened was not abuse, it was me being a dirty little kid because it was all i ever knew (i mean.. i was 2), and I just need to forgive myself and move on. talking intimately with them and accepting their help means i'm just looking for attention. i'm not going to lie, when people invest time in me like they've been doing.. i love the feeling i get from it. and then i feel guilty for that. i also know that i won't have these people forever. this is a college church.. we have a max of 2-4 years together before people move on with their lives. i can't afford to get in the habit of leaning on other people because one day this will end. i have to know how to take care of myself when i'm alone again.
from your opinion of everything i've told you.. i want a cut and dry answer. would you tag this as abuse or not? should i continue to seek/accept my friends and counselors help for it.. or am i blowing things way out of proportion? either way God has forgiven me, I just need to forgive myself. But in the mean time if this is no big deal, i should stop wasting everybody else's time just because i enjoy it when they love on me.
thanks. and sorry this is so long.
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