Okay, so this is the 1st time I'm posting in this forum and I hope I'm in the right place.

When I was little (maybe about 7 or 8) I was with my parents at their friend's house. Actually, they didn't even like these people, it was more like an obligation. Anyway, I was playing with the couple's son. We were in his room. He was a couple years older than me. I am not sure how old-- perhaps anywhere from 11 to 13. We were playing on this bed and he said something about playing "mommy and daddy." He got on top of me and began making gyrating motions as though we were having sex. Our clothes were on. He was saying things like, "Oh baby, let's do this some more." I do not recall what happened after this. I don't know how it stopped. I'm not sure what I did. I don't think anything else happened, but how can I be 100 percent sure? The next thing I remember is that we were all at the table eating ice cream. I knew what happened wasn't right.

I am now 26 and yesterday was the first time I ever told anyone about this. (I told my therapist over the phone). I have remembered it all these years, but I never wanted to tell anyone until yesterday, when for some reason, the memory was really brewing.

My question is, was this significant? I never wanted to tell anyone all these years because I figured it was just a stupid game that this boy was playing and it wasn't worth talking about. I still feel stupid talking about it now.

Please, I could really use some insight here. Thank you so much.

[bchlyn]

because it is bothering you it is significant... your feelings are important and deserve to be looked at... even if nothing else happened it has caused you to keep it locked inside for all these years... i think it;s is very much worth looking at and working through... i experienced abuse from different men and some of the things that wounded me the most probably look insignificant to others... but have kept me in shame... i know i am not making a lot of sense... i just got home from a really hard t session... lyn

[I_WMD]

Pink ,,, Ya pretty much got it right asto the not stupid game , per se ,, but acting out and just curious as to why ???

And you knew it was weird or odd. Get yourself a show of hands here that ooooooh ... gee >> I kissed my cousin when we were like 10 years old ,, or ,, I heard noise coming from my parents or Mom and her overnight friends room .. or .. When ya got older ,, and had sex the first few times ya reacted ,,>>> This is IT ???.

errrrrrmmmmmm ,,,,,, You are a very Educated Lady and to be asking questions now ? Did something trigger you so as to think that was not just the normal I show you mine , if you show me yours . ? Play Doctor stuff?

[dalila]

<font color="green">First I think the age difference is enough that you can rule out "show me yours and I'll show you mine games." Second the declarations during the 'game' are not typical of play. Third you say that you do not recall how it ended but it bothers you -- I have to say if this was my kiddo I would have a fit and she would have been talking to a therapist at age 7.

It seems to me that this is something that has been stewing in your brain and perhaps you are just now ready and able to start dealing with it.

Whatever, I am here for ya, safe hugs from a fellow survivor.</font>

sexual abuse is something that is meant to be the explanation for whatever ails ya. turns an ununderstandable distress into something understandable. the only answer, the only explanation really.

that is the message we get from society.

then we wonder about things that happened in the past like this and wonder... and wonder...

is it a deer?
is it a deer?
is it a deer?

till we shoot our best friend (or some kid) in the neon jacket...

sexual play is a NORMAL PART OF DEVELOPMENT. horses do it, monkeys do it, humans do it too. hell, if you didn't have sexual experiences as a part of your development: YOU WOULD BE A FREAK. THERE WOULD BE SOMETHING WRONG WITH YOU.

Maybe you didn't feel 100% comfortable. Did you feel 100% comfortable playing all those other kindsa games kids play? Tin can where you had to kiss... Whatever the games were that you played as kids... How much social pressure was involved in a lot of that? How much curiosity? How much ambivalence?

How many gaps in your memory do you have for other games that you used to play?

Why is this one meant to be so special.

Oh yeah... Sexual abuse... The answer to everything...

I just mean to say that sometimes the stories we tell ourself become our reality.

Some people know. Right the way along. They won't admit, but they know.

Other people don't know. And they engage in a meaning creating enterprise.

And the theory is: Construct events as abuse. Identify with victimhood identify your abusers and rail against them and then you will be cured.

In our society there is much encouragement to tell this as a story of abuse.
In other societies there is encouragement to tell this as a story of kids being kids.
In other societies there is encouragement to take pride in kids becoming adults.

Which stories will we tell ourself? Which story will we seek to be confirmed?

And more importantly... Why?

i guess i am a freak. There is something wrong with me. i never had sexual play that i know of.

pink.. if it felt "icky" then it stuck in your memory as bad, worng or icky... and really, i don't think you will truly ever know... you know how unreliable recovered memory can be. i think you just have to work with what you do have. Sometimes it doesn't take anything even as much as this to provoke a feeling of shame in a child. That was what you ended up with from it, a feeling of shame. In the end, it's that powerful feeling of shame which leads to potential issues in life later.

it can be a tricky minefield, that's for sure.

i know, from experience, that feelings of shame have a strong attachment to events, place, people, things... they surface with a vengence when triggered. Shame is such a strong and unpleasant emotion, it overwhelms us, we so badly want to get away from it.

this incident could easily be provoked and attached to a lot.. and yeah, adult sexual experience can get filtered through those early feelings of shame. Hell.. it's hard enough to transition into feeling sex is healthy considering how conservative society is about the body, nudity, sex.. pretty much everything. We teach kids to cover, to know modesty, to refrain from sex (pointless, but we try anyway)... growing into it all being ok is a big jump.... add in feelings of shame for some external event, and well, you'll get something painful

you will have to explore what this means to you, what it meant to you, whether or not it shaped your development... you already know this

whether you want to call it abuse or not is really a personal choice that no one really has any right to take from, or give to, you. It's a personal decision really...

ask yourself... does it matter to you to label it? or are you seeking external validation? why? does that make it better? worse? justify or deny your experience somehow?

i asked myself all of this and more in regards to my own experiences... and honestly, no amount of external validation "proved" it to me. i still struggle with it sometimes.

having said all of that... external validation is sometimes all we got until we get stronger inside. It doesn't heal but it soothes. Having someone else speak the word abuse for me until i could say it myself (literally) was what i needed.

so.. in that light... anything that produces an overwhelming feeling of shame has potential to be abuse. There really isn't any good reason to produce that feeling in a child. Personally, i think it was, because this boy was old enough to know this wasn't play.. and to "play" this "game" with a much younger child, well... that tells me that he knew it was not something a child his own age would have "played" with him, he was dominating you (IMO). It's disturbing at the very least. A boy of 13 can be sexually active in the full adult sense of the word. He knew a lot that you did not. Had he been your own age, it could be viewed differently i think.... my T says that the difference in many cases is intent. What could really be the intent in this situation? It doesn't sound like a curiosity about the differences in anatomy... it sounds like "hey.. i wonder..." that got translated into you being an experiment... and that is domination, manipulation adn in my opinion, abuse.

but it doesn't matter what i think babe.. or any of us or anyone... it matters what YOU think....

and who ever taught you that it's ok to have bad things happen to you? why is it ok? what is ok if it was someone else? why don't those rights and rules apply to you?

i love you girl... take care and be well

[pachyderm]

Alex

[bchlyn]

aleandra k i will appologize in advance because i was having a hard time understanding what you were trying to say... so if i misunderstood i am sorry....
i wish that my memories were constructed... and that it was just a story that i told myself ... one of my abusers was about 8 years older then i was... was he just becoming an adult? should i be glad i was there to help him along the way?... is it ok for fathers to prepare their daughters for their husbands?... my experience with society hasn't been to tell my story of abuse... but to keep it quiet... and protect my abusers... i am wondering why your so angry?lyn

[I_WMD]

Oh mannnnnnnnnnnnnn .... I've told myself before to stay out of this forum !!!!

Reckon I not good at math either . eeerrrrrmmm,,, 4 year dif. and pre - teen at that ,,,

I sure didn't see all the other examples in the original post .

[Cyran0]

Pink, the age difference involved is significant enough that I believe that he was taking advantage of you. My oldest son is 12 and if he were to do that to a 7 or 8 year old I would have no doubt that he knew what he was doing. As a parent I also know that a 7 or 8 year old is likely to do whatever an older kid wants. In short, it was wrong.

But what does that mean? Well, you probably didn't process the event very well at the time and exploring it now doesn't hurt anything. At the very least, you deserve to not feel bothered by it.

Alexandra's point about defining yourself as a victim is an important cautionary point. I would try to avoid seeing yourself as permanently scarred by this event but instead I'd focus on what feelings you have and how to best deal with them.

I'm sorry this happened to you and I'm glad you're talking to a therapist about it.

Cyran0

[Kiya]

Pink - trust your gut. Talk to t.
((((((((((((hugs))))))))))))
Stay safe out there.

Kiya

[Cyran0]

Oh, and a follow up comment regarding Alexandra's posts.

Sexual play does happen with kids. It's natural. But play can become exploitive and hurtful, especially when there's a significant age difference.

This is where I personally happen to fit. I was sexually molested by an older boy for a period of years. It was a game he introduced, that I was excited to be a part of, but that I was told I must keep secret. I went through incredible guilt, regret, shame, etc. It's also caused some life long sexual identity issues.

So I would caution against posts in this forum that dismiss all child to child sexual contact as harmless. It's not always harmless and posts like that could discourage people who need help from telling their stories here or generally reaching out.

Finally, I disagree with the idea that significant numbers of people are labeling themselves as victims of sexual abuse as an explanation "for everything" as you put it or for some odd ploy for attention. The abuse victims I know tend to be very secretive about their histories and work very hard to feel normal.

Cyran0

yes you misunderstood because i wasn't talking to you.
i was talking to pinksoil.
on the basis of what she posted here.
thanks.

http://pediatrics.aappublications.or.../full/101/4/e9

you should be able to access that via institutional subscription.

SOMETIMES (and not every time) something doesn't seem traumatic until... it occurs to us as adults when we are attaching adult meanings and comprehensions. sometimes (and not every time) something doesn't feel 'icky' until... we remember from an adult frame of reference.

I guess you said that you didn't feel right about it at the time... can you think of other similar things... e.g., when someone made you play a non-sexual game that you really didn't want to, stuff like that. did you feel a lot worse than that or was it like that? could the icky feelings have been superimposed on the memory from an adult place?

i guess... that you are posting here in the 'abuse' forum might mean that you have decided. and want validation for seeing it that way. i'm sorry if what i say is hurtful... i'm trying to help. but you need to have a think about some stuff and figure what is right for you, yeah.

you don't need to have been abused in order for your experiences to be understandable. i guess that is the most important thing to know. something society often seems to forget.

Why do I say that? Because of the number of self help books (and therapists) who progress from general and diffuse symptoms (such as 'do you have trouble sleeping'? 'do you have trouble getting going in the morning') to 'you have been sexually abused. there IS this big push...

And this knowledge gets laid over rememberings altering their meaning.

Sometimes ya get pissed when your parents or other kids make you do something you don't want to do. Was it a feeling a bit like that or a bit different? Sometimes kids make us do something that is a bit humiliating (but non-sexual). Was it a bit like that or a bit different? I guess I'm wondering about how sexualized it felt at the time...

There are a couple reasons why you might have thought 'he was a kid playing around'. The standard line is because you are blaming yourself. But then... To say he was a kid playing around isn't blaming yourself unless you are using that line to beat yourself up for feeling upset over this. The other reason why you might have thought 'he was a kid playing around' is because... That was what was going on.

Can never access the past. Just have these rememberings in the present... I guess its up to how significant you want them to be... Whether you want to consider yourself a victim of sexual abuse or not. Becuase... Do you see... How you could cast them either way?

[Gracey]

Pink. . .

Sexual proper is broadly defined in the world of pediatrics and adult medicine. What IS narrowly defined however, is the definition of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse is the coercion and/or manipulation of one person to another to FORCE them to engage in sexual activities. Now, how you define sexual activity might be different from the next - but, loosely defined, it's any activity that brings into play sexual organs, sexual language, or sexual touch.

Further. . .sexual exploration of children is typically MUTUAL - well on all counts but the parents. LOL Kids are curious. Teenagers on children however is NOT typical sexual exploration.

Trust your gut hon. . .you know what the blank spots indicate. Think about what we've talked about before.

I'm here for you.

[bchlyn]

yes, children do act out sexually and in most cases it is normal for them to do so... but when the child demonstrates knowledge that isn't developmentally appropriate for the child's age...it should cause adults to raise red flags...

He was saying things like, "Oh baby, let's do this some more."

at the very least he had watched movies that were not age appropriate... he was old enough to know that this behavior wasn't ok... and he wasn't acting out with a child of his peer group... he chose a child that was younger... weaker and who didn't understand what was happening to them.

the fact that it has caused you distress is reason enough for you to explore why it has... and do what you need to do to process the information... by doing this your not labeling yourself as a victim... you taking steps to understand why this memory has caused you pain ... as far as i am concerned that is anything but a victim.

lyn

[Kiya]

</font><blockquote><div id="quote"><font class="small">Quote:</font>
alexandra_k said:
yes you misunderstood because i wasn't talking to you.
i was talking to pinksoil.
on the basis of what she posted here.
thanks.

</div></font></blockquote><font class="post">

ouch - open forum

Thank you all for your replies-- and just to be clear, I simply posted on the abuse forum because I thought it would be most fitting to do so. I thought that the people who regularly post on this form would have good information and opinions for me-- and I was right. I was not posting on this forum to get a validation or label of some type of sexual abuse-- that is not at all what I think occurred-- However, I know that this is something that stuck with me for 20+ years for a reason... and I was wondering what others thought.

>> yes you misunderstood because i wasn't talking to you.
i was talking to pinksoil.
on the basis of what she posted here.
thanks.

> ouch - open forum

i'm very sorry - i really genuinely didn't mean that in the way it came out. i understand how what i said was 'ouch' and i apologise for that. what i meant to convey by that was that different people do of course have different circumstances. i most certainly did not mean my take on pinksoils situation (on the basis of the way she explained it) to be my take on everybody elses situation. that was what i meant to convey - that i appreciate that other people have other circumstances and i really didn't mean for what i said to pinksoil to be something that necessarily applied to others circumstances at all.

i hope that is clearer. sorry for the abrupt way i put that.

hey. i'm sorry for the way that i said what i said... i really don't think i'm terribly good at expressing myself sometimes.

there is also the point that this is a topic that is emotionally charged for a lot of people and so it is especially important to be particularly clear in order to avoid hurt feelings.

in particular:

- i really didn't meant to say or imply that people 'choose' to see themselves as victims in the sense that we should hold people who identify as victims responsible for their identification.

- i really didn't mean to say or imply that people aren't sometimes treated inappropriately by other people. i really didn't mean to say or imply that people are unaffected by being treated inappropriately.

i worry... that while people don't come to this forum IN ORDER to have the victim label given to them or their rememberings validated as VERIDICAL or their failures to remember validated as EVIDENCE OF TERRIBLE EXTERNAL CIRCUMSTANCES - that is something that tends to happen on forums of this nature.

People are getting into this at the moment.. The role of internet support forums for harmful identifications is soemthing that people are looking at now... It is something to be careful of...

I also don't mean to judge. I wasn't there so how would I know what happened. But it is important to note that memory doesn't work like a blank piece of paper that retains a true and accurate record of events. And it is also important to note that things can stick with us (as they tend to) and that the significance can be worked out later when we superimpose our adult perspective back on that memory.

IN particular - it is interesting to me that when people emphasised aspects of pinksoils account they tended to MAGNIFY the account - in the sense that the majority of people 'remembered' pinksoil being on the YOUNGEST end of her estimate at age and the guy being on the OLDEST end of her estimate of age. This might well be the case - but this does tend to show how rememberings can indeed be affected by the emotional tone we are trying to legitimate. E.g., people who are really hurting very badly from their rememberings tend to have magnify what they remember of external events.

I'm just trying to say that past events aren't accessible to us anymore (for the simple reason that they lie in the past). Rememberings can be very painful indeed... But sometimes how painful our rememberings are can be significantly affected by how we categorize and classify external events. Makes a great deal of difference in this case (where there seems to be ambivalence) whether the event is cast as 'intentional abuse and coercive manipulation' or 'kids being kids'. This is NOT SO for ALL rememberings - but given the ambivalence in pinksoils post there seems to be more scope for interpretations affecting the significance of the remembering... I just wanted to try and make sure that pinksoil considered some different interpretations. The coercive interpretation is of course one, but the kids being kids interpretation might be one that is open to her (that isn't open to others)... Perhaps...

[Kiya]

=) it seemed rather "un-alex-like".