feeling extra guilt because of past csa experience, effects, and trauma

[chuairos]

hello! thank u sm for having this platform and having the time to read my questions , i wanted to say sorry in advanced if this was hard to read since english is not my first language

i was sexually assaulted when i was 5 by a security guard from my neighborhood by touching my front private parts, i didnt feel scared at all, it feels weird but it felt somehow 'nice' and it happened twice

so then the next few days after that, i asked my little brother who was 2 or 3 at that time to do the same thing by touching my private parts and he did and it happened twice, i never meant any harm to him or want to acquire power by being the oldest to ask him to do weird things. i just want to feel it again and i thought those things were normal and i didnt know or learnt about boundary at that time.

but now that im 20 yo, the memories start coming flowing back down and i feel so extremely guilty and ashamed that i found my abuser touch 'nice' and asked my brother to even do that to me

im so scared now since im starting to get flashbacks of the incident every day and i feel so tainted and dirty

and do u think im an abuser to my brother for that?

my brother is now 16 and we were always close since we were kids and i want to apologize to him but im scared that it might make him remember and make him traumatized and i dont think he remembers the incident, what do u think i should do?

my parents nor the rest of the family never knew i was sexually assaulted and i never went to therapy since i grew up not having the memories of it but now since it came flowing back i was thinking of going to one

[StephR]

Hi chuairos,

First of all, I am so sorry to see that someone hurt you in that way.

It sounds to me like you didn't understand what had happened to you or what you were asking your brother to do at the time. This doesn't seem like you were abusing your brother.

It is very common for sexual assault victims of any age to feel physically aroused during the assault, even though they're obviously not enjoying it. It's also really common for young kids to be curious about their own and each other's bodies. Sometimes kids will try things with their friends or siblings that they don't understand the implications of, especially if an adult has exposed them to those acts.

Seeing a therapist sounds like a good idea to me. A therapist could help you work through the trauma of being assaulted, and they could help you come up with a plan to talk to your brother about this incident if you think that would be helpful. Also, we could talk more about those topics here on the message boards if you want.

How does all of this sound to you?

[chuairos]

hi steph, thank u so much for replying and for the recommendation to undergoing therapy, i'll definitely went to one this year

and thank u for validating and explaining to me the meaning behind why i feel 'aroused' when the abuser was touching me. it was such a long time ago and i didnt exactly remember what im feeling at that moment, but i remember vividly that i felt weird and wasnt enjoying it that much but it made me feel aroused which i think theres where my source of guilt is coming from.

i think the guilt become much more unbearable because i kept thinking that i turned exactly like my abuser when i asked my brother to do that to me because it made me feel good/aroused.

and also im interested in the topics surrounding these csa and its effect to the victims, because after i went through my csa experience i remember growing up i got exposed to a lot of porn and also not having any recollection of my past incident until now. can u explain to me a bit more about this topics?

[Sam W]

Hi chuairos,

With some of that guilt you're feeling, I think it may help to remember that you asking your brother to engage in that touching doesn't mean you turned out exactly like your abuser. One of the main reasons I say that is that the motives behind what he did and what you did are very different. You were acting more from curiosity or trying to make sense of what you experienced. While I can't know his motives, as an adult he had the full capacity to know what he was doing was not okay, and was making the active choice to exert his desires on someone who could not consent AND was someone he had an immense amount of power over. Can you kind of see how those are different?

As far as why you may have repressed or not recalled the incidents until recently, I really like this as a rundown of how and why some people who experience assault as children end up not recalling it for some time, and what things might cause them to remember it: https://www.allohealth.care/healthfeed/ ... xual-abuse

Can you say a little more about that exposure to porn and if/how you think it might be related to all this?

[chuairos]

hi sam! sorry for the late reply

thank you for giving me the clear differences about how me and my abuser are different. it really eases up my mind a bit better now. i'll try my best to heal and slowly forgive myself for what had already happened

now that i think about it, im not really sure if this porn exposure relates to my csa experience but i remember i got early access to phone at a very young age (around 8/9) and i searched up things about genitals and eventually stumbled upon nude pics and intimate things like people kissing, having sex, etc. and i think what motivates me to do that was bcs of my past csa experience and it made me subconsciously searched up things like that?? it messed up my mind a lot

please educate me if im wrong about my assumption, i'd like to learn more

[Sam W]

I'm really glad what I said helped to ease your mind a little!

You know, what you're describing with how you ended up finding porn is actually a pretty common way young people, including kids, stumble upon it. They're curious about something they've heard or seen, or they're trying to make sense of something they experienced, and searching for information about those topics can as easily lead to finding sexual media as it can to finding age-appropriate resources. So, while it's entirely possible that part of why you were searching for that information, or why you were curious about porn when you found it, is because you were trying to make sense of what happened when you were younger, it could also just have been a natural curiosity (or a combination of the those two).