Was this COCSA? (Please help)

[Hi :)]

Hello, I already posted this question on another forum, but I’m going to post it again on here because I think this is a more appropriate place for it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about some things that happened when I was little and I’m not sure if it’s considered COCSA or just normal child behaviour. I think that I may have been a victim, but I also think I may have been a perpetrator. I’m going to explain why I think I was a perpetrator because it been upsetting me.

So basically, when I was around 7/8 years old me and my little brother, who was around 5/6 years old, did some strange and vaguely sexual things. I remember several situations, I think about 5/6 to be exact. I remember I asked to kiss him on the lips once, I asked him to kiss me on the neck once, we looked at/ minimally touched each others genitals two times, and we had a “masturbating competition” one time. I didn't know masturbating was a sexual thing, I just thought it’d be funny to see who could do it for the longest time. I also remember some other weird stuff happening, but I think that it’s normal child behaviour. ( Looking at peers naked, masturbating in public)

I remember my parents and my older sister knowing about some of it and just getting mad at me and then ignoring it. I think I might’ve pressured him into some of it, I know I definitely initiated it because I learned it from another child. I genuinely can’t remember the details, but the morning after I kissed him he told my parents and my dad screamed in my face and slammed a door while my mom tried to get a confession out of me by repeatedly asking me if I had kissed him. Because of that I was too horrified to tell anyone what happened and I made sure to only do those things in private and lied to my parents when they asked us what we were doing. I remember another time when my mom walked in on us masturbating and she said something to me, slammed the door, and then I heard her yell “it’s f-big disgusting!”, outside.

He’s also almost 3 years younger than me and has a mild intellectual disability, so I’m not sure if it counts as COCSA or not. I also don’t know what I’m supposed to do if it does turn out that I abused him. I don’t think I can can cope knowing that I hurt someone.

It might’ve been normal because I think I remember my mom talking to a social worker about it and after that my family just kind of ignored what was happening. But I’m really not sure.

I feel so guilty, it’s been making me think of committing suicide. I feel like a horrible person who deserves to die and I’m not sure what to do. I feel like I should talk to him about it or my parents, but I’m way too scared. Please help me.

[Sam W]

Hi,

Before I say anything else, I want to say that if you feel like you're at risk of hurting yourself, my ask of you would be to contact this helpline before continuing with us here, okay? You're safety is the most important thing: https://talksuicide.ca/

Something that often gets lost in the discussions of COCSA is that generally happens when one child coerces or forces the other into doing sexual things because they're deliberately seeking out sexual gratification or stimulation, rather than acting from a place of mutual curiosity. Too, how the other child feels about it also matters a lot; if they felt like they couldn't say "no" or otherwise get out of the interaction, that's different than two kids engaging in something mutual curiosity. Does that make sense?

I do want to add that COCSA describes sexual assault between pre-teens and teenagers, not just little kids. So when you see people talking about it, including the effects of it and the prevalence, they're not just referring to incidents that happen between little kids. That's not to say incidents between young children can't be abuse or have traumatic results, but I think sometimes people lose sight of the fact that a lot of the time COCSA is being used to refer to actions by pre-teens and teens who have a far clearer concept of things like consent and sex then little kids do.

Too, I don't blame you (or honestly your brother if he made a similar calculation) for not wanting your parents to know about any of this after you saw their reactions. A parent screaming or slamming doors is terrifying at the best of times, but especially so when you're a little kid.

Reading all of that, how do you feel?

[Hi :)]

I don’t know. I still feel really confused about what happened. I don’t know if it was abuse or not. And I still feel really guilty and like I’m a terrible person.

[Sam W]

Well, from your own description, it sounds like you were doing this mainly from a place of curiosity, rather than because your saw your sibling as a source of sexual gratification. Does that sound about right?

Too, do you feel like you could talk with your brother about this and ask him how he feels about it? Because at a certain point, how he feels is far more important than my, or anyone else's, interpretation of what happened.

I do want to say that, even if you did cause harm? That isn't irreparable. It can be terrible to realize we hurt someone, especially someone we care about. But even when that happens, it doesn't mean we're a horrible person who's doomed to be horrible forever. It means we may need to look for ways to repair or make amends for the harm that we caused, you know?

[Hi :)]

I think it was out of genuine curiosity, but it’s difficult to remember what I was thinking at the time. I know I didn’t know what sex was until I was older. And I don’t remember anything explicitly sexual that we did, like we never engaged in an actual sexual act, but I don’t know if that automatically means it’s not abuse.

I think I feel really guilty because something sort of similar happened to me that I consider to be abuse, so I’m just assuming he would consider what I did to be abuse, too.

But, what happened to me was only sort of similar in one way (me asking him to lick my genitals). What happened to me included a lot of other weirder stuff and was a regular occurrence that went on for a little over a year. And, I know she wasn’t just curious because we did it a bunch of times and she’d done it to multiple other children before and at same time we were doing it. But it kind of makes me feel guilty when I characterize what happened to me as COCSA but not what I did to my brother.

I don’t know how he feels about what happened, I’m not sure he even remembers it. We’ve never talked about it before because he’s never brought it up. I also feel like I’m just assuming he was hurt by it because we don’t have a great relationship. He doesn’t really like me or my other siblings and I can’t tell if that’s because he was hurt by that or because of other stuff that happened between us.

We grew up in a kind of dysfunctional home, so me and my siblings used to fight and argue a lot. I can’t talk to him about it, though. I’ve spent years and years trying to forget about what happened, it’s hard to think about it. And it’s especially hard to talk about it.

[Sam W]

I'm sorry that you experienced what sounds like abuse of your own. With the person who did that, were they much older than you, or have some sort of power over you (bigger, in a different grade level, things like that)? And did you ever tell anyone what happened?

Too, as you pointed out, it sounds like this person was motivated by something other than curiosity, which in and of itself differentiates what she did from what happened between you and your brother. I will say that, from your description, I would classify what happened between you and him as closer to curiosity rather than abuse, but without knowing how he feels about what happened it's much harder to parse that out.

Is this something you've been thinking about for a long time? Or did you more recently encounter something that lead to you feeling anxious about all this? I ask because this is clearly causing you a lot of distress, but it's also the kind of thing where getting a clear answer is going to be tricky at best.

[Hi :)]

The girl who did that to me was the same age and size as me, but she seemed to know more than me about sexual stuff and about social relationships. And, I’ve never told anyone about it before.

I’ve thought about everything that happened episodically since I was a pre-teen, I believe. That’s when I was just starting to understand that kind of stuff. But, there was usually something that triggered it like recently I’ve seen a lot of stuff online about COCSA.

[Sam W]

Got it. Do you have any other spaces where you're able to process heavy stuff like this, whether that's formal ones (like a therapist) or informal ones like friendships? Or does it feel like this is the first time you've really had any space to talk about it? Too, it sounds like you were dealing with a dysfunctional home for a long time. Do things feel like they've improved?

I will say that, when it comes to seeing things about COCSA online, that can be a time to be cautious. COCSA is something where nuance and context matter, and can be hard to tease out and identify even for people with a lot of training in things like child welfare. It's also a topic where, for obvious reasons, people feel some pretty strong emotions, and survivors often feel like they weren't, or still aren't, taken seriously. Combine that with a lot of internet platforms like twitter or TikTok, which a great at amplifying emotion and stripping away context, and you get lots of instances where people are making VERY strong assertions or statements about COCSA that may not actually reflect the reality of it.

[Hi :)]

This is the first place I’ve been able to talk about this. My parents have improved a lot since I was little, especially my mom, but every time I’ve tried to talk to her about it I’m too scared to.

I’ve also spoken a little bit to a counsellor before, but I wasn’t really able to go into detail and explain exactly what happened.

[Hi :)]

Also, if it turns out that I did abuse him or that he felt hurt by it, what am I supposed to do?

Or if it turns out I was abused or I felt hurt by it, what am I supposed to do?

[Hi :)]

Update: I spoke to my mom about it and she helped me ask my brother about it. He said he doesn’t remember anything sexual between us and that he doesn’t feel like I violated him or anything like that.

Does this mean that it wasn’t abuse?

[Sam W]

I'm so glad things with your mom have improved to the point that she was able to help you have that conversation with your brother, and that you and he were able to talk about this.

Between your own description of what happened, and the fact that he doesn't feel harmed or violated by what happened, then I would say this doesn't fall under the heading of sexual abuse.

[Jo.dps]

So when I was in like 4th grade I was friends with this girl that was in 6th grade. We were only friends for like a year but I remember being so scared to go to her grandma's house whenever We spent the night together (she wasn't allowed at my house) once her grandma feel asleep that's when things would start to get scary. Here's the thing tho, so she always made me play adult truth and dare and at first I thought oh that's a cool idea until I really got to know about the game, I mean it's not like we were touching each other or showing anything to each other, it was us usually humping stuff animals or saying inappropriate things and possibly other things that i can't remember but i remember i would always ask her if we could play kids truth or dare since i was so scared of the one we were playing but she always told me no and that we would wake up her grandma if we played kids truth or dare but we ended up stop being friends since I was starting to do anything not to go and spend the night at her's just so I didn't have to play that stupid game

[Latha]

Hi there, Jo.dps- welcome to the boards.

I understand why you're asking this question, because there are some concerning things about this situation:

• This girl wanted to play an adult game, and wouldn't accept other suggestions. It is one thing to be curious about the things that adults do- it is another thing to be so focused.

• She said that if you two played another game (kids' truth or dare), something bad would happen (her grandmother would wake up).

• This game and her behavior made you feel so scared and uncomfortable that you had to avoid her entirely.

So yes, this could have been COCSA. How does this make you feel?

(P.S. I want to mention that you've responded to someone else's thread here. It isn't a problem, but it is usually best to make new threads for new topics.)