I am a victim and a perpetrator of cocsa
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This area of the boards is expressly for support and help for those who are currently in or have survived abuse or assault. It is also for those seeking information or discussion about abuse or assault. Please make every effort in this space to be supportive and sensitive. Posts in this area may or do describe abuse or assault explicitly.
This area of the boards is also not an area where those who are themselves abusing anyone or who have abused or assaulted someone may post about doing that or seek support. We are not qualified to provide that kind of help, and that also would make a space like this feel profoundly unsafe for those who are being or who have been abused. If you have both been abused and are abusing, we can only discuss harm done to you: we cannot discuss you yourself doing harm to others. If you are someone engaging in abuse who would like help, you can start by seeking out a mental healthcare provider.
This area of the boards is expressly for support and help for those who are currently in or have survived abuse or assault. It is also for those seeking information or discussion about abuse or assault. Please make every effort in this space to be supportive and sensitive. Posts in this area may or do describe abuse or assault explicitly.
This area of the boards is also not an area where those who are themselves abusing anyone or who have abused or assaulted someone may post about doing that or seek support. We are not qualified to provide that kind of help, and that also would make a space like this feel profoundly unsafe for those who are being or who have been abused. If you have both been abused and are abusing, we can only discuss harm done to you: we cannot discuss you yourself doing harm to others. If you are someone engaging in abuse who would like help, you can start by seeking out a mental healthcare provider.
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I am a victim and a perpetrator of cocsa
When I was a kid, I was 10 or 9 years old being assaulted by a 16 year old and being assaulted by my friend who was 8 or 9. This also caused me to be a perpetrator to my sister. I feel extremely guilty and ashamed and idk what to do. I’m trying to go to therapy but I just want to know like what is my fault. I feel bad but I also know I didn’t really know what I was doing bc I learned it from my friend and I didn’t understand what sex was
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Re: I am a victim and a perpetrator of cocsa
Hi catdog_067,
I want to start by saying that I'm so sorry other people in your life chose to assault you, and that I'm glad to know that you're already seeking therapy so you can get additional support around this.
Here's the tricky thing: if you did in fact perpetrate assault on your sibling, that's outside the boundaries of what we're able to offer you help with. However, there's also a lot of misunderstandings about COCSA floating around, and a tendency to conflate what's actually very common childhood curiosity and exploration with assault, so I want to see if we can help you work out if what you did would even be considered COCSA.
When we're talking about COCSA, whether or not coercion, force, or an imbalance of power is involved is really important. Often one of the things that happens in abusive dynamics is the perpetrator is much older and bigger, and often at a different developmental stage, than the survivor. In other words, the perpetrator is explicitly using their being older or bigger to force or coerce the survivor into the activity. Too, in a situation of abuse, one child wants to stop or says no and the other refuses to respect that, rather than it being a form of mutual exploration. If it's more about a child re-enacting something they saw, experienced, or just are curious about, that doesn't automatically make it abuse. Does that make sense?
I want to start by saying that I'm so sorry other people in your life chose to assault you, and that I'm glad to know that you're already seeking therapy so you can get additional support around this.
Here's the tricky thing: if you did in fact perpetrate assault on your sibling, that's outside the boundaries of what we're able to offer you help with. However, there's also a lot of misunderstandings about COCSA floating around, and a tendency to conflate what's actually very common childhood curiosity and exploration with assault, so I want to see if we can help you work out if what you did would even be considered COCSA.
When we're talking about COCSA, whether or not coercion, force, or an imbalance of power is involved is really important. Often one of the things that happens in abusive dynamics is the perpetrator is much older and bigger, and often at a different developmental stage, than the survivor. In other words, the perpetrator is explicitly using their being older or bigger to force or coerce the survivor into the activity. Too, in a situation of abuse, one child wants to stop or says no and the other refuses to respect that, rather than it being a form of mutual exploration. If it's more about a child re-enacting something they saw, experienced, or just are curious about, that doesn't automatically make it abuse. Does that make sense?
And you to whom adversity has dealt the final blow/with smiling bastards lying to you everywhere you go/turn to and put out all your strength of arm and heart and brain/and like the Mary Ellen Carter rise again.
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