Scarleteen

when i was younger 8-9 years old, i remember discovering porn. which in turn, i showed my cousins and would suggest we engage in sexual things such as laying on the bed and kissing all over each other including the top of our pubic bones. Neither of my cousins bring it up, in no way am i just trying to bring it up in regular convo either with them. So many things i forget but this i remember. I feel shame and guilt in my twenties still. I don’t know what to do

Hi Greenwitch, and welcome to the boards

I’m so sorry to hear this has been causing you to feel shame and guilt. Hopefully we can help untangle some of these feelings with you.

From what you’re describing, this sounds like the type of childhood curiosity we know to be common in younger children. This doesn’t sound like COCSA, and the biggest reason I say that is because I’m not hearing anything in what you’ve described that sounds coercive or manipulative. You didn’t push or force anyone, and it sounds like you were all curious. It sounds, too, like you yourself didn’t have some of the context for this situation either, because you learned about it through sexual media without education or information on it.

How does reading that make you feel about this now?

how do i get the images to go away

Memories can certainly pop up when we don’t want them to, and there’s a few things we can do about that. First, recognizing that while we can’t get rid of memories, we can do things about how we remember them, and what sort of things we think while we remember them, to make them a little less heavy on us. So, in this case, I think it might make sense to untangle some of the ways you view these memories, and if there’s a way to reframe it for yourself. Second, sometimes when these images pop up more, there may be an underlying emotional need to address — feeling like a bad person, feeling like things are your fault, feeling out of control, etc. that can be cared for more directly.

With all that in mind, do you want to talk a bit about what sort of thoughts come to mind when the images come up?

oh yeah i feel like a terrible person and that everyone hates me and im disgusting, there are many encounters in my life that make me feel this way, this is just one piece of it

Hey there, greenwitch. I’m so sorry to hear you feel that way about yourself.

All of this, to me, sounds like stuff where you’d be most likely to create positive change with the help of a therapist. Is that a kind of help you’re open to exploring?