Scarleteen

Hello!
First of all I want to say thanks so much for the forum here.

I’ve seen a few posts here regarding Cocsa and thought it would be a place I could start talking about it.
I’m currently a 22 F and have repressed a couple memories involving what feels like inappropriate sexual interactions with my siblings that I initiated.
I’ve had the memories become clearer in the last few months and been feeling intense shame and guilt and feeling like a gross, horrible person. And not sure how to move forward with it or how to deal with it.
My biggest fear is that I have sexually abused or affected my siblings on a psychological level.
These memories happened when I was 11, and I guess I was starting to be sexually curious although I had no idea about boundaries or what was okay or not as my family didn’t teach me that. But even so I feel I should have known better.
My sister is 1 and a half years younger then me and 2 or 3 times I dry humped her leg. I remember one time she said she didn’t want to and I never did again.
At that same age I was in the shower with my brother who is 6 years younger than me, so I was 11 and he was 5 and I touched our genitals together for a second while we were standing up. Then he wanted to keep bumping them together and at that point I realised it was wrong and said no we can’t.
I never got any sexual gratification or arousal or knew what I was doing was a sexual act.

I think I’m most worried about my brother as there is the big age gap and from what I’ve read online, big age gaps are one of the things that change normal child exploration to Cocsa. And that even if a the child doesn’t know what they are doing or the implications of it it can still be abuse. And since I was the one who started every situation and the older one I feel that weight of that.
I’m just so worried that I’ve affected them in some way, especially as my sister struggles to be open to meeting romantic partners and my brother struggles with ocd and depression.
I’ve very close to my family and my sister is one of my best friends.
I recently talked to her about it and apologised and she was fine with it, and understands that I didn’t know what I was doing.
I also talked to my mum and brother about him and at first he was worried that more had happened as he couldn’t remember it, but once I reassured him that was all, he was okay and we laughed about it and he thanked me for telling him.
I guess through after researching it more I am worried it was sexual abuse.

I also really want to tell my partner as we are really open with each other. But I’m worried if I do that he might break up with me or at least view me differently as he was sexually abused by his dad as a kid and had an ex partner that was sexually abused by her uncle. So I’m just so scared that he might feel really triggered by that and feel like I’m the same as those adults who were abuses. Really not sure how to handle it if he did feel like that.

I guess I just want to put it all out there and see someone else’s perspective on it and everything I’m feeling. If it’s in any way abuse or assault I want to know as I want to try and do everything I can to fix it.

But it’s been a big weight on my shoulders and I’m hoping talking about it will help everyone.

Hey Neekky!

Sorry you've been struggling t process this!

I'll say for of all that you've described here sounds nothing abusive to me. It sounds like you were curious and hadn't yet learnt what your boundaries or others boundaries really were or how to negotiate them. The term "COCSA" is relatively new, but I'd argue that the that 'A' at the end is the important part.

Doing a thing that hurts someone, upsets them, or crosses a their boundaries, isn't itself abusive, doing but doing those things (often repeatedly) because it hurts them, and to use that hurt as a means of controlling them, or to feel powerful - that's abuse. If anything, it sounds like these experience caused you to learn a thing or two about boundaries at a young age, which is the opposite to how child abuse looks.

It sounds like you and your siblings also had some healthy conversations about this as adults, all which says to me you're someone who takes consent pretty seriously.

I don't think you can put down your siblings mental health issues to these experiences, especially not if they don't . After all, they are the best authority on their own struggles.

With disclosing these things to your partner, true, it may be distressing for them if it somehow reminds them of their experiences of abuse, but so too might a piece of music, or a smell or some other situation which brings back those times. As with any of those situations you can offer them support, but whether it occurs still wouldn't be a reflection on you as a person.

I think if I was in his situation I'd wonder why I was being told, which I think is a good question to ask your self.

It sounds like you're struggling somewhat with self-acceptance here, which outside acceptance is unlikely to be a good stand-in for, but if while you're working on that self acceptance a partner can offer to be there for us, that can be really helpful, but it's very situational.

What do you think you'd be hoping to get out of telling him?