im a perpetrator and a victim // TW; SA

[vendetteav]

hi! So uhm. This is my first post. The truth is, I went on here because I need help. Obvious content warning for sexual assault and abuse

when I was 5 - 6 years old I was kidnapped by my mom and taken to D.C. I had made mostly older friends, two 12 year old girls. And a boy who was younger than me by a year.

My mom actively had sex whenever she felt like it. I of course heard it. The two girls would make me hump my stuffed bears— and, to be honest, I thought this was all normal. I was never told otherwise. I don’t remember most of it either.

The boy. Younger than me. Grabbed me and hid me under his kiddie pool. I don’t want to go into much detail, but he encouraged me to do things to him and I did not say no.

I was 6. Sexually abused 3 times right then, and then my mom lost me. Got taken to my dad’s, then immediately taken back out. This is where my mom had me in a motel. To which she, yes, had sex in front of me and with me in the bed. With me in the bed. It was terrifying. I didn’t know what to do except look away.

You may be noticing that there’s not a lot of perpetrating yet, but there will be. Again. A CW for abuse.

I got back home and my cousin moved in. Through coping, I had started to miss the touch and things I’d seen. This lead me to acting them out on my cousin. I thought it was normal, I thought I was normal. Of course I wasn’t. Of course it wasn’t.

Everyday since then I have lived in a deep, genuine regret. I’ve tried to kill myself, I’ve tried everything. I hate myself.

I recently got SA’ed again this year and I just. I feel as if I deserve it. I put my cousin though something no child EVER should have to go through. And I hate myself. I want to die because of it.

I’m not asking for pity. If anything, you can hate me. I just need help. I need to know what to do.

[Jacob]

Hi vendettav!

I'm so sorry to hear everything you've been through, and the sexual assault which has happened more recently.

It's very common to turn on yourself and blame yourself for experiencing abuse but it's not your fault that someone else assaulted you, not even close.

100% don't hate you - if anything I feel a lot of empathy for your your position. From everything you said about your experiences up until that point it makes total sense that you will have turned to physical intimacy that as you said "felt normal to you". It may be that your cousin experienced something embarrassing, confusing or even traumatic there, that I agree we wouldn't want any child to go through.

However it didn't occur in a vacuum. It sounds like the adults in your life shaped your childhood and created an environment which wasn't safe for your cousin or you.

It can make a lot of sense, and be helpful not to think of acts of abuse as happening between completely separate individuals, but instead to think of systems of abuse that send ripples through a whole families/communities.

You sound like you've done a lot of work to reflect on your childhood, have learnt to distinguish between what was ok and what "felt normal" but was not, and like you understand what consent is now as you have matured.

I don't know what exactly happened between you and your cousin but it absolutely sounds like it was an extension of the abuse and neglect you (a kid) were experiencing from your adults. To want to feel close and safe, is something kids are going to want to seek out, and if we don't find safe ways to do that, we inevitably find unsafe ways!

Please try and be kind to yourself as you think about these events as it sounds like they were all on the long path to lead you to where you are now.

Can I ask if you've had any mental health support around surviving abuse?