Scarleteen

I'm a 16 year old girl that until recent months, almost all my life I have had problems with my sexuality. At this point I feel comfortable for who I am, I have recently started my sex life but that's another story. But now I'm worried that I was sexually abused when I was little. I was a very distressed child and I had so many problems, some of which still affect me in someway. Out of curiosity, I googled what my problems were. I was shocked of what some websites said. Everything I googled were signs of a sexually abused child. I started to masturbate at age 4-5 and I had problems controlling my libido, for that reason my parents were very concerned, I remember my mother yelling at me to stop and that made me so ashamed of myself, they took me to see a psychologist. I had very serious sleep problems, insomnia and horrible nightmares and sleep paralysis as such a young age, that with time have faded away or I have learned to control, I was scared all the time, I didn't want to meet other people, I have urinary incontinence that I controll very well with kegels but it started at that age, I cried almost every night until I was 7, I was very insecure of myself and I saw everyone as a threat, if I wasn't crying I was angry, I didn't eat well and for that reason I had some nutritional problems. And I discovered that some thoughts aroused me when I was so young and that was so confusing and scary and haunted me for a decade until when I was 12 I googled some of my desires and I discovered that was totally normal, but I ended watching some explicit images and content I didn't want to see.

All of this had me thinking for a while and I tried to remember. My parents were Christians in those years and invited many church members to the house, and I remember a certain face of a man that scared me so much, I remember my parents telling me to go and say hi, but I just remember being so scared and wanting to run. I also remember my parents having a horrible fight and hiding under my bed and wetting myself. That is all I can remember. I talked with my mom about this stuff but she says it was just who I was, but something tells me that I was assaulted, and if I was, my parents didn't know. So, do you think I was sexually assaulted or it is just who I was?

Hi Abicelo,

There isn't a way for us to say for certain if you were sexually assaulted as a child, especially since there's not an incident of assault or abuse that you're remembering. All we have is a list of other factors that could be the result of abuse but could also be the result of other physical or psychological stuff that was going on for you as a child that had nothing to do with assault or abuse. If you can remember some of these other situations from when you were little, it seems unlikely that you would not remember the assault itself (that's not to say that couldn't be the case, it's just very unlikely). I'm sorry I don't have a more definite answer for you, since it sounds like this is stressing you out right now, but we're in even less of a position to make a call on this than you are, because we don't have your memories and weren't witness to your past.
Can I asked what triggered you to start pursuing this line of questioning? Did something happen recently that made you wonder this?