Pictures

[ailurophiledork]

Hey scarleteen, im a 19 year old and now im in medschool, when i was younger i had a boyfriend and he asked me for nudes and being the dumb girl i was, i sent or message it to him on a social media, and when i logged into that social media on my friend’s phone i forgot to log out again, then suddenly all of my nudes are spread around, it happened to me too at high school.. im so scared now that this can happen during college too, im not doing that anymore and its honestly stressing me out, my current boyfriend knows about it and he keeps on calming me down, but im scared for my future and what if a teacher found out about it, what’s your advice? Should i worry like this? Is this normal? I dont exactly understand my mind anymore sometimes, thanks scarleteen

[Sam W]

Hi ailurophiledork,

I'm so sorry someone chose to violate your trust that way. While there are reasons we caution young people against sending nudes, the blame for what happened still falls solidly on the person who shared them (and the people who spread them around). Are there people in your life besides your boyfriend who know this happened?

If you're asking whether it's normal to be worried about the photos being spread again, I'd say that worry is a very understandable reaction based on breaches of trust in the past. As to whether it's likely to happen again, while I can't promise it won't (although I wish I could), since it hasn't happened in awhile and you haven't taken any more photos, the odds of it happening again strike me as low. Would it be helpful to talk through what you would do if the photos do emerge again? Sometimes having a plan for something can help lessen the anxiety around it and make you feel like you have a little more control over what happens.

[ailurophiledork]

It’ll be very helpful to talk about it, yes. Besides my boyfriend, my close friends also knew about it and they are totally supportive, im just worried this whole thing might happen again and if it does, im scared to know how my parents would react and honestly im ashamed of myself and still havent forgive myself

[Jacob]

Hi ailurophiledork,

I don't think you have anything to feel ashamed of! There's nothing wrong with trusting a friend you probably cared about, it's their fault and their problem that they betrayed that trust. It's a terrifying experience to feel your social circle, people who might have been friends, behave in such a mean way, and use a moment of vulnerabilty where you felt sexy for a second, to hurt you and make you feel awful. It is going to make it very hard to trust people after that.

At this point if that image resurfaced, it would be a different situation, and I'd think that maybe that your social circle is less likely to be as big and closed-in as a high school and that people would be more mature than behaving that way. With more time behind you I think it's worth being angry at the people who share a nude image from your childhood. You might even find that you can be confident enough to expect the people who are supposed to care about you, like your parents, to support you if you are being hurt, even if the circumstances would be uncomfortable.

With the support of your friends and maybe a bit more time to recover from what sounds like a horrible high school experience, I think it's quite possible that even an unexpected situation like that would be something you can handle.

I'm so sorry you're having to feel this because of what those people did in the past though!