I'm not sure this is the right place for me to post. But i need to get it out of my head, and I'm not ready to talk to my counsellor. But, if this is offensive or in the wrong spot, I'll just delete it. Trigger Warning i guess, ima be talking (not graphically) about sexual stuff. I'm feeling a bit bad about putting this here, because well I wasn't raped. I don't even know if what happened to me is considered sexual abuse, or if it's just my messed up brain blowing this out of proportion. But what happened was sexual, and I can't get it out of my head, 7ish years later.
I'm 16 now, and I haven't seen him in years. But when I was 8-9 years old, I got a "boyfriend". Let's call him 'A'. 'A' was 2 school grades above me (so 10-11 when it started). We were next door neighbors and our families were very close, and my siblings and I would sleep over his place whenever we could. I'm not gonna go into the lovely details of what went on those nights because you don't wanna hear that, and I don't remember specifics anyway. I told him i "loved" him and he said he loved me too. The hopeless romantic that was my 9 year old self was delighted, and so damn naive. All I'm gonna say, is that from that night until I was about 10 years old, we would do sexual things during those sleepovers. It started slow, with him teaching me about sex and sexual things that he'd learned and watching sex videos. But after a while, we started putting it into practice. We'd kiss, play games like spin the bottle, and dirty truth or dare. I remember a couple times him showing me how to masturbate and other less vanilla concepts I'm not gonna get into.
But after a while, i started to realize what we were doing wasn't normal, and that scared me. I remember feeling like I was a child who was dressing up in my mum's clothes. I got more and more reluctant to do things. I started to actively avoid sleeping in the same room as him, but I wasn't really scared; not until he snuck into the room while i was sleeping. I remember always picking truth in dirty truth or dare because I don't want to do anything sexual. Towards the end, when I was 10, I remember telling him that I was on my period, and that i could get pregnant now; I knew that was a lie, we weren't actually having sex, but it was all i could do to get him to stop. I remember feeling helpless the day I finally told him to stop. I remember him picking me up and draging me back to the bed, in the middle of the day, as i tried to get myself out of the situation.
But the thing is, I don't remember saying no. I'm not so sure I ever explicitly told him that what we did wasn't okay. This kind of thing is normal, right? Experimentation. I remember I was laughing as he dragged me back, over and over. It was almost like a game. And maybe the laughter was actually nervous laughter, or an attempt to make it seem okay, to not draw attention, but if i really wanted it to stop, I could have fought harder, or yelled out, or told him to stop. But i didn't. And now I'm stuck in this weird limbo; I can't get what happened out of my head, i panic when i see him, but I have no idea why. I have no reason to fear him. Because my memories paint me as the victim, but I was a participant. Because yes I was 8, but he was 10; I was 9, but we was just 11; when i was 10, he was still only 12. Because my memories focus on what i felt, not what i did; I only remember what he did, not what he said. But now I remember, that first time, he said he felt guilty. And I urged him on. I didn't understand what I was agreeing to, but how can I say he did? He showed me porn and yes I was too young, but he'd just learned about it and he was sharing it with me. It was just a bit of fun. But I can't recall the memory without feeling like the victim. Maybe I should talk to my counsellor about it, but maybe im so hesitant to, because I don't want to be painted as the victim when I was an equal participant. That's why I feel guilty about even posting here, because others have gone through so much worse without there consent, and here i am complaining. I never told him no, and it was just normal experimentation that I'm blowing out of proportion. I just don't understand why its still messing with my head, 7 years after the fact.
I'm 16 now, and I haven't seen him in years. But when I was 8-9 years old, I got a "boyfriend". Let's call him 'A'. 'A' was 2 school grades above me (so 10-11 when it started). We were next door neighbors and our families were very close, and my siblings and I would sleep over his place whenever we could. I'm not gonna go into the lovely details of what went on those nights because you don't wanna hear that, and I don't remember specifics anyway. I told him i "loved" him and he said he loved me too. The hopeless romantic that was my 9 year old self was delighted, and so damn naive. All I'm gonna say, is that from that night until I was about 10 years old, we would do sexual things during those sleepovers. It started slow, with him teaching me about sex and sexual things that he'd learned and watching sex videos. But after a while, we started putting it into practice. We'd kiss, play games like spin the bottle, and dirty truth or dare. I remember a couple times him showing me how to masturbate and other less vanilla concepts I'm not gonna get into.
But after a while, i started to realize what we were doing wasn't normal, and that scared me. I remember feeling like I was a child who was dressing up in my mum's clothes. I got more and more reluctant to do things. I started to actively avoid sleeping in the same room as him, but I wasn't really scared; not until he snuck into the room while i was sleeping. I remember always picking truth in dirty truth or dare because I don't want to do anything sexual. Towards the end, when I was 10, I remember telling him that I was on my period, and that i could get pregnant now; I knew that was a lie, we weren't actually having sex, but it was all i could do to get him to stop. I remember feeling helpless the day I finally told him to stop. I remember him picking me up and draging me back to the bed, in the middle of the day, as i tried to get myself out of the situation.
But the thing is, I don't remember saying no. I'm not so sure I ever explicitly told him that what we did wasn't okay. This kind of thing is normal, right? Experimentation. I remember I was laughing as he dragged me back, over and over. It was almost like a game. And maybe the laughter was actually nervous laughter, or an attempt to make it seem okay, to not draw attention, but if i really wanted it to stop, I could have fought harder, or yelled out, or told him to stop. But i didn't. And now I'm stuck in this weird limbo; I can't get what happened out of my head, i panic when i see him, but I have no idea why. I have no reason to fear him. Because my memories paint me as the victim, but I was a participant. Because yes I was 8, but he was 10; I was 9, but we was just 11; when i was 10, he was still only 12. Because my memories focus on what i felt, not what i did; I only remember what he did, not what he said. But now I remember, that first time, he said he felt guilty. And I urged him on. I didn't understand what I was agreeing to, but how can I say he did? He showed me porn and yes I was too young, but he'd just learned about it and he was sharing it with me. It was just a bit of fun. But I can't recall the memory without feeling like the victim. Maybe I should talk to my counsellor about it, but maybe im so hesitant to, because I don't want to be painted as the victim when I was an equal participant. That's why I feel guilty about even posting here, because others have gone through so much worse without there consent, and here i am complaining. I never told him no, and it was just normal experimentation that I'm blowing out of proportion. I just don't understand why its still messing with my head, 7 years after the fact.
