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Childhood Is this abusive

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oakleaves

MyPTSD Pro
So I just have a quick question really. Is lying on top of a child and sort of kissing and grinding (so they are underneath and you are on top) sexual abuse?
I have a memory of my dad doing this which is a clear memory but confusing. I had other csa experiences which I know were that with someone else but with my dad it felt different. So I am asking about this specific situation or behaviour. Is it sexual abuse. I worry about getting confused.


Sorry this is a graphic question
Also does anyone else think about the events in sort of child language? So I sort of remember things like 'he is doing this, putting his hand there' etc where as an adult I would say groping me or stroking me or inserting x or y or digital penetration or whatever). I just wondered whether I am strange for this. I sort of remember it as I did when it was happening like 'he's putting this there' rather than the adult words. Again is it strange. I have this longstanding problem with putting things into words and I feel like this might be why.
 
Also does anyone else think about the events in sort of child language?

as i understand the inner child theories, this is the more accurate recall. the experience of a five year old is recorded in five year old understanding and sensory perception. later attempts to understand the memory gaslight the memory to whatever age lenses you are trying to understand them through. teenagers, young adults, middle-age and senior perspectives can be radically different.

so it seems to me. . . i am still recovering from full trauma induced amnesia with few opportunities to either confirm or deny any of the emerging childhood memories. i've done considerable work on trying to date my emerging memories. that "child language" is the most reliable set of clues i have to work with. my memory is hard to trust.

So I am asking about this specific situation or behaviour. Is it sexual abuse. I worry about getting confused.

i don't believe i have enough data to pronounce judgement on this specific case, but on a more general gee from my second parenting career, i often wonder how often kid play is remembered as CSA during later reminiscing. kids get intensely personal during child's play. social boundaries are not instinctive.
 
It's going to be hard for us to say if it's abusive or not. It seems like it is something that has impacted you though, so that matters. I have a similar memory with my dad. As he was also sexually abusive to me in other ways, that instant also feels abusive (not sure if that makes sense).

but with my dad it felt different

How does it feel different
 
Hi there @oakleaves

I can't really say whether what happened was SA or not but I just wanted to share something.

My therapist had told me that a big part of healing/processing the abuse I endured was seeing things with my adult mind and eyes rather than the perceptions of my child self that experienced them. That how a child perceives things are not at all like an adult does. And I needed to see things as an adult.

A good example (which is something nom-triggering for me and why I am using it) is one time I got in the car with my Mom, we were going to go shopping. She started the car, I heard a loud crunch sound. She got out opened the hood, pulled out my dead kitten and tossed it to the side and said let's go. I was so hurt and upset of course and held onto that memory all those years of how cold,mean and uncaring she was.

As I progressed in therapy I was able to see things for how they really were instead of how my child mind perceived it. She wasn't being cold and uncaring. She was allowed out of the house once per week, had a list of things she was supposed to do and had a time limit. If she didn't get everything done(bills paid, groceries bought, etc) in the allowed amount of time she was severely beaten by my father(which was also her father). She had to do what she needed to survive, the kitten was the least of her worries in that moment.

All that just to say that I think it's pretty normal to think of childhood events through a childs perspective cause that's when and how we experienced them. Things can turn out to not be as abusive as they were perceived and can be wrong. But they also can turn out to be way worse , what seemed harmless can be extremely abusive.

So it's kind of hard to judge another person's childhood experience and perceptions. Seeing it through adult eyes makes a difference.

I'm not even sure if that will make sense to anyone. Hope it does though.
 
From my standpoint an adult grinding on a child would be considered sexual abuse.
But that’s opinion not fact if there can be fact in this situation. Who even makes the rules on what you can call what!?

What matters is how this event has or hasn’t affected you.
 
Thank you this is really helpful to have that experience of thinking in a child way normalised.

Also to be clear I did mean my dad and me as a child so i am not talking about children experimenting together in what might be developmentally normal.
I meant my dad when he was drunk and I was in bed doing that and kind of out of control on my bed and I was underneath.

Hi there @oakleaves

My therapist had told me that a big part of healing/processing the abuse I endured was seeing things with my adult mind and eyes rather than the perceptions of my child self that experienced them. That how a child perceives things are not at all like an adult does. And I needed to see things as an adult.

...

I'm not even sure if that will make sense to anyone. Hope it does though.
This does make complete sense and this is what my therapist said to me the other day too that using adult language creates some distance from it and allows updating of the memory so use adult words like inserting/penetration instead of 'putting things inside' which is how I think of it when I remember.

And also said looking back as an adult allows you to see the adult behaviour in a more broad way so instead of being focused in on the moment when it happened and the shame of that actually this person constructed a situation which is not what I think of because I don't think that broadly but it makes sense. And as you say understanding context for a range of behaviours both positively and negatively.

It's going to be hard for us to say if it's abusive or not. It seems like it is something that has impacted you though, so that matters. I have a similar memory with my dad. As he was also sexually abusive to me in other ways, that instant also feels abusive (not sure if that makes sense).



How does it feel different
I guess it feels different because with this other person it was more often and my memories are clear and vivid and the same moments play over and over and I felt trapped where with my dad it only happened up to a fairly young age and it was when he was absolutely blind drunk and so felt more like he was out of control of himself where the other person was not out of control. Also my dad was very aggressive but more when I was older like after the age of eleven so there is a him where he was drunk and these things would happen like disinhibited which I do not think would have happened if he were not drunk. Then when I was older he was drunk and aggressive but when I was younger it was more like drunk and over affectionate (like the thing I mentioned above and kissing in ways that were horrible) but also the more drunk he became the more I tried to stop him drinking which is when he became aggressive. I guess it doesn't make sense in my head like why would it stop at a certain age.

From my standpoint an adult grinding on a child would be considered sexual abuse.
But that’s opinion not fact if there can be fact in this situation. Who even makes the rules on what you can call what!?

What matters is how this event has or hasn’t affected you.
Thanks for putting it in this way. I think I was confused by it rather than scared by it at the time. Now when I think about it I am more disgusted. My dad was a very strange mix of aggression and absence. He was literally either present and too much of an aggressive presence and dominating or asleep or spaced out on benzoes and forgetting to cook for us or collect us from wherever. There was no inbetween.
 
So I just have a quick question really. Is lying on top of a child and sort of kissing and grinding (so they are underneath and you are on top) sexual abuse?
I have a memory of my dad doing this which is a clear memory but confusing. I had other csa experiences which I know were that with someone else but with my dad it felt different. So I am asking about this specific situation or behaviour. Is it sexual abuse. I worry about getting confused.


Sorry this is a graphic question
Also does anyone else think about the events in sort of child language? So I sort of remember things like 'he is doing this, putting his hand there' etc where as an adult I would say groping me or stroking me or inserting x or y or digital penetration or whatever). I just wondered whether I am strange for this. I sort of remember it as I did when it was happening like 'he's putting this there' rather than the adult words. Again is it strange. I have this longstanding problem with putting things into words and I feel like this might be why.
It was wrong, is that enough to know?
 
Just coming back to this as I remember more things. Is it inappropriate to go to the toilet in front of your child (a man and female child) whilst that child is in the bath? It used to happen a lot. I am starting to piece things together about my dad and I am just thinking he was really disinhibited in front of us and no boundaries and a lot of things happened like that (like just wandering around the house naked, urinating in front of me and my sister, watching us in the bath) kissing like adult drunk kisses not like a peck on the cheek when we were younger and then his drinking got worse and it sort of stopped and he never violent instead.
 
Just coming back to this as I remember more things. Is it inappropriate to go to the toilet in front of your child (a man and female child) whilst that child is in the bath? It used to happen a lot. I am starting to piece things together about my dad and I am just thinking he was really disinhibited in front of us and no boundaries and a lot of things happened like that (like just wandering around the house naked, urinating in front of me and my sister, watching us in the bath) kissing like adult drunk kisses not like a peck on the cheek when we were younger and then his drinking got worse and it sort of stopped and he never violent instead.
Not okay stuff.
 
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