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It wasn't sexual abuse

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Lilac98

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I know rationally it was. I had accepted it was and I have had counselling for it but today I've just had this thought/feeling that it wasn't sa. It might be cause of s situation and the baby seagull dying. And maybe cause I'm still getting nightmares which still aren't making sense.
Oddly enough I still don't doubt the younger me thing (g holding me down, down there feeling) did happen even without memory of it but I think that's cause the sa counsellor believed it was likely real and I just took myself out of it cause it was too difficult.
With the doorway thing although I can't read his mine I know what he was like and there was no good reason why he would stand in the way and just stay pressing his crotch against me whilst I'm trying to push past and just stand there and say nothing and act like nothing happened.
With the hug incident, you don't accidentally pull someone behind you then into you to hug then then accidentally move your hands so you're touching them and then not realise they're trying to pull away from you so you don't let go and then act like nothing happened and just stand there with the same blank look you had in the doorway thing.
 
Whether or not it was sexual abuse, you can work on this issue when you get your therapist. People go to therapy for all kinds of issues that aren’t even related to abuse but that are stuck in their head for whatever reason.

If calling it sexual abuse and processing it that way leads to a reduction of your symptoms? Then great! But if calling it that leads to deeper ruminating and no change in symptoms? Try a different approach.

None of us here are therapeutic in our approach to your symptoms. All we have is what we experienced and the discussions we’ve had with other sufferers. I can relate to you because my csa was pretty borderline (no feather dusters please, I’m just saying it to make a point) and I had body memories and flashbacks to csa that was “worse” but happened in the first year of my life when the ability to form memories is all but impossible for most people. Accepting those shadowy memories? Saying them out loud to my T? Sucked big time! But then, moving forward those body memories and weird flashbacks stopped happening. So I realized that the doubting myself is what was behind a lot of my flare ups and accepting my memories made a difference in my experience of symptoms.

But it didn’t matter how many people tried to convince me it was or wasn’t true—I had to do it for myself and accept that this was who I am, this was my experience, this was where I was at.

I hesitate to comment on whether or not your experience was sa. I think you’ve already posted about each of those incidents and you’ve already heard what people here think. Any movement in the T-finding process?
 
@OliveJewel still waiting to hear if the mental health service will see me or not. Apparently referrals can take a month so I might not hear anything for a while. I generally do think it's sa I just for some reason today didn't want to accept it. It's uncomfortable today. I think people here don't think it was sa but accept it upsets me. I think the post was more to my own brain but I wanted to put it here.
 
Are there any other services you can use in the meantime? Maybe online therapy or a Zoom group?
I can't do groups or online cause the family would hear and video calls make me too anxious. I'm putting this next bit here instead of my diary incase I've misunderstood. I know people have their own opinion but when I saw a counsellor who specialises in sexual abuse and autism, anxiety and other things referred to me as a survivor and gave me a guide.
 
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@OliveJewel @JadeB. a counsellor I used to see gave me this after I mentioned the two incidents and flashback and some weird sexual abusive nightmares. This charity isn't where I went but she said she works there. The waiting list is a year or more. I couldn't read it at first but then I did. (still don't like the w word but I'm not a man so it's on here)
IMG_20220625_220318.jpg
 
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I had accepted it was and I have had counselling for it but today I've just had this thought/feeling that it wasn't sa.
Is this perhaps because of the discussion you bad yesterday about PTSD criteria?

For example...
With the doorway thing although I can't read his mine I know what he was like and there was no good reason why he would stand in the way and just stay pressing his crotch against me whilst I'm trying to push past and just stand there and say nothing and act like nothing happened.
With the hug incident, you don't accidentally pull someone behind you then into you to hug then then accidentally move your hands so you're touching them and then not realise they're trying to pull away from you
I understand framing these events as 'sexual abuse', and they were definitely shitty experiences, and he was patently the type to try and achieve sexual arousal in completely unacceptable ways.

It may be that the uncomfortable feeling you're having though was set off by the conversation you had here yesterday. SA is often used interchangeably on this forum to mean either Sexual Abuse, or Sexual Assault. In a lot of conversations, the distinction isn't terribly important.

However, yesterday you spent considerable time thinking about the ptsd criteria - that requires sexual assault, and the incidents you've described don't rise to the level of what would be considered sexual assault in most jurisdictions.

The only reason I bring that up is because, as I said, you were thinking about the ptsd criteria a lot yesterday, and thinking about these things in the free-floating way that you do here seems to trigger significant distress for you. The events you've described may be considered sexual abuse SA, but they're not sexual assault SA in the ptsd sense - if that makes sense?

That might be something to consider moving forward. Strategies to manage it are probably going to need to be autism-informed, but it's good to be able to identify patterns of behaviour that cause us distress, because that's the first step in learning how to manage them, yeah?
 
@Sideways i don't think it was cause of that discussion I haven't thought about it. I did hear of s sentence yesterday and the baby seagull was found dead today by me so I think that made things worse.
 
@Lilac98 is the forum helpful for you? I'm pretty much just a lurker these days but I kinda see a lot more ruminating etc from you the more responses you get.

I'm in the UK too. I'd recommend speaking to your GP and describing the concrete things you're struggling with.

I think that might be more helpful. Cos analysing every little thought (while not thinking about full discussions like PTSD criteria one) seems to be worsening how you feel.
 
@Lilac98 is the forum helpful for you? I'm pretty much just a lurker these days but I kinda see a lot more ruminating etc from you the more responses you get.

I'm in the UK too. I'd recommend speaking to your GP and describing the concrete things you're struggling with.

I think that might be more helpful. Cos analysing every little thought (while not thinking about full discussions like PTSD criteria one) seems to be worsening how you feel.
It helps me to understand my brain as much as I can. I find it helpful overall. I'm waiting to see if my local mental health team will see me or not.
 
@Sideways I hadn’t thought about the difference between sexual abuse and sexual assault before. I looked it up and the site I read was based on California law and said that generally speaking abuse happens to people under age 18 and is a pattern of behavior directed at a child. Assault generally happens to people over 18 and typically references isolated events. Is this how you meant it?
 
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