Hi SoSadGuilty,
I can really feel the depth of your guilt and shame in your posts, you are truly suffering at the hands of your inner critic.
There are two things that come to my mind, first that we live in a very conservative society that routinely denies kids and ultimately adults from being themselves, that sex is still taboo, this is particularly hard for you being female, I suspect that had you been a man the depth of your guilt might be much less, as what your describe in your posts is relatively normal behaviour for young men.
The second thing is that you mention that your childhood doesn't seem so bad, this is common for people like us who suffer Complex Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (CPTSD), this is VERY different from simple PTSD due to the very long periods during which trauma, abuse and neglect occurs and the relative helplessness of child victims compared to those who encounter traumatic events as adults which are comparatively short term. I do wonder why this forum doesn't appear to differentiate the two but which is something I won't dwell on any longer except to say that there are forums that are specifically aimed at survivors of childhood abuse and CPTSD. I also wanted to post a link to an excellent paper written by Sandra Bloom that sets out these differences and how society in general is complicit in making us feel guilty for our difficulties in recognising and dealing with our problems, but due to daft site restrictions was unable to, the file was too large to upload so you'll have to google it yourself:
Search for: Sandra bloom the grief that dare not speak its name
I don't wish to put ideas in your head, but the veracity of your inner critic seems to tell me that your childhood might have been tougher than you think, kids are stoic, what they never have they don't miss and they are very adaptable they create ways of coping and making do with what they have, there is a cost for that which is altered sense of normality, forming interpersonal relationships and changes in the structure and function of the brain. I also thought my childhood was normal, but it was far from it. Bouts of physical abuse might not have been common but its sounds like you might have been deprived of normal loving physical contact. I wonder where your hypersensitivity to sexual abuse and inappropriate behaviour comes from, your inner critic led you to make all manner of confessions for what you feel deeply to be wrong and what most might only see as making a wrong choice. With CPTSD our balance between right and wrong gets upset, I routinely wake up after a night out with strangers with a deep sense of shame and remorse, like I had embarrassed myself, this could not be further from the truth but still my level of anxiety and my blood pressure goes sky high.
As a society we have been massively hypersensnsitised to child sexual abuse largely by the media, this is not necessarily all bad but they seem to have completely excluded other forms of child abuse that have been normalised by society, such as humiliation, emotional abuse and neglect. As you make clear, we know in our own minds where our sexual preferences lie. However, as a kid who grew up in a more physical environment I am always wary of getting angry with my son in case I am tempted to lash out, it is of course the last thing I want to do, but it seemed to have come so easily and naturally to my parents that its hard to believe that there is not a latent psychopath hiding in my persona.
So perhaps for you the idea of sex might have been confused with normal intimacy.
Sleeping in a bed with our children should be a normal thing, my son sleeps with me and my wife every night, his cot is beside our bed and its up to him to decide if he wishes to sleep alone. Of course one must be wary of his flailing arms and legs and we don't have sex while he is in the bed with us, we rarely have sex anyway lol. When he wakes up I am acutely aware of his need for cuddles until he becomes fully conscious. In the animal kingdom and in low income countries infant development and independence is largely driven by the child itself, not the parents as it is in the west. It has been my my view that western parenting models are pathological and lead to issues with bonding and forming healthy relationships.
