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Childhood Unsettling Childhood Encounters: Coping with Revisited Memories

I have a cousin who is 1 year older then me that I would visit about twice a year when we were kids who I don’t see very often anymore (I’m now 21). Recently after seeing her at a family reunion I started having vague memories of when we were both younger that I had forgotten about for a long time. I don’t remember all the details but get very anxious and feel very panicky whenever I’m thinking about it.
I don’t remember exactly how old we were at the time but it was somewhere between the ages of 5-9. Because we were kids we would share a bed when we were younger and stay up late talking or playing games after we were supposed to be asleep. One time we were playing doctor and had a kids doctor’s bag with tools inside. We were doing checkups on each other and just doing what felt like normal behaviour for kids. Then it escalated to her insisting we take off our pants and look at each other’s private parts as part of the checkup. I don’t remember if I explicitly told her no but I remember not wanting to do that and feeling uncomfortable with the idea. She insisted that we both needed to do it because it was part of the checkup. Even though she was only a year older I looked up to her so I ended up doing what she wanted and we took turns doing the “checkups” which involved using the toy tweezers in the kit to look around down there. It wasn’t really a sexual thing because we were young and just exploring but I feel sick when I think about it too closely.
I don’t know how to talk to anyone about it because it wasn’t a sexual thing and it just feels like I’m over reacting about something that’s not actually worth the amount of stress that it is causing me. The anxiety in my head keeps telling me that I’m making it a bigger deal then it needs to be and that if I tell someone I’m just over exaggerating the situation for attention. It’s been on my mind constantly since I remembered it recently and I just want to forget. I’ve already been trying to get a therapist for my anxiety and depression but it could take anywhere from weeks to months where I live and I don’t know how to stop thinking about it.
 
You're not over reacting or exaggerating at all, you're describing what happened and expressing how it's making you uncomfortable. It's completely valid to feel disgusted because she was still invading your personal space even if nothing sexual happened. There's also a possibility of more events that you can't remember...
And as a child, it may be difficult to say how you feel directly or even identify your feelings at times. Feeling like you need to look up to people older than you is normal too

Maybe you should talk to her about how you feel if it's affecting your mental health because the memories will not get better if you don't move on.
 
Does it help to know that the overwhelming majority of children (well into the 90% according to the Kinseys/ sex & sexuality research) experiment with siblings, cousins, & friends, prepuberty? As they’re AWARE of things they don’t have the hormones/drives to desire? So they play -sexually / not sexually- the same way they play with blocks, swings, dolls, kitchens, parties, etc.?

It’s actually a red flag OF sexual abuse to NOT do so.

Because, to a child who has been sexually abused, it’s not just normal play betwixt children. But deeply meaningful.

Children who have been sexually abused nearly always act out their abuse… across a WIDE variety of formats. Including with other children. Which can create a disparity, when one child is experiencing normal curiosity/processing of things they’re aware of but not doing (cooking, marrying, driving) and another is acting out their abuse. OR when one child is reviling their abuse with people, acting it out in other means, confronted with unabused children simply playing… with something that has no meaning to them, but has powerful meaning to the abused child.

So it’s not as simple as sex organs are in play it’s sexual abuse (it’s overwhelming not), but? It still can be.

Is what happened between you and your cousin taking on extra weight because you now know what sex IS, and are terrified at the implication not knowing how common kids experimenting is; or was there something at the time which went deeper than normal childhood play/taboo? (Anything that’s culturally taboo kids tend to latch onto like limpets, that provoke horror in adults; like pregnant nuns, in religious cultures, & abused kids in child centric cultures; adult horror & childish innocence can be a confusing line to walk).
 
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