Hello People:
I have been struggling with the idea of consent. I know that i was molested/abused once at age 12 (obviously underage). With this i am still in early recovery. Here one question that I need feedback on: Does one time count as molest/abuse? Why do I even have this question?
The other question: I later (at age 16? 17? sought out receiving men to perform oral sex on me. I had moved to a new neighborhood and was entering Junior year in high school. I am foggy on definite age but I know it was going on 16 or 17. Is this molest/abuse if I looked for it?
I know I have been in this space asking this before. Am I in some sort of denial in recovery? Really lost and stuck and feel like I can't move forward in healing.
I feel like I'm going through the motions in life and that my life is on hold until I get back to who I am 9and not be defined by this static in my head.
Hello wreckage,
I've had to overcome a similar question at my age 12-13, where a boy I can only guess was 2 years older than me had groomed me. I stopped going over after about the 4 or 5th incident. I can recall some of it, most of it is the confusion and inability to even know what I was thinking about. I had no clue what sex was, and that I had liked to have girls as friends as much as boys, it seemed like I was submitting to what he wanted to keep him as a friend. I think it would have gone a lot farther if I hadn't stopped going over. He lived on the way to my Junior high, and that was weird too. I often saw him on the way home, but, usually not going. I can't be sure why? I don't care after all this time, but that you've asked that question, I think I'm naturally reviewing it to seek a connection to what you're thinking.
When I brought him up in therapy, I was upset, looking back with my adult eyes, I was hurt that I wasn't worth enough to leave me alone. Reflecting upon what he meant to me, a friend, and one of perhaps 2 in that time-frame. He either never heard about my bullies at school (I wasn't talking to anyone about it), or he may have seen one incident? I never heard he did, and we never discussed anything like that. We talked music, fishing, t.v. stuff, and then got high sometimes. I think he started molesting me about 4-6 months into hanging out? I can't be sure at all. That time-frame seems logical to about how long I think I knew him and to stopping seeing him.
Does this kind of description resonate to any of your thinking at 12, and then reviewing it as an adult? I want to make sure you noticed the pain of self-worth it brought up in me as an adult. I thought it very sad that this had happened.
My life went pretty bad from 13-17. I'm guessing that hiding things became my natural state, and I buried all of it by getting stoned?
I felt different about boys and men after. I didn't like, nor trust them. Maybe it was projected from me too? I had so much trouble being with others, it was only to be stoned during those years. In school I wanted a friend, but usually neglected them from my own fears and anxieties, and the 3-4 whom I ever tried would fad away.
Does describing this resonate? Then if I add my parents, it was nothing. There was just nothing there. I barely understood, or really knew either of them. I was mostly raised by my mom, but at almost 16 she threw me away. I still say it that way because it was a very traumatic event. I've worked on it though, and writing it doesn't hit as hard as it used to.
TRIGGERS Begin Here:
What I hear you saying, seems like you didn't fear men? And, somehow it seemed safer to you? Is that anywhere near why you can imagine seeking out men? That it would be them who would participate with you? I wonder how you thought about them wanting to interact sexually? What I read, is that they may give a bj, and you perhaps would not? I don't want to trigger you, but in some way, sorting out the thinking has been helpful to me, and I wonder with you too? This writing you've started can really help.
To me, and I had the opposite desire than you, but had more male friends by 18-23 than female. I guess circumstances changed, and those were around my job, and few social things.
Here's something I'm certain of. We as older teens can make up our mind about what we want, and in fact, many can deal with life on its terms if they're not subjected to our confusions and trauma. I keep that in mind when I respond to questions like you bring up. I must add a caveat, it's that everyone has something that brings deep emotions, it's that some have support we just haven't had. I think seeing that we held our emotions into ourselves in different ways is why there's a sort of numb confusion during the time of things, and now later as adults. We look through adult eyes and have a harder time sorting the way some things were emotionally different back then.
I have learned for me that the above holds very true. I've only moved forward when I process into the old emotions, which sorts them, and then I bring them to the here and now.
When I thought about men, I feared them the most. I think men whom are older than us have well formed lusts that are less formed during puberty. It is to that understanding, and that the age difference, regardless of desire, has unexpected confusions. Here and now, I see you're trying to sort those unexpected confusions. When I note that older adults, contrary to the new lust of teens, have a better developed lust, it's they who have an advantage toward dominating the situations you may have been in as an older teen.
That domination of age, experience and matured lust seems to me to make the situation that you sought out an unfair advantage to the older men. Perhaps you're wondering about how then to get the experience of sex? I don't have that answer, because I barely had two make-out sessions as a teen, and I'm not qualified to share about same sex attraction as a teen, let alone opposite sex. To me, there's an age advantage that puts the situation into the socially accepted stand that those men were wrong to play into what you sought? That noted, I wonder whether you tried with males your own age or 1 year ahead?
I've played this out too far, so please ignore what doesn't work. I hope for best wishes to you always, I felt the 12 year old experience really connected with me.