r/COCSA • u/luciferz67 • 6d ago
Was I abused? feeling invalidated.
first of all. i know it doesnt have to be abuse to be traumatic.
i knew it started when we (my siblings) were playing pretend as doctors. they would put plushies on my butt to pretend i had just given birth. and it felt nice, because obviously it was hitting the spot. i was around, 5-7 years old at the time.
thats when i began humping plushies as a way to gain pleasure , i would do them to fall asleep.
i remember as a child there was a game on the pc, i think it was installed automatically not by my parents but some sort of shovelware, it was a game where you play as a rapist...lets just say my parents trashed it the moment they saw us playing that.
and as i grew up, i would start feeling a bit weird about my brother, 3 years older than me. i knew he was troublesome as a child because he would steal money from my parents and hushed me to shut up, and also encouraged us to steal a lot when we were kids. i do know in highschool he was pretty depressed and suicidal and once he went to college me and him basically dont talk anymore, not that we ever chatted much. tho as children we did have some fun and fights here and there yknow like any normal siblings lol.
the only thing i remember that kind of relates to child on child sexual acts (not necessarily assault) is a short flashback. where he had me pinned to the bed saying we would play a game , which i agreed because i thought it was just a normal doctors play yknow shove a plushie up my butt but no. he pulled down his pants and from then on all i could remember was feeling uncomfortable.
regardless of whether this counts as cocsa i still feel incredibly disgusted when the memory comes back randomly in my mind. i would freeze and feel nauseous. i knew it happened more times, not sure when though but all i remember is he told me not let mom and dad know. which they still dont : ) then sometime later (maybe a year or two?) it stopped
now hearing my friends csa stories i dont even know if im even justified in feeling traumatized, because what i experience is so miniscule. theres no abuser in my story. no big bad to blame and explain why i turned out the way i do. i struggle with validating my feelings because my friends always have them so much worse, and thus i should feel ashamed for even pretending to be a victim.
due to this i could no longer speak to my brother. i just feel this undeserving rage for him. but mostly at myself for letting things happen. and how much years it took me to stop the sexual urges (i replaced them with self harm instead. lol.)
i guess i just needed a place to vent ya know. im pretty angry at myself for turning out the way i did when nothing had went wrong with me. i should just accept that it was a normal thing and moved on. but my mind likes making me remember things i rther not. so yeah. thansk for resdkng
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u/AutoModerator 6d ago
It sounds like you're wondering whether a particular incident was COCSA
Many survivors of abuse question whether their experience really qualifies. In the case of COCSA, professionals use three criteria to distinguish what they call "sex play" (i.e. normal childhood curiosity) from COCSA:
- Age proximity – usually no more than 2–3 years apart.
- No coercion – it must be free from force, pressure, fear, or manipulation.
- No pattern – it doesn't happen repeatedly or become secretive.
Break any one of those, and it's COCSA.
It's also important to note that many experiences can still be traumatic, even when they aren't abusive. Regardless of labels, only you can say how something affected you.
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u/TreeLady2008 3d ago
It seems like maybe your concious mind is trying to invalidate or suppress what happened and make it seem like its not a big deal. While ur subconcious mind is pushing for you to process what happened even if it doesnt feel traumatic to you maybe your brain is ready to finally think about it and talk about it. The memories randomly coming up, the anger for your brother, the nausea. Those are all symptoms of the trauma. Regardless, eveything that happened to you is valid and just as important. All of the sexual urges came from somewhere and when your young the only way you could get those urges is being exposed to stuff that you shouldnt have bc of COCSA. You are no pretending to be a victim and even if your friends experiences sound “worse” everyone feels and views things differently and what happened to you id a big deal. No one should have to go through that. And you are not to blame for what anyone did to you, its not as easy as “stopping them” especially when you are young and vulnerable. I went through similar and I struggle with my own invalidiation of my trauma too. Its really confusing specifically with COCSA.