Sexual Abuse Support Group

So, I started researching child abuse to determine whether what they did was abuse (it was...but I still occasionally question my sanity).

As I researched, I came across a site that said that ear infections could be signs of sexual abuse. This caught my attention, because I had many ear infections as a young child.

I then started to remember many things about my childhood that could very well be attributed to sexual abuse, and I did some research to see if I exhibited any of the symptoms. I found that I fit the bill for:

Age-Inappropriate Sexualized Behavior (as a child)

Sexual preoccupation (as a child, but also, as a teen and young adult, I have had preoccupation with being completely "pure", but that could also be attributed to the church I went to)

Waking up during the night sweating, screaming or shaking with nightmares

Bed wetting

Engaging in persistent sexual play with friends, toys or pets

Having unexplained periods of panic, which may be flashbacks from the abuse

Regressing to behaviors too young for the stage of development they already achieved

Engaging in self-mutilations, such as sticking themselves with pins or cutting themselves (pin sticking during my adolescent years...not painfully, but still)

Vaginal or penile discharge

Yeast infections (or some kind of rash...I remember my mom often having to put cream on it, and I would cry)

Sexually-transmitted disease (possibly...during my preteen years I had a great deal of itching and discomfort down there and flaking/redness...then it would begin to sting)

Fearful about certain people (according to my mom, I once freaked out about our next door neighbour, who was a teenage boy, coming to babysit me)

Over achievement

Depression

Intense efforts to gain attention/affection from adults

Pseudo-mature/overly-compliant or accommodating

Anxiety reaction to authority figures

Fear of nurturing/withdrawal/impaired ability to trust (I feel very uncomfortable the rare times my mom tries to hug me...or even when she touches me in general)

Find reasons to not go home (helping teachers, etc.)

Fear of the dark

Unable to concentrate, daydreaming, 'spacing out', 'in a world of their own'

Inappropriate kissing in young children (I remember once asking to do this when I was a child)

The one major sign of sexual abuse we've encountered is bowel movement accidents in older toilet trained children (I remember this happening once, though I'm not sure how old I was...so it's possible that I was not yet fully toilet trained)

Many of these symptoms can be attributed to the emotional abuse that my parents did, but for quite a while, I've just had this persistant fear that I may have been abused sexually. I also often have these intrusive sexual thoughts as well, such as I'll see a picture of a child or something, and think the child is beautiful (in an innocent way), but it's like I'll hear this voice in my head TELLING me that I am attracted to the child. I know that this is not true, but this voice, whatever it is, tries to tell me that it is. I have this irrational fear that I will become sexually abusive when I have my own children or something (which I know LOGICALLY is ridiculous, because I would NEVER hurt a child, and there is nothing in my behaviour to suggest that I would), or that I won't remember it until I'm trying to be intimate with my future husband, and then we won't be able to have proper intimacy.

I've read many sites that say that if you strongly believe that you were sexually abused, you probably were. Lately, I've been feeling stronger and stronger about it. I question myself: could it have been this neighbour? Could it have been one or both of my parents? (since they were already abusive in other ways)

Obviously, I hope that I haven't ever been sexually abused, but mostly, I just want to know either way...if I wasn't, so I can stop worrying...or if I was, so that I can deal with it before trying to have an intimate relationship with someone.

I'm going to try and find a good therapist (mostly just for the lifelong emotional abuse), and hopefully he/she can help me to decipher the possibility of it.

Any advice??? Please help!!!

I am 28, I never thought I was sexual abused until I went to see my counsellor to try and find out why I still have anger problem. I thought my anger is from boys who bullied me because I have disability and I am deaf but it wasnt anything to do with it because I still have anger after I finished year 12.

It was hard and shocking for me to hear my counsellor said that I was sexual abused so I did same thing like what you did, research about sexual abused, when I read the information and I didnt want to believe it so I keep looking, trying to find other information, hoping different information but all are same information so after I read about them. I was in shocked and confused and messed up. Now I have accept it few days later that I was sexual abused. Cant change it.

Yes I think its worth for you to see counsellor. They are great. But in this group, you can talk to us about it as well. We are all same as you.

Take care. Be happy.

Kym

Basically, I just want to know...so that if it's true, I can deal with it.

The way you describe what you have been through are very different from me but the way you are talking about your parents. It sounds like you were sexual abused. I dont think im the right person to answer this one.

Wait and see what group leader have to say.

Keep smiling

Kym

Most likely, you were exposed to sexual behavior in some way at an age too young to properly process. My father sexually abused me - but very little of it was actually touching. He walked around the house naked, would not allow us to close our bedroom doors or the bathroom door, had Playboy Magazine around the house and porn in film form (that my brothers found). He told sexually inappropriate jokes and made comments relating to the way women looked on tv, popular stars, etc. All of this distorts the mind of the child - this is the basis of our sexual education - our first glimpse of what the most loving and intimate act is like and my perception of how men view women.

So you might not ever know to what degree you were sexually abused, but you do know that you have concerns about your perceptions in this area and that it must have come from somewhere. This is a good place to start in your recovery.

Best of luck to you!

Redwood

Thats my nickels worth though. I sounds like you have by the way you talk though. Have A great Day!!!!!

Ron

Ron