Validating Childhood Boundaries: A Survivor’s Journey Toward Understanding

As I've learned more about child advocacy and child-on-child sexual abuse (COCSA), repressed memories from my childhood have surfaced. When I was 5 or 6, a male classmate exposed himself to me at school. When my teacher reported this, my mother dismissed it because I had a brother and had 'seen it all before.' My family still jokes about this incident, which makes me deeply uncomfortable. Around the same age, I was made to bathe with my brother, who would tell me to look at his genitals. I felt very uncomfortable with the lack of privacy. Later, at age 11, a friend exposed me to pornography and other sexual acts. While I didn't object due to curiosity, I felt ashamed. I'm struggling to understand if these experiences qualify as COCSA or trauma. I'm having intrusive thoughts and nightmares that suggest I wanted these things to happen. How do I make sense of these experiences?

Thank you so much for sharing your experiences with us. We appreciate you trusting us with their impact on you, especially when family members have dismissed or minimized them. Your experiences represent various forms of boundary violations that can be impactful and traumatic, regardless of how others have characterized them. As you work to make sense of these childhood experiences, it's important to understand that labels like COCSA or trauma can sometimes be helpful tools for understanding and processing what happened to us. They can validate our experiences and help us connect with others who have similar stories. However, these labels don't define your experiences or your healing journey. What matters most is acknowledging the impact these events have had on you and getting the support you need now, regardless of how these experiences might be categorized. When children are exposed to sexual content or behavior beyond their developmental level, it can create lasting effects, even if there was curiosity present. Your feelings of discomfort, both past and present, are valid indicators that these experiences crossed important personal boundaries. The situation with your classmate and your mother's response represents a concerning dismissal of your right to bodily autonomy and privacy. Children deserve to have their boundaries respected, regardless of family dynamics or gender. Your mother's reaction and the family's continued joking about the incident shows a lack of understanding about healthy boundaries and the impact of sexual exposure on young children. The ongoing jokes about this situation can be particularly harmful as they trivialize an experience that was clearly distressing for you. The bathing situation and later exposure to pornography represent additional boundary violations that can be particularly confusing because of the complex feelings they may have brought up. It's completely normal to have felt both curious and ashamed - these mixed feelings are common responses to early sexual exposure. Children cannot truly consent to sexual exposure, even if they don't actively resist it. The presence of curiosity doesn't mean you "wanted" these things to happen - it's a normal developmental response that doesn't negate the inappropriate nature of the exposure. Your current intrusive thoughts and nightmares are common responses to processing early sexual experiences. These thoughts don't mean you wanted the experiences to happen - they often represent our mind's attempt to process and make sense of confusing events that occurred when we were too young to fully understand them. Many people who have had similar experiences struggle with these kinds of thoughts, especially when family members continue to minimize or joke about the experiences. Working with a trauma-informed therapist can be incredibly helpful in processing these memories and their impact. They can help you understand these experiences within their proper developmental context and develop tools for managing intrusive thoughts and nightmares. What's most important might not be finding the perfect label for what happened, but rather finding ways to process these experiences and move forward in a way that feels healing for you. Remember that healing isn't linear, and understanding how these experiences have affected you is an important part of the process. Your feelings and reactions to these memories are valid, regardless of how others have responded to them. You deserve support in processing these experiences and setting healthy boundaries, including with family members who may not understand their impact. Thank you for trusting us with your story.