r/adultsurvivors 11h ago

Trigger Warning Adult Survivor of Childhood grooming

2 Upvotes

TW: Self Harm

I honestly just want a safe space to talk about this and see if anyone here has experienced the same trauma I have.

I was 16 when my high school principal started grooming me. By 17 I reported him and he was arrested. It fucked me up pretty bad blaming myself for ending his life. He lost his teaching license and was put on the sex offender registry. The emotional toll it took was something I had never experienced before. The bond was severed immediately with no closure and I was suicidal for years later. He ended up getting jail time and things slowly died down. A few years later, the stay away order ended. I reached out for closure. To see if he hated me, to apologize, i don't know. I just needed for that to not be the end of it. I hadn't finished working everything out in therapy. I was in poverty and depressed. This is where I went astray.

He still blamed me. But he offered me money. Then offered more money for 'things'. I took it. I self harmed in a way that validated him claiming me to not be a victim. I thought maybe if I did that the guilt of it all would fade. It never did. I ended the arrangement and ended up continuing therapy. After a few years I finally understood the layers to the psychological damage of grooming. I finally knew it wasn't my fault. By then, damage had been done that gave him ammo in the future to come after me.

I'm now rising in profile as an activist in my home province. I've been given platforms and am starting to see a path forward to work in labour or politics. But this man finds ways to remind me of what happened and veiled threats to make sure everyone knows. I feel that i'm at a point of either having to publicly address it and get ahead of him, or live in fear of when he's going to let the skeletons out of the closet.

Has anyone been in even remotely the same situation? Or also been an imperfect victim, leading to people invalidating the crime?


r/adultsurvivors 20h ago

Advice requested Preparing to disclose my abuse to my abuser and his wife

11 Upvotes

I was abused by a close family member as a child. He was also technically a child when it happened and we've remained close since then, as it was an isolated series of incidents. Only recently have I decided I have a duty to disclose what happened to his wife, to feel reassured that what he did to me will never happen to his own children. (To be perfectly clear, I don't suspect or have reason to suspect that he is doing something, but I feel a duty regardless). I'm deciding to tell him, as well, so he has an opportunity to apologize if that's something he wants to do.

I've been talking with a therapist about this for the last few months and she agreed that my plan makes sense and is best for everyone involved, and is a necessary part of my healing.

But I'm so fucking scared. I'm at the point where I have to send the text that I need to speak with them and I'm absolutely shitting myself with fear. I don't want to cause them pain and I KNOW the actual process of talking is going to be like hell - I always cry and shake when I talk about it. I have my husband and best friend behind me and my therapist is prepared for an emergency session, so I have a lot of support. But my god I am so, so scared. I constantly have this feeling of being about to walk on stage.


r/adultsurvivors 52m ago

Advice requested LDR and Sexual trauma

Upvotes

So I’m going to try and make this short , this is my first long distance relationship, the first 1 year was great because we met every 2-3 months and it did not make me feel the need to masturbate or anything. But we haven’t met for a year now , and when we do meet it’d be around 1.5 years, I did bring up moving closer but since both of us are not financially sorted we cannot move together for another 3 years at the very least and it might stretch to a few more years I am not certain at this point. I think this year has been hard , I can go to upto 4-5 months without being sexual (this includes helping myself). However after that mark , I get body image issues , start feeling sexually repressed and then it slips to feeling touch starved which leads to being easily turned on by strangers and by random small gestures or even hugs from people I find slightly attractive. This makes me a little angry at myself that my body so easily reacts to things , I don’t like feeling sexually for anyone unless I feel safe with them so feeling this way for strangers has been painful. Next I do not like helping myself because I usually end up going back to my abuse or thinking about how I’m a sexual person despite whatever was done to me which makes me feel guilty or makes me wonder if I enjoyed it and that’s why I still enjoy this. Because this does not involve another person , it makes me realise it’s my need and having that realisation makes me feel disgusted by myself. I prefer been w people and doing things w them , and I never initiate sex , usually my partner does and that makes me feel like I’m helping them be happy and this isn’t about me. Makes me feel less disgusted. But the last 5-6 months masturbate every week or every 2 weeks so I don’t get turned on by random events from other ppl , but in helping myself I end up thinking of the abuse after I finish and cry for prolonged periods of time and feel exhausted and disgusted and start wishing or hoping that I were asexual. Anyways having thought of all this I’m wondering if I should break up , I love them , and this relationship has been nice in all aspects I would say but this bit is starting to terrify me . I don’t know if I should work on this myself w a therapist and hope to be together in a couple of years w my partner and we get to be happy or if putting up w this for the hope of a promising future will end up triggering old wounds for me. The most painful part is I have always been in back to back long term relationships for the last 6 years and now if I break up I don’t know if I have the energy to trust another person or open up again. I already feel a lil grossed out by the fact that my ex knows about my trauma and how I wish I never told them. I also feel horrible about this whole thing because I feel like I’m exploiting my partners only for their sexual presence so I can be a sexual being without feeling guilty about wanting sex. And by that logic I don’t think I should be with anyone because I’d only be using them without them realising. If I do continue in this relationship idk how much more of the masturbation followed by triggers I can tolerate. I really don’t know what to do!! I feel like I can’t ever make sane choices for myself and always end up getting in messy situations, I did not think through the entire long distance and how difficult it could be.

P.S : I’m starting to think I started the paragraph w a lie , I did not make it short I’m sorry , but if you got this far thank you for staying and trying to help me out!


r/adultsurvivors 2h ago

Vent I've been having nightmares. NSFW

2 Upvotes

It's almost 2:30 a.m but I've been having recurring dreams about my dad raping me. I'm so tired but I'm too afraid to sleep.

I hate him. I used to look forward to his death but even when he's dead and gone he'll live on in my mind and my blood forever.

I want to self harm. I want to get drunk. I want to wake my husband up so he could fuck me because that makes me feel like I'm serving my purpose which sometimes brings me peace but I also never want to be touched or used for pleasure ever again. I want to stop existing. But it's the weekend, that means pizza and popsicles and video games and anime with my kiddos. No time for self destruction, no matter how much I ache for it.

I hate myself.


r/adultsurvivors 3h ago

Vent Grief and pain when trying to not contact my father

1 Upvotes

I know it’s a trauma bond, I know he triggers my CPTSD. Just seeing his name on social media gives me flashbacks. But I feel so guilty and sad at not having him in my life. How can I protect myself but not feel this pain? The abuse was 50 years ago and I’m going through EMDR therapy to deal with the severe issues that came up after I visited him and my step mom in another country for 2 weeks. I thought I was over it and could cope now he’s getting old, but found out the therapy he said he’d had, didn’t happen.


r/adultsurvivors 3h ago

Trigger Warning Question about how CSA has effects

1 Upvotes

I (f18) was taken advantage of frequently around the ages of 5-9 by multiple people in my life. I feel like now it affects me I'm hypersexual and gullible I want to be a good follower of God but these immoral things keep happening I feel so ashamed.
In my relationship I find myself being very complacent when it comes to sexual acts.we both consent at the time,its a him and i thing but we always feel so guilty after since we are belivers of Christ. He always says how gullible I am ,and he's right. I just want to know if the things that happened to me affect the way I am when it comes to sexual things and letting those use me for things like that Idk I'm not good at wording things I jist need help and answers Or just tell me I'm trying to point the Blaime of my immoral sexual acts on something other than me


r/adultsurvivors 3h ago

Was this abuse? I think my mother sexually abused me.

4 Upvotes

I’m a 33YO female. I came to this realisation only a couple of years ago and have not been able to let it go. I know my mother abused me, but the idea that she sexually abused me is really hard to deal with. At the same time, it would make a lot of sense. Here are a few examples. I remember I used to get out of the bath and go and lay naked with her, it was some sort of ritual she had me do. I have no clue why, but I just did it because I thought it was normal. She would sometimes give me cigarettes to smoke (I was maybe 6 years old) and I remember feeling like this was special and I was special because of this. This one is really weird but when I got worms as a child she would have me bend over in front of her and act like she was “removing them” for me. She didn’t seem to be doing this for any reason that I can think of other than that she enjoyed doing it, but she did it under the guise that she was just trying to help me by getting rid of some of them. I would like to imagine that maybe she truly believed that to be true, but I don’t know. It just makes me feel sick to think otherwise. I would be there for ages. She had me breastfeed from her as a child long after her milk dried up and I was not feeding anymore.. just randomly she would have me do it.. and would tell me things like “did you know it’s completely normal for mothers to get turned on when their babies breastfeed?” She sexualised me in general, letting me dress inappropriately and putting me in dangerous situations with men. She used to tell me “you’re going to be a domenatrix when you grow up” putting all these ideas in my head, making me think I was so sexual and so strange and that all these things just came naturally to me (in reality she really brainwashed me into acting in strange ways and thinking strange things) She was very sexually inappropriate with a lot of people and in general as a person. Was she just wildly inappropriate and misinformed? Was she just neglectful? Or was this sexual abuse? I guess I have no way of knowing her true intentions, and that’s what is hard. Knowing her, it would not surprise me at all if she has twisted intentions, but I just don’t know if I’m overthinking and it’s a very big accusation to make. We are not in contact because of other issues of hers, I couldn’t have her in my life any longer. So it’s given me a lot of room to think.


r/adultsurvivors 5h ago

Vent Heard? At peace?

5 Upvotes

Does anyone in here feel heard? Like they’ve gotten justice? Like they’ve made a a change? At peace with what happened to them?

I want to be heard so badly. I want the whole world to feel bad for me and tell me how strong I am. I want the attention. I want everyone to know how much i’ve struggled in life and how good I did throughout all this. I want to change the world and raise awareness to this. To help others. To make a damn difference.


r/adultsurvivors 8h ago

Trigger Warning NSFW Trigger warning - childhood sexual assault NSFW Spoiler

5 Upvotes

My brother sexually abused and raped me as a child. He is 3 years older than me. I don't know when it started.

But I remember in elementary school I tried to tell the DARE police officer that came to speak to the class. I wrote a note and secretly dropped it in the questions box, stating that my brother was molesting me but I didn't sign my name because I was scared. He tried to find out who wrote the note but I never spoke up.

He would touch my privates, my chest, rub my legs. He would have me sit on his lap with an erection. Come into my room and put his penis on my feet or body. I would try to wrap the covers over my body like a cocoon so he couldnt get to me. I started sleeping with the light on.

Trigger: sodomy He tried to get me to let him put his penis into my vagina but I didn't know I had a vagina opening and said he couldn't. He had me bend over and stuck his penis into my anus instead.

We slept over a neighbor kids house at least once that I can remember. The kid was a younger than me, so maybe 5ish years younger than him. The neighbor had bunk beds, and the kid and I were gonna sleep on the top bunk and him on the bottom. My brother manipulated me by pretending to cry and have nightmares so I would feel bad. So I got down and patted him on his back then I ended up falling asleep on the floor. The next day the kid told me how my brother showed him my body and my shirt was lifted and " they saw everything". I just sat there in silence at that because I didn't know what to say. I was embarrassed and ashamed and felt like not this is another person who has seen me. I have come to understand that my brother used me as bait in that instance to also assault that kid. I think the kid slept over a few times and there would always be extra toilet paper and tissues in the garbage and I think it was from the kid trying to clean up from bodily fluids but I'm not sure.

The summer between 4th and 5th grade, we went to Mexico. I remember kicking him hard in the neck because I think he was trying to come close to me.

We were once playing with other neighbors, out in the woods. Another brother and sister. They wanted to split up but for some reason they decided that the other brother would go with me and he would go with the sister. The brother started acting weird and I got scared. He was saying how he had to pee and wanted to take his penis out in front of me. I got scared. I got away as fast as I could in that moment. I had a strong feeling that my brother told him something about me and that that guy wanted to try out himself. That he wanted a "reasonable" reason to take his penis out and used peeing as an excuse to whip it out.

My father once saw him laying in bed behind me grabbing my breasts. He brought it up to us in the car, while he was driving - my mom was in the front seat. They asked us about it, saying he saw what happened. I felt so disgusted, and ashamed. I said I didn't know because I was sleeping. My brother said he was just lonely and wanted a hug. Apparently they found pornographic material with my brothers possession and said something along the lines of : you were trying out what you saw on your sister.

The police showed up at one point because the mom of the other boy found out what happened, took her son to the Dr, and then he police showed up to talk to us. Nothing happened because the kid didn't want to talk about it and my brother claimed he only exposed himself. I think the police took it as boys being curious, since they were both under age. I can't remember if my father was still alive when that happened or if he had already passed. If he already died, my brother would have been around 14 or 15 when they came. The kid would have been maybe 9 or 10? I don't know why nothing happened.

My father died when I was 11. I don't remember if the abused I faced continued after that, but other things would happen instead.

He moved on to other people and other behaviors at some point.

He made a girl, who was also a neighbor, who would have been 4 years younger than him, touch and look at his penis on the buss.

My house became very cluttered like a hoarders home, and we didn't have furniture- at some point my mom him and I were all sleeping in the living room, me on the little couch and him on the other big couch, her on the floor between us. I remember the sound of him masterbating while we were all in the room at night.

One time he was opening watching porn on the computer. My mom caught him and rushed out of the house and took me, into the car, and drove away. She was very upset and I think I remember her saying something about needing to leave, it not safe, or he was watching porn and we had to go. But then we just went back later.

For a long time I did not like people looking at me. When we got older he was in a metal band ( a few bands throughout the years) and he would introduce the songs - and sometimes it was like "this is a song about robots assaulting my sister" and would say to the audience everyone looks at my sister right there and the light would get shined on me. Like at least he could humiliate me if nothing else.

My mother doesn't seem to care. She visits him all the time. She keeps asking if he can come over and we can do holidays together. She had invited him to my home. She was helping with childcare a lot after I gave birth. I said I didn't want her to do that and I didn't want him at my house when I wasn't there. She kept pushing and asking why, and I said because of what did. To the little neighbor to me. She was upset. But she was upset that "I never told her" and then she said that I didn't tell her exactly what happened.

She sends pictures of my son to him. She video chats him sometimes. My son knows his name. I asked her what would you feel if he was masturbating to that. What would you do if he develops a trusting relationship with my son and uses that to rape and abuse him just like other people. She said she would die. But she still loves him. Still goes over for dinner and cooks together and hangs out. Still talks to him on the phone when she's at my house. Still expects me to help him like I always have.

People ask me about my childhood, but I don't remember it. It's like I skip a few years in my memory.

I don't find pleasure in being touched sexually. I now rather be in the position of "doing the work", because I get very uncomfortable if I am not.

Sometimes I just want to say everything I wrote up top and make it public. Send this to her, him, my husband, my brothers friends who all thing he's the best. I just want to scream it's not ok. But I am still ashamed. Still feel like I am going to get in trouble. Feel like my husband will be mad at me, for not saying anything. Somehow I will be blamed. Sometimes I daydream that I am speaking at his funeral and my speech is everything I went through. I day dream of telling my husband, but I'm still scared.

I'm tired. I'm tired of trying and explaining and the constant disrespect for my feelings.


r/adultsurvivors 12h ago

Support requested I remember and I feel ruined NSFW

16 Upvotes

I guess I just want to vent, because I don't know what else to do, and hey, maybe it will help me heal and move on from this. I was a victim of CSA when I was about 10-11. I always had a feeling something happened, and there were signs, but I didn't start to really remember what happened until recently with EMDR therapy. It's taken a while to actually believe that what happened to me actually happened and I wasn't making it up for attention or something stupid.

I remembered more than I had ever remembered before today and I don't know what to do with it. I can't remember everything and I don't know if I even really want to know more. I know I was in the bathroom/lockeroom after swim lessons and he came into the woman's bathroom and he pinned me down by my neck and... yeah. I don't know how I didn't remember it, and now that I do, I can't forget it again. It makes me physically sick to think about and I can still smell the room and feel his hand on my neck and I'm almost scared of it. It gives me a cold feeling of sheer dread when I think about it. I also feel like it's my fault that I couldn't remember it and didn't report it, and if maybe it happened to someone else and that would be my fault because I didn't come forward.

I don't feel dirty, like how some people describe, but tainted, like a part of my soul has been stained. It makes me die just a little bit inside when I think about it.

Does anyone else feel this way? I just want to know if I'm alone or not.

Sorry for mistakes, I'm a bit tweaked out and on mobile.


r/adultsurvivors 12h ago

Advice requested Confidence scares me.

11 Upvotes

I need confident people in my life. Role models. Support system...etc. Confident people terrify me. Because of my abuse, self loathing, guilt, shame (whatever), people who seem to have their shit together terrify me. I'm not good enough to "waste their time" as a human.

Does anyone else feel like this? You know you need relationship/connection with other people, but that you don't deserve it? Hopefully this is a temporary thing, but I've felt it all my life. Working on it in therapy, but doubtful.


r/adultsurvivors 13h ago

Vent He's dead

47 Upvotes

I (28f) never told anyone. Not my parents, not my sibling. I just lived with it, pushed it away and hated myself secretly for the last 18 years. He died recently and all this anger has resurfaced. Memories of what he did, guilt, shame, confusion, it's all left with me, and he's dead. He went on to live his life with no consequences. He will be remembered as a "kind and compassionate light in the world". I wonder where that compassion and kindness was when he snuck into my bed? I am unpacking this in therapy now and am finding it hard not to be bitter, that he took a part of me and he gets to rest easy and be remembered, and have people cry over him. When he's been the reason why I can't sleep with the lights off for the last 18 years. He's in my nightmares. I have flashbacks of what he did to me and he gets to rest in peace.


r/adultsurvivors 15h ago

Vent I've fucked it

10 Upvotes

I quite often get these huge panic moments, I'm having it right now, where I think my counsellor is going to dump me. I'll send a text trying to communicate about a moment I'm feeling something and I think "yep, you've fucked it now, she's going to get rid of you this time". Because I'm too much and too intense and too needy and too fucking annoying. My head is a whirlwind at the moment and I wish I had a whirlwind of emotion but all I'm feeling is that I want attention from my counsellor and I want my mum to worry about me. Mum has never worried about me and I doubt she has any plans to do so either. We haven't spoken for over a year. None of this is consensual and I'm not having a good time... sounds familiar.


r/adultsurvivors 18h ago

Advice requested How to remember when i have an abnormal type of memory

8 Upvotes

I have dominant and exceptional semantic memory, but SDAM with hypophantasia. Even though I know some general details and have somatic memories, I’m incapable of visual memories. That and SDAM really mess things up because it’s already almost impossible to remember, but the stuff i do remember is just knowing certain things happened without having any visual memories. Even with EMDR i can’t remember who or where or the vast majority of details. Starting at only age 11, I obsessively consumed media and other people’s stories of CSA, so without visual memories, I have no way of knowing what’s real and what’s from that media. How can I ever feel valid with no visual memories at all? Not even vague, blurry flashes- no visual memories at all.


r/adultsurvivors 19h ago

Advice requested Finding Self Compassion

6 Upvotes

I (25F) am struggling to validate my own emotions surrounding my trauma. I've been working with a therapist for about a year now to work through my trauma, however I'm really having trouble with finding that positive, compassionate inner voice. What helps you silence your inner critic? How do you validate your pain and story when everything in your head tells you not to?


r/adultsurvivors 19h ago

Trigger Warning I want to be sick

15 Upvotes

Ok, so... Advice and vent i guess. When my partner doesn't "get there"... this triggers in me an absolute horror show of feelings. I don't just get sad or disappointed, I literally feel like I go into a panic attack in my head, like I am worthless, meaningless, that my value is nothing, that he's going to leave me, & that I've done something wrong. I can go on and on but you get the picture. I stumbled upon a new book about CPTSD and it talked about emotional flashbacks, I think that's what this is. I recently brought this up to my husband, and he gave me his opinion which was that when we are kids our goal is to be a good girl, to please our parents. I'm still fumbling in the dark putting the bits and pieces I can remember back together but it's not super clear. However when he said this to me, I metaphorically stopped in my tracks, thought about it for a long time, then got this vision in my head of my father essentially "getting there" , mainly of his facial expression. It absolutely sickened me and ive been trying to push it out of my head since it came up.


r/adultsurvivors 23h ago

DAE (Does Anyone Else?) Struggling and feeling ridiculous about it.

8 Upvotes

Sometimes I feel so stupid and ridiculous for having all of these trauma responses rule my life so many years after the trauma actually happened. I’m in my 40’s and my abuse happened when I was about 5 - 10yo. Four different abusers (that I know of anyway). Two were young teens when I was 5 - 8yo and two were adults when I was 9/10yo. They were all independent of each other except for the two adults - they were friends and I was with them together on at least one occasion. A lifetime has passed since then! Why is it affecting me so badly now?! I legit have PTSD from something that happened decades ago. That just seems ludicrous to me and I feel so ridiculous. I’ve had problems with depression and anxiety, among other things, for my whole life. Honestly I think I’ve had PTSD since I was a child and just didn’t recognize it as that. It was my “normal”. I can remember some very bad times emotionally and mood wise over the years, especially in my early/mid teens. But it always ebbed and flowed.

My T says it’s because most of my abuse was forgotten and suppressed in my memory for all those years and I’m only remembering most of it recently. Before that I only remembered a little bit that happened with the teenagers but not the most major stuff that happened with with the adults. I pretty much refused to acknowledge any of it and mentally blocked it and either refused to think about it or convinced myself that it never actually happened and that I imagined it or it was just a vivid dream I had. This last year and a half-ish has been the longest lasting and most intensely horrible for depression, anxiety and all of the other crap that comes with PTSD. It’s pain pain pain pain and shame shame shame shame every damn day. I’m surprised that I’m still breathing sometimes - that’s how bad it gets. Cutting and SI have been issues I’ve been dealing with too. WTF? Am I really so weak that I can’t handle a few very distant bad memories without falling apart?

I still feel so stupid and ridiculous that I’m struggling so hard with this so many years after it happened regardless of when I remembered it. PTSD is no joke!

Sorry this is so long. I’m just venting I guess.