My feeling is that by the age of 12 your cousin likely did know that what he did to you was wrong.

It is not unusual for any kind of intimacy to be triggering for a person who was sexually abused. It also makes sense to me that when you have sex with a male it would be more triggering for you since the abuse happened with a male.

Dreams are one way our mind tries to let us know what is going on and what has happened. Many of us suffer with nightmares because we have not fully dealt with (healed) what happened to us. Dreams and nightmares are very difficult to deal with but can also be very informative. Yours seem to be bringing up the deep fear you had when you were a child and were abused.

If you are not already, please consider working with a therapist. The dreams and the symptoms you have when triggered will not go away on their own. It is possible to bury them for a while but they will return. Working with a therapist on healing your past will allow you to fully heal so that your past no longer affects your life today. You can heal and you deserve to heal.

I agree with everything LuckyEmpath wrote, especially that you need to work with a therapist to deal with the terrible harm that was done to you. I found one by calling the hotline at RAINN.org and it didn't matter that the situation I called about had happened many years before.

I also want to tell you something I've learned from my years on the Daily Strength sexual abuse support group. When men are abused by men, they may have a sexual reaction to men even if they are not gay or bi. This makes sense to me because I also have a sexual reaction to people who remind me of the ones who abused me - but unlike my usual attractions, it is more like a reflexive and compulsive response. If you are male and the one who abused you was male, you could have that kind of reflexive response without actually being gay or bisexual. I have learned from the men on this support group that this does happen, and I have even met men who had to come out to their family as straight after being abused. So maybe you actually are bisexual, or maybe your attraction to men has more to do with the abuse you suffered. No judgements either way.

Well I think he was conditioned badly by his abuser that it distorted stuff for him he's not like that anymore. I forgive him and I blame more the person who abused him than anything thats just my perspective.

Ive not gone to therapy I'm a bit embarrassed and uncomfortable about talking about the situation but I thi nk I'm ready to start opening up and getting help on this.

I'm on my phone bit I'll check the link out when I get to a desktop thanks.


My cousin is male. And yeah I normally am attracted to women but I do get sexually turned with both men and women undressed. But I prefer women so either way I'm predominantly heterosexual. Thats what heteroflexible actually means. So from what you describe sounds about right...

Try not to label anything, it wont help you any. I agree that attraction to some being compulsive and even participating in things similar to your trauma so that you can have a better sense of control.
If you can do therapy, do it. I wish I could and I can imagine how hard it would be to say these things to a person sitting in front of you but if you can it might be a way of taking back that power that was lost.
Good luck to you!

Well I just got off the line with rainn. I read the symptoms that are common. Like aftercare and feeling anxiety or anger or wanting to hurt ones self. I feel none of these issues. I don't feel anxious I have a relationship with my cousin. I don't hold anger against him. He never injured me. I think somehow that I actually enjoyed what happened. Because when I had sex with my friend when we climaxed I remember feeling like it was familiar. I was drunk a bit so the whole situation was more blurry than sober moments are. But like when he finished inside of me I knew that that happened before and that it was a feeling I've had in the past an enjoyable feeling. It wasn't until after that problems arose. For one I started bleeding that is when I think I freaked out. I think maybe when I was a kid that's when it went wrong. As some stuff felt like deja vu nothing actually felt like much of a problem until after. Which makes sense because my parents said I wasn't very willing to tell. They found out because of the bleeding basically. I don't think I actually expressed that I did not want to do it. I remember being more curious not scared. My dreams though always associate the gay dreams I've had of my friend with fear. Like I'll have dreams about him fucking me and I have this really hair raising feeling fear I almost feel like bawling really when I wake up. At the same time I fantasize about him when I'm awake with little issues. Sometimes I get so much into it I want to call him up and see when we can meet up again but then I fear I'll make it worst the fact that I do dream about him but am really scared. Maybe its the fear my parents instilled in me rather than the situation. I have never had any desire to hurt myself because of this. I was chatting on the rainn hotline and I was told it was not sexual abuse if I don't feel I was abused or used. I don't feel used or abused by my cousin. I just struggle to feel untriggered about my current sex life without being reminded About my last experience. I want to continue having sex with my friend tbh but I feel fearful about the situation. About making it worst. I mean my dreams and stuff. I doubt it was abuse since we were 2 years apart and I don't think said no and I think I actually liked what we did. But I don't remember what exactly happened.

OK I was looking up some symptoms there's some commonalities. I can't explain why I'd forget what happened.

I have read some symptoms some are a hit. Like I do feel a lot of shame about what happened when I was 9. I feel embarrassed stupid that I let iit happen.

And I totally forgot what happened kind of dont see that anywhere. Also I have always had issues with relationships. I've never maintained a relationship but I'm only 18 so maybe that's more of why..

http://soulspottv.com/blog/7stepstohealsexualblocksforanamazinglife/




http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2006/10/not-unusual-to-forget-childhood-sexual-abuse/

Experiencing pleasure during abuse is something that confuses just about all of us. We incorrectly feel that if our body experienced pleasure then we must have enjoyed it. But this is not correct. The body is made to react a certain way when touched a certain way. So having any kind of automatic reaction (aka orgasm) when abused does not mean you enjoyed it or that you wanted it to happen.

If you have blocks in your memory then some type of trauma happened to you to cause you to block it out. Some children, who are repeatedly abused, can block out what happened to them within minutes of it happening. I blocked out the abuse for 30+ years and others here have blocked out their memories for just as long and some even longer.

I can see you are struggling to understand how you 'should' feel when really all you have to do is allow yourself to feel what you 'do' feel. It sounds like you are still a bit in a denial phase but are making your way into acceptance. It may be at this point that you will want to get yourself a therapist even if someone is telling you "if you don't feel used and abused then it means you were not used an abused" (which infuriates me if someone actually used those words with you). A therapist can help you sort out what you 'do' feel and will validate it. As you start talking with someone about what you do remember you will eventually be able to fill in the blanks from those blocks of memory you have.

Fun and simple to play, appealing to all ages, but, as CSM says, be wary of the fact that there is no stopping sexual themed or language full usernames.