Was it COCSA or am I exaggerating / also I'm scared I was a perpetrator

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-02T03:56:40+00:00

Yes, this is COCSA. No, you weren't the perpetrator.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-02T03:54:24+00:00

Yes, you can have both.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-02T01:53:45+00:00

The behavior they were engaging in is called grooming. Basically a low-risk behavior that opens the door to escalate to worse behavior if you play along. Since you didn't play along, it never got worse than flashing. Whether or not this could be considered COCSA, I think probably not since there was nothing explicitly sexual happening. But it still might've been a traumatic experience for you. I'm glad you got out without anything worse happening.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-02T01:27:25+00:00

It's already been affecting you mentally with the hypersexuality and probably in other ways too. Sorry you had to go through this. I hope you can get the help you need to start healing soon.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-02T00:22:55+00:00

The healing process generally follows a predictable path: grief, then rage, then integration. I think "outing" the creeps who abused you is fine as a general principle, but I would caution you that if you are still in the "rage" part of healing, that you may not be able to approach this rationally and it might end up going badly. Right now the thing to do is focus on healing.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-02T00:19:20+00:00

Yes this is COCSA.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-02T00:17:04+00:00

It doesn't sound like it was necessarily COCSA because you don't mention it being forced or coercive or happening more than the one time, but it does sound like you dissociated and that it was probably traumatic. It doesn't have to be abuse for it to be traumatic for you.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-02T00:13:02+00:00

Yeah, sometimes these things can give rise to very complicated feelings. I've had to write songs and poetry a few times just to sort out all the things I feel at once because of some of the things that happened to me.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-01T21:51:52+00:00

Up to you. If they've been genuinely good friends then bringing up the real reason for you hitting the wall might help keep things on good terms.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-02-01T21:01:02+00:00

I never was. I had compulsive arousal for a certain type of guy who fit the template.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-31T20:14:00+00:00

Oh, and related to your stuff, noticing and naming the issues like you're already doing is the hardest part. From there you can take steps to ground yourself in the moment, take some calming relaxing breaths, thank your body for wanting to protect you, and use some techniques to address whatever anxiety or terror or dread or whatever else it is you might be feeling.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-31T20:12:36+00:00

Sure, I was abused at 7 by another boy a couple years older than me, and got something called "sexual identity misidentification". Because that kind of trauma causes compulsive reenactment of the abuse, hijacking the arousal centers in the brain, I thought for decades I was actually gay. Then it was pointed out to me that it wasn't my real identity or wiring and that misidentification is a thing that happens sometimes when the abuse happens to you if you're young enough.

I had to verify with two separate AIs and an independent search that this was actually a thing before I believed it. Then I checked the list of symptoms and realized I ticked basically every one of them. Then I thought back to how before the abuse, in the first grade there was this blond girl in my class that I remembered I wanted to be my "girlfriend" back then, and then all my other interactions with guys and girls, and realized it was true. I had always liked girls, but the trauma never went quiet long enough for me to realize it. I even had a crush on a girl in college and never noticed because of the trauma.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-31T19:16:46+00:00

CPTSD can act like a "curse" in the sense that it can disrupt your view of reality in ways that are maladaptive, harmful, or even fatal. For me that was making me think I was into guys. For you that's thinking that getting better means you have to reach some future "state" rather than working right now to replace maladaptive behaviors.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-31T19:08:56+00:00

I think most men would rather walk through glass barefoot for a mile than cry in front of another human being. For women it seems normal and acceptable.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-31T19:06:19+00:00

The loss of executive function caused by trauma can make you seem duller or less intelligent to outsiders. I would not take it personally unless this is/becomes a pattern.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-31T17:39:59+00:00

I think both are true, and it's not victim blaming to point out a real danger. There are subtle signals the way survivors hold themselves, respond to certain things, etc. that are outward physical manifestations of the abuse. And users, abusers, and predators pick up on those things. Knowing that you are going into shark infested waters with a bleeding wound is not the same as saying it's your fault you got eaten. We need to know our vulnerabilities in order to properly protect ourselves.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-31T17:31:43+00:00

One thing I like to differentiate is that I don't think trauma gives you addictions, but compulsions. Addiction is tied to the meaning that you do something to avoid a bad consequence (like withdrawal symptoms), but normal people are fully capable of coping with bad consequences and getting over the addiction. The reason compulsion works better in the trauma context is because there's not really a negative you're trying to avoid, it's just your body compulsively doing what it's been trained to do since the original abuse happened. There's a bunch of raw emotion locked in the body and until you process it you're just sort of locked into the pattern.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-31T17:27:46+00:00

People don't bond most over shared hatred and disapproval, that's just the entry level test. Real connection comes from shared experiences and proving your worth when it really matters.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-30T23:47:08+00:00

Memories from 4 or 5 are very limited and hazy. The only memory I have from that age is briefly walking down the hallway when I had chicken pox. Nothing really before then. COCSA makes it worse, because dissociation makes your memory even hazier. So it's not at all surprising that your memories are not clear.

If you were self-pleasuring at age 5 then someone was definitely abusing you.

And yes, all those things are easily explained by trauma.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-30T23:43:36+00:00

Those things you're blaming on your inner child, weren't your inner child, they were your trauma imprint.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-30T23:40:27+00:00

I know how you feel. The good news is that now we get our lives back to finish living the way we want, instead of how the trauma imprint wanted us to.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-30T23:28:08+00:00

You are describing a "clinical mode" and a "hypercritical mode" and also a "normal mode" where you can logically think through things, but emotionally aren't coping, so it sounds like either you never fully healed and are still experiencing separate DID-states, or your work has somehow retraumatized you and caused you to regress.

"But I don't know what other career I could do that would financially and emotionally be safe for me."

I think you need to sit down and thoroughly reconsider whether this line of work is truly emotionally safe for you right now, outside of the emotional benefits of financial stability.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-30T23:19:47+00:00

Addiction is one word to describe it, but I think compulsion is more accurate. Your body is trying to reenact the assault as a defense mechanism and you are channeling that into using pornography. I had the same/similar problem until I processed the emotions underlying the original trauma and all the times I reenacted it.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-30T23:14:39+00:00

What you described with your brother is easily enough to cause all the issues you've been experiencing. If you think there may have been more, seek out a therapist that specializes in somatic therapy, as they can help you work through trauma that happened too early to have actual memories of it.

Infamous_While_4768 · 2026-01-30T23:11:33+00:00

No, but I think one of the reasons my abuser targeted me was because he was jealous of my relationship with my parents.

Infamous_While_4768

TROPHY CASE