To want outside opinions - was I abused?

[WoopityBoopity2]

And is it the sort of thing it'd be Ok to get counselling for? I've had the "others have dealt with much worse" mentality for so long I'm feeling very confused. Sorry for the long post.

I'd use chat rooms as a child and would frequently give out an msn address. From the age of about 12, people would add me (typically men aged between 19 and 45) and they would befriend me, flatter me (tell me I was cool, pretty etc) and ask me if their friends could add me, to which I'd always agree as I had very low self esteem and thought I'd make more friends. They would ask me to perform sexual acts on myself on webcam, and I wanted to keep my new friends so did this. I remember once I said no, and he told me he knew what school I was at and would send pictures of me doing things there if I didn't. This happened countless times. I did eventually block all these people, but then from age 15 would date men up to about 8 years older than myself where sexual activity took place. They would provide me alcohol, drugs etc.

I'd pushed this all to the back of my mind until very recently, when I've started to change my way of seeing things. I used to think I was just "easy". But now I'm starting to think I may have not have been in the wrong here. My wonderful parents know nothing of it all, I was very secretive. I'm mid twenties now and have only mentioned or made jokes about it with close friends. I've got an anxiety disorder and didn't even speak to the therapist about this and signed out of her care.

I just don't understand really, part of me screams yes this is abuse, the other parts telling me how much of a tart I was and knew what I was doing.

I could just do with an outside perspective.

[DJBaggySmalls]

Yes, that counts as abuse. Yes you can seek therapy for it.
If it was your daughter would you be ok with it, label her a bit of a tart and tell her other people have it worse?

[Brokenbiscuit]

Yes, you were definitely abused. You were not a tart, you were a child. You were groomed by these men and made to believe it was your fault. I'm so sorry.

I think you should definitely pursue counselling for this, if you feel that it would be helpful.

[CatsRidingRollercoasters]

Yes, that was abuse. Easy doesn't come into it. You were young and vulnerable and they took advantage of that. Bastards.

I would seek support if I were you

[Palace2]

I think you should stop blaming yourself, you were a child. These men definitely used you for their own pleasure. Definitely get counselling for this, perhaps you haven't been ready to deal with all of this until now. I hope you get some kind of resolution soon.

[hungryhippo90]

You were groomed, it was, is really quite an often occurring situation,
I think that's why schools are SO hot on teaching the kids about the dangers of this kind of abuse at school.

I have to be honest and say, I don't know many people who were not atleast contacted at one point by men who were old enough to know that this kind of thing is really creepy.

I remember that there were lots of men like this. I specifically remember a man who would talk dirty to me a lot and kept trying to get me to meet him. He was 30 odd when I was about 14... he lived in the next town, and I ran into him in a pub when I was 18. He couldn't see what he did was wrong.

[SantasBigHelper]

This is definitely abuse OP. You were not to blame. The age of consent is there for a reason - children under 16 are considered unable to to consent.