If you were a teenager now would you be better protected *Possibly Triggering*

[PlasticFlowers]

I have name changed to write this.

Someone from my past contacted me the other night (FB) and it seems to have brought up some really unhappy memories from my past and I am alone in lockdown and want to write my thoughts down. I hadn't spoken to him for nearly 30 years and he phoned me on messenger.

I was a teenager late 80s/90s.

This person was someone I had a relationship with, I was 16 and he was 26, my parents were fine with this, which looking back shows a huge amount of either naivety or lack of care on their part, I like to think the former.

I met him while I was out clubbing in a members only club.

I was going into bars and clubs from the age of about 13 with my parents knowledge (sometimes) and getting drunk and sleeping with men a lot older than myself (I met a guy in his 40s in a Casino when I was 14 and was sleeping with him and he was loaded and used to just hand out cash - but not for the act of sex IYSYIM it was more subtle than that) he was married with children.

On several occasions I slept with people I didn't want to/ wasn't comfortable with/was totally off my head and unable to consent.

I was taking a lot of taking drugs and drinking and ended up with a drug habit by the time I was 17 which did nearly kill me.

I have since had a family (my children were the making of me) and stumbled through a marriage, broken (sometimes abusive relationships) and am now in my second marriage which has its ups and downs like any other, generally happy but I think we are two damaged people who sometimes heal each other and sometimes don't know how to do that.

I thought I was over all this stuff, but this has really knocked me and made me think about all the other incidents that I have shoved to the back of my mind, I suppose because they are painful and put down as a rather "wild" childhood when actually nowadays I would be waving a massive "I am being exploited" flag, and I was just allowing myself to be, or being abused (I always told my real age to anyone I slept with). I did look a lot older than I was but I was a child in a women's body.

Should I just get over myself as obviously I can't change anything, or should I forgive myself and accept that a lot of that wasn't within my control because I wasn't mature enough to make good decisions, and be a bit kinder to that vulnerable child who seems to have reappeared
within me these last few days?

I have built a good career for myself and a lot of my work is CE (it has kind of just happened like that really) but I think subconsciously I have been drawn towards it because I am seeing that girl and trying to help her - nowadays I would be better protected wouldn't I? I was the model student at school so no one knew.

Does anyone else who was a teenager in this era feel the same way - looking back at it now?

I am not a therapist but if your dad was absent and violent than he is to blame. However, you are incredibly strong and have forgiven him and made peace you say. Maybe there is a conflict there? People do change, you sound like a lovely person who wants to strive to be better and self analyses. Go easy on yourself. You have brought up 3 amazing children despite having a hard time yourself and you deserve a medal for that and definitely no guilt/shame. You have done nothing wrong.

I hope things are different now. I went to a Catholic school and we were so ignorant about things. Lots of the sixth formers had adult boyfriends. My best friend there lost her virginity when she was 11. Her boyfriend was 15 and working. She and I weren't friends until we were 13 but by then she used to go to the pub with her boyfriend several times a week. Her dad used to buy her cigarettes. Her mum and dad both had respectable jobs and doted on her.

She became anorexic in her late teens and is still so now. I know that's a direct cause of things that happened to her when she was so young.

or should I forgive myself and accept that a lot of that wasn't within my control because I wasn't mature enough to make good decisions, and be a bit kinder to that vulnerable child who seems to have reappeared
within me these last few days?

Please do this. Treat yourself very gently and prioritise your wellbeing. Comfort the vulnerable child part of yourself.

It wasn't your fault. I know it shouldn't need saying, but sometimes knowing this intellectually is a different thing from knowing this emotionally - it wasn't your fault.

People take the piss out of the #metoo movement but this is the damage that stuff does.

I remember having bar jobs and having to put up and shut up about being groped by the landlord and the punters. Cash in hand so you would lose your job.

This whole Instagram culture with young girls posting photos in next to nothing makes me feel sad for them.

You value and beauty does not lie in your exterior - I still struggle with that now.

And parents absolutely should be checking their kids phones.

Be kind to that vulnerable child.

Be angry with those who should have protected you but didn't.

Go easy on yourself. It takes a very strong person to grow from these experiences and raise confident, successful kids among other things.

As pp have said, those were very different times. It might be good to do some therapy, but for now I’d say don’t speak to the guy again.
Take confidence and peace that you are in a totally different place now, acknowledge the past but don’t dwell on it. You had little guidance and were possibly looking for close relationships as you might not have been getting that from your parents.
You did nothing wrong, be kind to yourself.

My mum did know I was having sex because I now remember asking her to take me to the Gp to go o the pill around my 14th birthday no questions asked and she said it was for my periods to the GP.

Your experience mirrors mine pretty much OP, but I also had undiagnosed depression anxiety and BPD and self medicated with booze, drugs and underage.
The whole girls being laddish didn't help imo but no, parenting and care in general were utterly shit in my experience.

Maybe it's all come to the surface now your daughter has "successfully" navigated the same period you find so painful, almost grieving for your adolescence that was tainted by abusive men who exploited you.

I think people weren't as switched on to exploitation in that time but I absolutely believe the men exploited your vulnerability and used that to their advantage. It's covered so much now in safeguarding, and if it were to happen now I do think it would be taken seriously.

I'm sorry it happened to you, you should consider speaking to a therapist

You were young and they totally took advantage. Try to reframe it like this:

Would any normal 40+ year old man you know now have sex with a drunk, high 14 year old? No.
Would you as a parent be happy with your 16 year old child having a 26 year old boyfriend? No.
Would you now if you knew that any of the things that happened to your younger self think twice about going to the police? No.

I think we had a similar childhood and I always blamed myself until my daughter got to my age and I just think what the fuck. I was let down so many times and on at least one occasion coerced and raped.

Be kind to yourself. I bet you are a fantastic Mum. Block the twat that phoned you.

Also please don't refer to yourself as a slag op. You were an exploited child.

Yeah I revisited this last year briefly and then just stopped thinking about it as was raped at a club in a patch of stinging nettles during a party. When I was 13 and he was 18.

He’s quite successful and was quite high up in a phone company and he added me (I think I had blocked out the nature of the act and just saw it as we had sex).

He was married with a child and living in Canada and started PMing me really smutty and grim and I blocked him.

Why did this guy suddenly call you up OP? I would consider blocking him, it doesn’t sound like he’s much of a friend. Please go easy on yourself, none of this was your fault

I have blocked him.

Tbf he was perfectly nice to me when we were together, apart from dumping me when I was in hospital, and asking me not to tell his family and friends how old I was.

He started a FB group for the private members club and added me and I was helping him with the settings. He then just called me.

I have left the group and blocked him.

I think that you are totally right about the era. I was born beginning of the 80s so a teen throughout the 90s.
My experiences are very common amongst my friends “wild child” behaviour such as sleeping with men we probably didn’t want to - it wasn’t forced but you certainly felt like you couldn’t really back out of it at the time. Drinking, drugs, being groped, being exploited - again it was very subtle and low level and never really overtly but it absolutely happened.
One of the things I think is majorly different now is the discussion and conversations we have with men / boys. No one talked about coercion, no one talked about consent in the way we do now. Yes we all knew about rape but not the many grey areas around it.

I distinctly remember one occasion where two boys (friends of ours, not strangers) took my two good friends over a park and forced them to give them blow jobs. It was laughed off.
An older Male friend of mine knocked for me one evening when I was 14 and took me to our friends “hang out” - was like a garage the lads had put a sofa and tv and stuff in - and we ended up kissing and a bit of low level foreplay. He didn’t force me and eventually down the line we ended up gf / bf but it took me until i was a grown woman to realise he had planned and manipulated that situation. It makes me feel sick now thinking about it.

One thing I’ll add - I had a pretty happy home life, my parents and family were not neglectful, fairly strict if anything. I never did any of the things I did out of response to other issues in my home life but they still happened - and same for many friends too - so I do think it was very common, very overlooked and I would hope to god girls are more aware and more able to say no to things which don’t feel good nowadays. I don’t think we ever questioned it

Sorry - I want to clarify my point bc I think it reads like I am comparing our stories and I am explaining away what happened to you as “of the time” - I’m 100% not.
I meant to imply that bc of the times, girls were definitely less protected because we weren’t even aware that this behaviour was wrong and we were being exploited. I don’t think I’ve explained well sorry.

I think you’ve done amazing to come through the other side and YANBU to think and hope you’d have been looked after more if you were a teen now.

I hope you’ve got the support you need now in friends / therapy etc

I think we were brought up to think it was ok for men to behave like this.

Open your legs love.

Similar to me in the early 80s. I think a mixture of one parent too strict the other absent. It's hard looking back , but you have to think you were really a child.
I regret now things I didn't do eg university.
I hope you can work through some of these emotions and focus on being happy now.

I have an amazing group of friends but I don’t talk about this.

It’s so painful.

Judging your worth aged 14 by pulling a 22/23/24 year old who then ignores you after you have slept with them.

Married my first husband aged 20 because he was the first man who was decent to me.

We were totally incompatible.

And then I reverted back to previous behaviours.

I have been with my current husband 10 years and have not so I have healed that part of myself.

I don’t need the validation of every man I meet by bedding to know they want to have sex with me.

I'm 30 and had a similar adolescent experience. 14, sleeping with a Casino owner who totally exploited me. He appeared obsessed by me and making me his emotional 'sex doll' so this was only 16 years ago. I remember being letched on lots, and by my uncle (through marriage) who was 32. I liked the attention but I do remember feeling like no man could be trusted and how easy it was for a seemingly happily married man to be taken in by a teenager. These experiences made me pretty cold in later teens and I would sleep with men and kick them out afterwards and just do loads of coke. I was a mess. I met my husband who was a DJ in early twenties and people warned him that I would chew him up and spit him out... I did, but he stuck around. We are still together and have an amazing life. I've grown as a person and I do not feel regret or pity for my past at all. It's just that, a past. I didn't hurt anyone but myself. I am however over the moon how times seem to have changed in recent years and people are wising up to what is and isn't acceptable for young girls to do. I have 2 daughters so I naturally worry but they'll hear my horror stories when they're old enough which will hopefully serve as a warning and inject abit of savvy. I often get ghosts from the past contacting me and I'm polite and brief with each exchange. I want them to know they took nothing precious from me. I hope you're ok OP. You sound like you've come out a the right end and that in itself is amazing.

I'd say that is was pretty prevalent and accepted in the late 80's from my experience. It was also sensationalized in the press, with the likes of Amanda De Cadanet and Mandy Smith. I know of school girls going to teachers flats and remember a much older man turning up outside my secondary school to walk me home (after meeting him in a nightclub). Today it just feels WTF, but it was just allowed to happen back then. So please dont feel you did wrong. You were not supported or looked after like you should have been. In fact, you've done brilliantly to get through that to be where you are today.

I'd like to think so but I'm not totally convinced.
I was born in the mid 60s. My M was an alcoholic, violent and emotionally manipulative. She was also (still is) a compulsive liar. All this was done behind closed doors though. In public she was well presented. Apart from the numerous parasuicide attempts; after those she was simply patched up and sent home to continue this behaviour with a small child at home. Me. Every other adult in and around the family knew exactly what was going on but ignored it and did nothing. Nobody protected me from this. I was promiscuous as a teenager, self harmed and became an alcoholic. I'm now 14 years sober and in my mid 50s. I'm also highly educated and pretty successful. But that's down to me. If I sound angry it's because I probably still am. Sometimes. Most of the time I'm ok. I've had many years of therapy over the last 30 years. I still ask myself though, how all those adults (my father included) could just turn the other way.

OP you were a child and children cannot (morally and in law) consent to their own abuse. NAPAC charity offers support to adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse: www.napac.org.uk/. It may also really help to have some therapy around this.