Trigger* ‘examination’ by mother age 6 (female) Was I Molested?

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Trigger warning - I’m currently in week 6 of therapy for CPTSD (witnessing and hearing older sister battered by parents as a child) I’ve been talking it out weekly, last week it came up that 3 of us were bathed together (ages 12/8/2) in same bath. Mother was always always always around when naked, but never available to me when I was clothed in normal life. After therapy this week that evening, I had another strong memory of mother telling me she had to ‘check for worms’ in my privates, laid me on her bed on a towel and went ahead ‘looking’. There was never anything there! This is so upsetting and confusing for me today. On one occasion she used eyebrow tweezers to ‘get closer’. I think I was 6 or 7. I think it only happened less than 10 times but can’t exactly recall exact number. I was never frightened, but i remember feeling exposed and the light above my head was so bright. She was nonchalant, calm in manner, and insistant throughout. I feel sick and so confused. I’m seeing my therapist this week and really feel I need to tell them about this but it is so humiliating. Any help appreciated- not sure why I’m posting but it’s going round and round my mind and I guess it needs to get gone somehow?

Hard to say from what you have written. Did you have any squirming, trouble sleeping, pulling at pants area or indicated itchiness or pain at any point that led your mum to do a worm check? They are awful with girls as they migrate from anus to vagina and it’s not necessarily itchiness that is the flag to check for them.

thanks for replying - I had them once then she insisted on this examination rigmarole again and again - I have daughters but when they mentioned the itch, I gave them medicine and it was sorted. This is where I’m finding a problem - I would never in a million years examine my kids in the way she did - this was 1987 so I’m sure she could’ve found the medicine to treat it easily enough?

Also took photos of us in the bath which I have in an album she gave me a few years ago. Really struggling to understand her motive of taking photos of her kids in the bath. Of course many would say it was a different time back then, but really? She was generally awful in everyday life at home (angry/unpredictable rage/empty fridge didn’t bother/‘professional outside the home so enough money for food but just couldn’t be bothered buying any)

I’m sorry op, none of her behaviour sounds right at all.

I think maybe that was what she knew from when she was brought up. Either ignorance, poverty, or the fact effective medicine wasn't widely available maybe that was the only way she knew?

My mum never gave me antihistamines for my debilitating allergies or any pain relief for my seizure inducing migraines. This was the 80s. She had the same migraines herself as a kid and I'm presuming her family just didn't medicate. Some people only ever took medicine if a doctor told them to.

I'm not minimising your feelings about how it made you feel though. It wasn't dignified and you felt you didn't fully consent or understand why she was doing it. I hope the therapy is helping. X

It's honestly hard to say, it could have been innocent and it could have not been. You have obviously have a complicated relationship with your mum and a difficult childhood. It's good that you're getting help to sort through these memories and feelings.

There are pictures of me in the bath with my siblings and I, personally, don't think that it's weird or wrong.

I have pics of my kids in the bath, I do try to avoid their private bits being in them though, and just baby pics. There's some of my 8 year old bathing with the baby because they're cute, but I'd never take pics of just my 8 year old in the bath, that would be wierd imo. And there's only been a few times they've bathed together. So I guess it depends really, she might have bathed you all together because it's easier and more convenient, 3 separate bath times is a lot of effort tbh.
The inspection thing is weird. I'd never inspect my dd that way.

I have photos of my children in the bath together when they were little. They used to love their nightly bath together. Taking pics of kids in the bath and little kids running around naked was considered a completely normal thing to do at the time.

I wonder whether other memories may arise soon, as you mention she was "always around when naked, but never available to me when I was clothed in normal life". Perhaps you're at a stage where your brain is feeling safe to go back and revisit these events.

What I would say if you do feel this (and maybe other things she did) was inappropriate, is that there are good support forums on reddit, there's a MDSA "mother daughter sexual abuse" one (this is so hard to tak about in real life, I never have - but I've gained a lot of healing from there), and also a lot of distressing boundary-breaking/SA/nudity stuff is covered in the 'raised by narcissists' forum. I'm not suggesting she had that, but it's a place you can read and talk about it anonymously, if you need to.

I don't think anyone can say whether this was abuse or not.

Taking pictures of one's own young kids in the bath is pretty normal even today, and was completely standard when I was a kid in the 70s/80s.

I also remember having to be examined a couple of times when I was a kid - once when I had worms and once when I'd complained I was sore or itchy or something. I would have been about five or six I think? Definitely no abuse.

That doesn't, of course, mean that your mother wasn't abusive - she might have been. But those things in isolation aren't necessarily an indication of it.

I would be more concerned that your mother apparently only paid you attention when you were naked. That's... very odd.

It sounds, to be honest, as if your parents were abusive in many other ways and you had a very difficult and traumatic childhood, so whether the abuse was sexual or not, you have every right to feel the way you feel. I hope your therapy helps you work through all this stuff; it must be so hard for you.

I'd be very wary of recommending forums. This is the sort of conversation that needs to be had with the safety and support of a properly qualified therapist (and I hope your therapist is properly qualified).

None of us here on MN can know how realistic your anxiety about these memories is, but when you are revisiting troubling childhoods, especially with parents that have actually failed you in certain ways, it is almost inevitable that you will start to scrutinise memories for additional sources of trauma. I think that both the client and the therapist have to be extremely careful about this, because there is the danger of becoming wrapped up in fears and suspicions which may well turn out to be ill-founded. There is almost a safety to be found in constructing a wider and clearer picture of abuse than our traumatically unclear memories can really establish. It can give us a new narrative that we can clutch in all the chaos that is involved when we unpick the dysfunctional self-narratives that have brought us to therapy in the first place.

I had similar! Mum was kind enough but I had terible allergies and nothing was done. In the end I went to the Drs and they prescribed and many many years later I am still on something.

It just wasnt done was it? That and using Dettol (neat!) for almost everything.

Presumably she was always around when you were naked because she was getting you dressed?

I don’t think anything here sounds unusual for the 80s/90s. It’s not like she could have googled solutions.

Yeah, it was a lot different. Some families seemed keen on medical home remedies, some on alternative ones, but most seemed to believe none at all were necessary! I'm sorry for you though as looking back it feels a bit off to say the least. But again it's influenced by what their own parents did.

@MyThreeWords I understand what you're saying - and I don't know about your memories of SA (I assume you have personal experience to be talking this way and I'm sorry for what happened to you) - but mine are very clear. They actually happened. It's not a case of constucting an imaginary general vibe of abuse to explain a difficult childhood. These are real things that did happen, that I know are and were illegal and harmful. I don't believe people usually make this stuff up.

I hope OP gets some clarity from a real life therapist. We don't know whether she expereinced anything abusive or not.

But I would like to point out that sometimes it's impossible to talk about this stuff in real life to a therapist. I've tried and the words just can't come out. When I've even started on the subject of CSA I've had male therapists get a gross glint in their eye, and other therapists simply don't believe mothers do that kind of thing. I've really tried. So for me, anonymous forums have been a life saver.

My SIL used to check my niece for signs of abuse when she would return home from nursery. I remember wondering about it but she felt strongly that my niece didn’t have the words to describe anything that might happen and she was simultaneously teaching her about stranger danger. Niece was 2-3 at the time.

I remember my mum checking me for worms in a similar way in the 90's and there are plenty of photos of me in the bath with my sibling- it's not something I've ever considered weird tbh.

But mum was a good mum so I have no reason to see these as red flags... I guess if there's other concerning behaviour it makes sense that you would be suspicious.

Ok... so when a child is brought to the GP with potential worms ... we ask... have you witnessed them?
So yes... she could have been ( and most likely was ) checking for worms.
Also... yes- pictures exist of my kids in the bath. As they exist of me also as a child.
Are you determined that you were abused? Can you not see through a lens of 'not what I'd do, but it wasnt abuse'?

Thanks everyone - this is exactly what I’ve been thinking that oh it was just the way things were back then, but if I compare to how I’ve raised my 3 kids, I’ve never been able to even be in the bathroom at the same time as them after a certain age (older kids) Maybe my mum was just being old school and thinking she knew better, but it was so invasive and there was no privacy generally in th house - I had terrible toilet issues as a child an looking back, anyone was just walking into the bathroom even when I shouted that I was using the loo! It’s all so confusing.

You obviously feel that something was "off" about her behaviour and that's what counts here. Sounds like her intentions were not pure, even if her behaviour was not strictly 'wrong'. Also even if her motives were fine, her inability to see and respond to your discomfort at her actions was not.

I have pictures (no genitals) of my kids in the bath when young and I still help my kids was their hair once a week (they do it independently other times) - they get to choose if they are naked or in bathing suits and they are most often naked.

I have also checked both for worms. My youngest daughter gets them frequently. The medication used to kill them really isn't great for you so I avoid giving it to her unless they are really bad (we use other management methods) and so I do need to check. But I ask her consent before I do (and accept her answer).

I don't have experience of sexual abuse, but other traumatic things were happening in my family (domestic violence) which generated huge blanks and silences in my history, so that I am very familiar with a kind of fragility of memory that can often combine with a client's emotional difficulties/need/vulnerabilities (and sometimes with therapists' inexpertise!) to present very great pressures and uncertainties in the projects of the therapy.

I think your situation, @applescentedcandle , is perhaps different from the OPs in that you have clear memories (and I am profoundly sorry to hear that you went through this awfulness). I can understand how forums (if they are safe ones) might be valuable, and how hard it might be to say the things you need to the therapist. It is specifically the uncertainty of the OP's memories, and the pull towards horrifying possibilities that I think makes the OPs situation one in which forum use might be very risky.

Forums can tend to generate a dangerous dynamic of mutual reinforcement and social contagion, although, again, I do accept how useful they can be in certin situations. xxx

I’m sorry you’ve had such a hard time OP.

I do think the issues you mention here may be red herrings though. Bathing together I would say was quite normal then, kids sharing bath to save water/heating costs, me and my sister also bathed together. The worms I know my gran says they used to check kids because the medication isn’t great to give regularly so checking to ensure it’s actually needed was the “done thing” and my mum did check us.

Pictures in the bath again I think is quite normal or done often even now, my mum has photos of me and my sister in the bath.

Consent with kids thing I think is a hard one because while it is absolutely important to teach children about consent, sometimes it’s necessary to do things even if they don’t consent or want you to. My toddler would never “consent” to a nappy change, she just hates getting her nappy changed at the moment, but the fact remains she can’t sit in a wet/dirty nappy all day and it does need to be changed. Same with medical procedures, I was quite unwell for awhile as a child and I hated needles, being examined, my mum checking my stitches etc, I wouldn’t have consented to that, but those things did need to be done so that I could be treated and get better. So yes it’s important to teach children about consent but there are times when actually an adult needs to do something anyway.

What did you mean "I've never been able to even be in the bathroom with them?"

As in they tell you to get out?
Or you dont feel comfortable?

I dont see any issue with kids in the bath together either then or now- I remember being bathed with a friend as well as siblings , in other cultures its very common for all ages to bath communally/be naked in saunas etc. Some families are very comfortable with nudity even as teens/adults.

12 is very inappropriate to be taking photos though.

I have photos of all of my kids in the bath and my parents and grand parents had photos me in the bath etc. My own dd often send me photos of her kids and they only be partially dressed or even in the bath/shower although very far from explicit. She knows 100% I would never share them. I don’t think photos inn the bath are abuse, especially not back then. My mum often had to “check me” when I was a kid and normally it was because I was chapped/sore . I don’t think it was abusive and tbh my mum could be a bit of a twat and was definitely negligent and abusive at times.

I have checked my.pwn child bottom for worms when it has been itchy.

And also have photos of them in the bath- but no privates showing.