*possibly triggering* was this normal for children?

[user1466690252]

I'm trying to address some of my issues. Something happened to me when I was about 8 for a few years and I'm not sure what it was? If it was normal? I'm sorry if this upsets anyone.
I used to play with a girl who lived in my street, she was a year older than me. She used to play games like mums and dads/ teachers ect but they always involved sexual acts. It was always a secret, but part of the game being a grown up. I didn't like it, but thought it was being a grown up in part of the game? she was a child aswell, I'm so confused as to what it was? would it be classed as abuse? or was it normal for kida to play in that way? I don't even know what I want to do from knowing the answer? I just need to work out why it happened and if im over reacting by possibly linking some of my issues to this.

I have never told a soul in RL

it was oral and penetration with objects. the latter only happened once and thats when i told her i didnt want to play those games again and ir stopped I must of been about 10-11

I Will read the link now. thank you

When I was a child I had a friend who like to 'play' pretend games that were very sexual. Looking back now I don't know how she would have known to say some of the things she said without having been at the very least witness to sexual behaviour. I feel bad for her. But I was 7, I didn't know. And I had a sense that I was involved so didn't want to tell an adult.

I think counselling would be reasonable if you feel affected still, but I don't think you should feel guilty. You were a child yourself.

Oral sexual contact and penetration with objects definitely crosses the line between childish curiosity, and also crosses the line of children mimicking what a kid imagines adult romantic behaviour to be playing out kissing/ cuddling. That child could only have known about those acts if she witnessed them (maybe exposed to porn) or had those acts done to her/ made to perform on others. She must have being abused in one way or another. Poor little girl.

I'm so sorry this happened to you. I know it's easier said than done to attempt to quit feeling guilty, but you did absolutely nothing wrong. Hopefully, speaking with a therapist might help.

Oh I'm so sorry. The games I used to play were nothing like that - maybe kissing, nothing like that at all. I am so sorry that happened to you. There was definitely something going on with her, I am sure of it, but that doesn't mean what happened to you isn't also serious and requiring help and support.

I just wanted to add my good wishes for your processing of this, OP, and to add: it's not surprising that it hasn't surfaced until now, or that you haven't really come to think more about it until now.

Your experiences are a double-whammy of child-perpetrated and female-perpetrated abuse; both are massively under-recognised. I think it's because they fly in the face of the assumptions people make about who children are safe with, so they don't know what to do or say.

They're almost never talked about in the press, except when there's an exceptionally dramatic news story, and the suggestion that an abuser who's female or a child is very unusual is often part of the reporting. Even though research suggests otherwise. And this kind of abuse is very rarely depicted in fiction.

My point is that all this makes it very easy to minimise your own experiences or to put them to one side without having dealt with them. That doesn't mean they were less damaging than anyone else's, or deserve to be taken less seriously.

Issues with feeling controlled are incredibly common after sexual abuse, and you're absolutely not over-reacting by looking to explore a possible link.

Even if you end up feeling like actually those experiences weren't that big a deal to you, it's a really good idea to spend some time figuring out your feelings. And you doing that takes nothing at all away from other people and their feelings about their experiences, however you end up seeing your own.

If you'd rather not, or cannot, pursue private counselling, it's a valid reason to ask your GP for a mental health referral, but they may also be able to give you details on other support in your area, such as phonelines and survivors' groups. You can ask at the initial contact with a support organisation whether they are able to support victims of abusers who were children or female, but - provided they're not explicitly for other groups of survivor - if they're any good anyway they should be happy to.

I hope everything goes well for you. Best of luck and take good care of yourself.

Oh, and there are many abusive adults who are acting out things that were done to them as children. That may or may not change how you feel about them, but it doesn't change what they've done. You can see her point of view or feel sympathy for her, but you are in no way obliged to. She was a child, yes. But so were you. Sometimes I think people forget that when it comes to children who are abused by other children. You deserve to focus on what's right for you now.

I sometimes played inappropriate games with friends like this. It is a bit weird thinking back, but I wasnt being sexually abused. It never went very far

I’m ashamed to say I was someone who behaved like this as a child with one of my closest friends (I’m still close to her now), although a lot less severe than OPs childhood friend. I was also someone who was abused as a child by both adults and other children (multiple times with multiple different people). I didn’t connect the dots until adulthood. I struggled so much with feelings of guilt throughout teenage years and felt like I was evil and disgusting. Both for acting that way and for the things that other children had done to me prior. I still feel guilty to this day but when I read that child-on-child abuse is a) real and b) can be behaviour learned from abuse suffered it made me understand a lot more.

This message is all over the place as I’ve never actually written any of this down or talked to anyone about it.

Age appropriate sexual exploration is normal however what you have described would not be considered child “normal” exploration.

If you follow a link you will find the Brook Traffic Light tool, it identifies what behaviour is okay, possibly not & definitely of concern

https://www.brook.org.uk/our-work/the-sexual-behaviours-traffic-light-tool

It’s a really good tool to use.

Please don’t blame yourself for any of this, you were a child. I hope you are getting some good support

I had very similar experiences as you OP but with an older sister. She was almost 4 years older. It wasn't until my own DD was around the age that I was (around 8) that I realised that it was totally abnormal and that I would be horrified if similar was done to her. I carried it all my life thinking I was evil and disgusting but also thinking of it as 'experimentation' Then I found a photo showing us in that time period and I saw how much smaller I was than her and how it couldn't have been my fault.

I went through it as part of therapy for long standing anxiety issues and it did help.

Hope you can find some peace with it too .

It does sound as though she was acting out things that had either happened to her, or she had seen.

I think the counselling/therapy may help you OP. You were just a child. You deserve to be able to make some sense of this and put it all behind you.

Thinking back, it is really alarming how little notice was often taken of behaviour that would immediately raise red flags today. A girl in my class at primary school used to talk about sex in a way that, with hindsight, no primary aged child in the 80's would have or should have known (no sex education until age 11 for example, certainly not an issue to discuss at home etc.) Teachers and other parents just labelled her a troublemaker and a "naughty" and "very rude" child. She was constantly being suspended for her behaviour.

We went to different secondary schools but our paths crossed again as adults, through my work. She was a patient. She was alcoholic & very unstable. Her 4 DCs had been taken into care & placed for adoption and she ultimately died as a result of her alcohol abuse, aged around 30. Her psychiatric reports clearly stated that she had turned to alcohol to try and block out the memories & pain of being repeatedly raped by her father from the age of 4......... The abuse had only come to light after her father was sent to prison for abusing an unrelated girl.

As an adult, remembering the things she said & did as a child, it defies belief that no adult picked up on it. I can only hope that things are better in this regard nowadays.