This is a really hard post for me to write but there’s nobody in real life I can talk to about it and I could really do with some advice. Apologies for length and a trigger warning in advance for CSA. Name-changed but I’m a regular poster.
When I was 11 my grandfather touched me inappropriately. At the time I thought he didn’t realise what he was doing and was just cuddling me (he was crying at the time, ostensibly because we’d moved away and he missed me), but as an adult I can’t see a way he could have not realised (I don’t want to go into details but it was more than a surface touch, if that makes sense). I remember that I found it really disturbing and upsetting but I didn’t really get that he’d done anything wrong. He died when I was 16, before it ever occurred to me that he had done something wrong or that he might have done it to anyone else (I have one other female cousin). So I’ve never told anyone besides my husband.
I’ve ignored it all my life and deliberately tried not to think about it. However, since having my daughter a year ago I’ve started having – I suppose the best word to describe them is flashbacks – of other possible incidents. For example, I was playing “This little piggy” with her and had a sudden and intense memory of being “tickled” at the end of the rhyme in an inappropriate place by a man but I can't remember who. I’ve had three similar “flashbacks”.
Thing is, despite their intensity, I have no idea if these are real memories or if I’ve somehow imagined them / fabricated them. I barely trust my memory of the first incident I described despite that being very clear – I know it happened, but I’m not sure I trust that he did it on purpose, even though I can’t see that it could have been anything but deliberate. I have a notably terrible memory – I’ve forgotten major events in my life completely, things like entire holidays have disappeared from my mind to the point where I just have to trust my husband that we went on them because I don’t recall them at all – and this is things within the past five years. So I don’t know how I can trust half-remembered memories from decades ago, particularly given I can't remember who it was, if they even happened.
But now I don’t know what to do. The “flashbacks” are very distressing and I’m finding myself obsessing over what’s real and what’s not. I’m having trouble sleeping and I’m very irritable. What makes it more confusing is that I loved my grandfather dearly – he was incredibly important in my childhood and made me feel really loved and special, and I feel so so guilty about tarnishing his memory in this way if I’m wrong. I can’t stop thinking about it all.
I know I don’t want to tell my family – they probably wouldn’t believe me and even if they did they’d be absolutely heartbroken, and there would be no gain from me doing so, so it’s pointless. The only person I would consider telling would be my female cousin, in case it also happened to her. But I'm scared to ruin her memories of our grandfather. But I feel like I have to do something. I just want to know if it really happened or if I’m just imagining it or going crazy.
I’d really appreciate any advice or perspective you could give.