Was this abuse, was it a real memory (potential trigger)

[Username513]

I've name changed for this as I want to keep this separate from anything else I have posted.
Anyway, i have been in therapy recently for personal and relationship issues and the other day I had this "memory" of when I was around 10 years old.
I don't know if it was a real memory or I have pieced something together with things from films, but it feels like the memory is real.
I was looked after by a friends parents when I was that age (school drop off and pick ups) and she had an older brother who must have been around 14.
Well me and my friend used to always partake in role play games and her brother would often join in, I suppose because we were there and if he was with us being entertained then their mum could be doing things round the house.
For some reason I recall always ending up being "mum", my friend was the "child" and he would be "dad".
I distinctly remember that we would often go to bed and my friend would lie on the floor and her brother and I would lie in her single bed together under the covers.
Now this is the part that feels like a real memory, but I can't be completely positive it is.
I have a feeling that he would grind on top of me or imitate sex in some way. At that age, I don't think I thought anything of it, I don't think I knew what sex was even.
I am not sure what has unlocked this potential memory as we haven't been delving that deep into my past at this point, but something clearly has.
How do I work out of it was a real memory or not. And if it was, was I abused in some way? Was it just kids being kids? I really can't get it straight in my head and it's clearly very minor compared to what I think of as sexual abuse.

Also, if it is better for me to get this moved somewhere else, please le me know as I really don't know if this could have been the beginning of some of my issues.

Honestly OP, who knows?

Memory is not very reliable, unfortunately. So it's hard to tell.

I'd try and focus on your current "issues" and not dredge up more just now.

I doubt you will ever know. but from about 7-11 there was lots of playing mums and dad's and grinding for me. Never thought anything negative about it.

You need to discuss this with your therapist OP.
I suspect it’s likely a real memory and you need to work through your feelings around it with a professional.
I disagree with the PP saying not to dredge it up. It’s all parts of a puzzle and will help you resolve what you need to.

I’m sorry this happened to you 💐

Actually, me too! And "doctors and nurses"

Pretty normal imo. Regularly would play mums and dad's or some other role play kinda game with my friend (always with American accents 😂🤔) and we'd always end up pretend kissing or grinding or whatever. Thought it was just a normal part of puberty.

I disagree with those saying it was a normal part of puberty and common in children that age. I think the fact the boy was 14 and you were 10 makes me think he was well aware of what he was doing.
Talk it through with your therapist. Weather its real or a dream I don't know but it's worth exploring with a professional.

it is very easy for memories to get confused, especially from childhood.

rather than trying to get to TheTruth, think about what this 'memory' means for you now - does it change anything or help you understand anything? Or would you rather dismiss it like a bad dream. It is your memory and you can chose to put it away in a 'drawer in your mind' or to take it out and examine it - either is OK. And definitely explore more with your therapist.

Maybe a way of trying to identify if this was real or not is to look more at your feelings around this. Were you ever uncomfortable about going round there? Do you have any other negative associations related to the brother? can you think who instigated the "role play" and allocated the roles? Although it is also perfectly possible that it happened and would be abuse even if you don't have any negative associations. Him being 14 and you being 10 and it always working out that it was you that was his "wife" rather than his sister feels to me that it was manipulated. I know people are all different, but I can't imagine many 14 year old boys who would want to be playing role play games with 10 year old girls that wasn't for some other reason. Other games e.g. board games/basketball etc etc, absolutely yes, but playing houses, at 14?

Thanks all. Really appreciate all the points and definitely something I think I could mention to my therapist.
She is very keen for me to explore all avenues of my past and present so that I can understand why I behave in particular way and be at peace with it.
I think my therapy has done a bit of looking back to my past which included some negative memories surrounding the friendship I had with the sister, so maybe that opened a memory of him.
I don't really feel anything about it much now, I think I remember being a little uncomfortable at the time and wishing we wouldn't keep playing it (if it's a real memory that is)
I guess I question if maybe it has had an impact on my current life that I had never realised before.

I played 'families' with members of wider family when 10ish.
I grew out of it, mainly when I hit puberty, but what I only found out later was that one lad I'd done make believe stuff with when we were that age went on to take it further with his younger stepsister.
What I experienced I consider just experimenting.
What went on between the boy and his stepsister was abuse.

I remember around that age and slightly older playing similar games with boys - friends of the family and my brothers friends etc. Looking back it seemed normal and nothing negative or sinister. However, I'm not trying to belittle what happened to you or undermine your feelings. Your entitled to feel it was wrong or troubling.

I think it's really strange for a 14 y.o. boy to want to play houses with his 10 y.o. sister and her friend. The boys in my family wouldn't be caught dead volunteering to babysit let alone playing like that with their own 10 y.o. sister and a friend. Sorry but this sounds odd to me.
At 14 they're too busy and important to bother with a couple of kids, let alone go through that much effort to entertain them. My experience here comes from when I was a child not as a mother to teenage boys so maybe sb can correct me.

A 14 year old playing Mums and Dad's with a 10 year old girl, simulating sex while lying on top of her, is sexual abuse.

Memories are sometimes a hazy flashback, but based in reality.

I experienced abuse as a child and most of my memories are very disordered and hard to nail down. It is very frustrating.

I dont know what 14 year old would play mummies and daddies and grind innocently!

I think how you respond to this, whether you take it forward in some way etc, depends on whether you feel it will have some impact on your current understanding of yourself or of your other issues.

I have a sometimes-hazy-sometimes-distinct memory from childhood of seeing a man's hand holding an erect adult penis. I also know that as a child I believed that sex involved a man urinating into a woman's mouth. At times during my life I've wondered whether these are indicative of some kind of abuse that I've since blocked out (Flashing? Exposure to blow jobs in porn? Being made to perform oral sex? Though I'm sure I'd remember that last one). But for the most part I think it's best to let sleeping dogs lie. If anything was done to me, I've buried it pretty deeply and it hasn't raised any problems in my later relationships or during pregnancy / birth (when I know CSA-related trauma can sometimes rear its ugly head) so I've decided not to look into it any further and for the most part just accept that perhaps something happened, perhaps it didn't. There's no way I can ever know for sure, based on those vague maybe-recollections, and if anything was done to me there's no way I could identify by whom in order to protect any other children so there doesn't seem to be any benefit in dredging it up just to bring a load of unwanted and unproductive turmoil upon myself.

If you feel that these events (if they did occur) have some bearing on your current life, then perhaps worth exploring further. But otherwise, I'd ask yourself whether you want to open that - potentially very upsetting or emotionally destructive - can of worms.

I think people saying he manipulated the game by her being the ‘wife’ and not his sister have a very strange logic- why would they want a brother and sister to play at being dad and mom?

re the simulation - this has the potential to be abuse but we are also applying the current standard of a 14 year old boy to that time. In the absence of phones, internet etc. it is quite possible this boy didn’t know what he was doing and it was just a game. It is also possible that it was abuse.

I think people saying he manipulated the game by her being the ‘wife’ and not his sister have a very strange logic- why would they want a brother and sister to play at being dad and mom?

It's not strange logic at all. I come from a family of 7 kids, my nearest sibling is a boy, if we were playing families then we would often be the mum and dad but it never involved grinding on top of each other. It was more about who was doing the dishes or pushing the pram. I can also confirm that I don't know of any 14 year old boys in the 60s/70s who were interested in playing mummies and daddies with 10 year old girls. I had male cousins around 4 years older than me as a 10 year old and we definitely played together at family things but it was never role play. Sports/games/playing cards/races etc yes, mummies and daddies - no.

I have the opposite experience then as a large family of 50 cousins and we wouldnt have brothers and sisters as mom and dad and we did all play together and some were teens.

It's really interesting and a lot of differing thoughts.

I don't think for me it warrants delving too deeply into it, but potentially it has had an impact on some of my negative characteristics such as low self esteem, wanting to please older more superior people etc.
It might be something that needs to be opened up if only to release it and clear the air in my head and gain some clarity.
It's not something that haunts me, and not something that has come into the forefront of my mind until recently when we started looking back at my first memories of depression and mental health issues.
Those memories are much clearer and are definitely something I know were real, so it's confused me as to if these other "memories" could be real or it my mental mind creating something (which in itself is maybe telling of issues)

Why are so many minimising here?

'I played similar games at that age'

And when you were 14? Did you grind on top of children? No. Of course not.

We are talking about a 14 year old here. There is a huge imbalance and this is not 'playing'- it's sexual abuse. Stop trying to suggest otherwise.

OP I'm really sorry, memory is a real trick player, maybe things will be due clearer in time but please don't let anyone tell you it was normal for a 14 year old boy to do that to children.