anon23
08-09-18, 19:01
Hi all!
As always I just want to say thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this and respond. I will be talking about sexual experimentation in my child/teenage years so I would just like to advise a potential trigger warning to anyone reading this.
I don't know where to begin without going on massive tangents, but to cut a long story short I am feeling extremely guilty over my sexual exploration as a child/teenager.
I'm just going to lay it out the table as much as I can muster the courage as I am feeling so desperate and lost and unworthy of love at all this point...
This ranges from having sexually experimented with my brother (from having watched porn together, to having touched ourselves while next to each other). I feel like I have completely failed my brother and I am disgusting because I am 4 years older than him and I should have known better and I instigated it. The experimentation stopped when I was around 12 but I remember once when I was 14 I masturbated next to him while I was sleeping next to him and I can't remember but I may have been masturbating to a thought of one of our experimentations.
Besides the guilt of experimenting with my brother, until I was around 15 I used to masturbate to the thought of my dad and other inappropriate stuff I don't feel comfortable sharing to be honest.
Then when I was 16 I was overwhelmed with a huge wave of guilt over everything I had done and I broke down to my mom and thought she would disown me. She was very loving and accepting and told me to let go of the guilt and not hate myself, and that it was all child curiosity. I went to a therapist too at that age (I had also developed severe POCD) and the therapist told basically the same thing my mom told me.
This gave me reassurance and I forgave myself and moved on. Then I turned 21 and it all came back, I had severe anxiety and guilt and I signed up for CBT through the NHS and had a 12 week waiting period, and I managed to get a psychotherapy session in the meantime through work. The psychotherapy made me feel worse, as she contradicted what my other therapist had told me (at least in my mind). When I told her what I had once done with my brother, she said some psychotherapists might say that's bad and some may say it's 'really' bad, but even murdered are trained to be brought out into society as normal civilians. The whole session was actually a nightmare because when I opened about my intrusive thoughts she said I should shake my head and shout at them to stop, but not to do it in public because it will scare people...luckily I had CBT shortly after this and my therapist made me feel a lot better. She made me feel that I should not feel guilty about all of this and how to reframe my thinking to stay grounded and separate myself from my anxiety.
Well, now I'm 25, and the guilt is back :( and it's really bad and all I can think about is that I am loveless and a pervert who should be locked up, and no matter how hard I work or how kind I am or how many aspirations I have for myself, I don't deserve any of them because I cannot change what I did growing up and I am a monster. I think to what the psychotherapist told me which essentially made me feel like I was being compared to a murderer.
I was such a messed up child I feel...and that one psychotherapist's statement has taken away everything I felt I had moved on from during my CBT sessions. I am planning on going back to therapy but I am also scared of what reactions I'll get now...even though rationally I know it will help me.
I suppose I'm just looking for some thoughts or reassurance that I am not some awful human being? Of course I don't get aroused by any of those things that happened growing up, but I keep picking at them in my mind and its exhausting. I have even opened up about this to my boyfriend and he is so loving and non-judgemental, yet I still feel like a monster :(
Thank you for reading I didn't mean to rant for so long...but I am so desperate and in need of some advice...has anyone gone through this? What do you find helps? Thank you!
As always I just want to say thank you to anyone who takes the time to read this and respond. I will be talking about sexual experimentation in my child/teenage years so I would just like to advise a potential trigger warning to anyone reading this.
I don't know where to begin without going on massive tangents, but to cut a long story short I am feeling extremely guilty over my sexual exploration as a child/teenager.
I'm just going to lay it out the table as much as I can muster the courage as I am feeling so desperate and lost and unworthy of love at all this point...
This ranges from having sexually experimented with my brother (from having watched porn together, to having touched ourselves while next to each other). I feel like I have completely failed my brother and I am disgusting because I am 4 years older than him and I should have known better and I instigated it. The experimentation stopped when I was around 12 but I remember once when I was 14 I masturbated next to him while I was sleeping next to him and I can't remember but I may have been masturbating to a thought of one of our experimentations.
Besides the guilt of experimenting with my brother, until I was around 15 I used to masturbate to the thought of my dad and other inappropriate stuff I don't feel comfortable sharing to be honest.
Then when I was 16 I was overwhelmed with a huge wave of guilt over everything I had done and I broke down to my mom and thought she would disown me. She was very loving and accepting and told me to let go of the guilt and not hate myself, and that it was all child curiosity. I went to a therapist too at that age (I had also developed severe POCD) and the therapist told basically the same thing my mom told me.
This gave me reassurance and I forgave myself and moved on. Then I turned 21 and it all came back, I had severe anxiety and guilt and I signed up for CBT through the NHS and had a 12 week waiting period, and I managed to get a psychotherapy session in the meantime through work. The psychotherapy made me feel worse, as she contradicted what my other therapist had told me (at least in my mind). When I told her what I had once done with my brother, she said some psychotherapists might say that's bad and some may say it's 'really' bad, but even murdered are trained to be brought out into society as normal civilians. The whole session was actually a nightmare because when I opened about my intrusive thoughts she said I should shake my head and shout at them to stop, but not to do it in public because it will scare people...luckily I had CBT shortly after this and my therapist made me feel a lot better. She made me feel that I should not feel guilty about all of this and how to reframe my thinking to stay grounded and separate myself from my anxiety.
Well, now I'm 25, and the guilt is back :( and it's really bad and all I can think about is that I am loveless and a pervert who should be locked up, and no matter how hard I work or how kind I am or how many aspirations I have for myself, I don't deserve any of them because I cannot change what I did growing up and I am a monster. I think to what the psychotherapist told me which essentially made me feel like I was being compared to a murderer.
I was such a messed up child I feel...and that one psychotherapist's statement has taken away everything I felt I had moved on from during my CBT sessions. I am planning on going back to therapy but I am also scared of what reactions I'll get now...even though rationally I know it will help me.
I suppose I'm just looking for some thoughts or reassurance that I am not some awful human being? Of course I don't get aroused by any of those things that happened growing up, but I keep picking at them in my mind and its exhausting. I have even opened up about this to my boyfriend and he is so loving and non-judgemental, yet I still feel like a monster :(
Thank you for reading I didn't mean to rant for so long...but I am so desperate and in need of some advice...has anyone gone through this? What do you find helps? Thank you!