Is This Sexual Abuse?

Hi everyone Please forgive me if this is at all triggering.
Putting a trigger warning icon just in case.

First of all, a disclaimer. By no means am I trying to say I’m a survivor of abuse or that I’m a victim. Absolutely not trying to undermine anyone’s experience and real victimhood. But given what a number of members have experienced here, hopefully you can help me wrap my mind around things. That and I hope that you know that my mother is the light of my life and I love no one else more than I love her and she’s been an extremely supportive bone in my body.

So, when I was a kid from maybe 5 years old up to maybe my preteens, my mother at times would kiss me not the way a mother would kiss, but like someone who is engaging in sex. Like, she would kiss me below my cheek and moan for a few seconds while passionately caressing my cheek. Other times she’d kiss my cheek in a very soft and kind of romantic way. She didn’t do this much, it only happened sometimes. However, at other times she would eye my private area. She wouldn’t be aware I saw her and I’d catch her gazing.
Many times, and this is a big one (I mean in terms of triggering someone here, forgive me please), she would touch me in the private area but like in a cute way, like oh look at what you have down there, cuteness. She even would give that area a cute name that she calls out when she sees me or when she grabs it. Before going to bed sometimes she sees me in her room, gives me goodnight hugs and kisses but for like seconds she would strip me and reveal my private area and begins touching it briefly and calls it cute names. I always thought she was just expressing the cuteness she feels towards me and that she only loves me. In her mind maybe she felt that way and that she had no sexual intentions. But I really don’t know.

Another family member, my oldest sibling, a certified covert narcissist, would wait for me to get close and very quickly gives me a smooch on the lips. It would drive me insane with rage when he did that. Whenever my guard was down he’d sneak a kiss. Other times he would lift my shirt up and begin to sensually kiss my belly on different spots of it with his eyes closed. I here was in my teenage years, and I’ll tell you for a fact that I wanted to snap and send him to hell from the rage I was feeling when he was doing that, but I am weak and was raised with the idea I’m always wrong and that I shouldn’t be angry at those older than me, and so I tend to avoid all sorts of conflict and just take it all in silently.

So yeah, that’s all. It is definitely something I’ve been thinking about lately after a therapy session I had. I’m genuinely a complete prude and grew up a complete imbecile when it comes to sexual matters. Could this have contributed? I don’t know, but what do you guys think overall? Hope you can help me! In my head I’m like this is too small to affect me, but again, I don’t know.

Thank you for giving me your time and reading all this 🙏🏼

Your bodily autonomy was not respected, i will say that.

Any unwanted sexual attention we get as a child can cause ripple effects as an adult, so yes, this can be enough to cause big problems in your psyche.

As to if it constitutes sexual abuse .. I would say your brother's actions definitely do .. your mother's are borderline and therefore would depend on the laws where you are (as to how sexual abuse is defined) ..

That aside, it's not so much how it's defined that is concerning .. as much as how it impacted you. Would you say this impacted you negatively? If so, regardless of if the laws where you are define it as sexual abuse or not, it's worthy of talking through with your therapist.

Hope my words help and hope you find closure and peace with this soon. ❤️

Hello! Thank you for giving me your time and writing your reply!

Thanks for the points you raised! And to answer your question about impact, I would say that when I reminisce about what mom did I definitely don’t feel good about it all. I hated it when she did what she did, because as a kid and even now I was highly protective of my body and whenever anything was revealed (even when mom would pick sleeveless tops for me) I would feel uncomfortable.
Not sure how that skewed my views on sex and sexuality, but there is something else. My parents never gave me the talk and I had to discover things myself and it lead to a lot of addiction and false or damaged views on sex.

And, I can say this confidently, absolutely hate what my brother did, it definitely broadened my discomfort whenever something similar to what he did happens to me.

Thanks again! It means a lot that you had this supportive tone towards me despite this situation that I have not being terrible.

Hi! Thanks for the reply

Would you say that my bodily autonomy not being respected could have lead to some damage I’m experiencing? If so, like what? In general of course, not unique to my experience or anyone else’s.

I'm glad what I said was helpful to you.

I would definitely encourage you to speak with your therapist regarding these things given that it still causes you discomfort and influences how you react to certain things.

Take care and be gentle with yourself as you go through this process, okay?

Will do! Thank you so much. I’ll post any at all updates.
And you too please take care as well

Look forward to hearing from you, and thank you

I was going to say when you think about mother and brother's actions what feeling do you get? I'd guess its unpleasant and uncomfortable. So, yes, I'd call it abuse.

I understand you might be wanting to respect first of all your mother and secondly the ambiguity you might be feeling around whether you should be feeling the way you seem to about these memories. There's a lot of good reason to be apprehensive about calling something you never thought of in that way sexual abuse. (Which can also make the realization in adulthood that much more startling.) But whether you should label it as such - which is a question motivated by why your parent seemed to be doing it - is maybe secondary to the question of whether it violated some physical boundaries. I don't know if this will help clarify but I don't think what you described is an ordinary thing to do. Hopefully this does not sound alarmist. You called yourself a prude. But aren't we supposed to be protective of our private areas? I don't think a parent of either gender is supposed to touch their child's private area - only in cases for medical or hygienic purposes until the child can perform those hygienic needs themselves.

Thank you so much for your time and reply

So, part of it being abuse is the feelings I had about it? Like, would you say if I felt neutral about it then it wouldn’t count as abuse? I can say my permission surely wasn’t asked for before any act was committed. But I don’t know, it doesn’t feel like I want justice for this because maybe it isn’t that big of a deal 😕 Sorry, this thing has been confusing me for a while now.

Hi! I really appreciate your time and reply Thanks!

It’s ok, you didn’t sound alarmist from where I’m standing. And I suppose you’re right that this is not an ordinary thing for my mom to do. I would never for the life of me want to or even imagine touching my child’s private area even if I have no sexual intentions.

I will reveal something else. Largely throughout my childhood my mom’s touching me or stripping me made me think that as a child (me and other children) have no physical limits or bodily appreciation and that it’s ok for others to strip us and touch us because as kids the adults are showing affection or cuteness towards us, and that we are adorable and (a thought I had in my early teens) not sexually active yet. Until I grew up of course and this looked so incredibly strange to me as to why anyone would do that.

Anything that causes long lasting undue stress committed upon you by another person, certainly qualifies as abuse, I think that was eksistor's point. As to whether or not it would still qualify as abuse if you were neutral about it, that would depend strictly upon the laws where you are .. does that make sense?

Hi again! Thanks for the reply.

Yeah, it very much does make sense. I suppose however that the law part I wouldn’t count as part of my experience, but the mental health definition is what concerns me more in this situation.

The mental health definition pretty well is related to how you process it .. so if it has made you react to things most people would just take in stride, in a negative manner or with fear, anger, anxiety, etc .. or if it has caused you to do things you most likely would not otherwise do in order to protect yourself from some perceived threat, or etc, then .. in the mental health scope of things, it was abuse. Does that make sense?

Hmmm I see. But let’s say someone has indeed been violated sexually but they brushed it off and lived normally weren’t they still abused? Shouldn’t we put into account the abuser’s side of things and not just how their actions were perceived for the definition to be realized fully? And abuse is broadly speaking ‘misuse’ in a way. So I do put the misuse label on the actions of mom and my brother but I don’t know their intentions, so is intention part of it? I still feel bad from what they did, so given that what they did is inappropriate and if that inappropriate misuse lead to damage then we can say this is was abuse? If we can call it abuse, but we don’t know if they had sexual intention, then can we call it sexual abuse? I suppose so because that’s where the damage I have was directed.

Sorry I’m all over the place. I’m just really trying to wrap my head around things. My last therapy session really unleashed the clown in the box. Which is good, of course.

Whether or not they intended to abuse has nothing to do with it being abused or not, legally or otherwise. As far as the example you give at the beginning - yes, that is the legal definition of sexual abuse .. again, my previous response to you was defining the mental health definition of abuse.

I guess on my end I want to define it in general, not just legally or mental health, but leaning towards the mental health side. So you’re saying the mental health definition is the subjective experience?

Not necessarily just subjective, but it relies heavily on how negatively the experience impacted your life and your thinking and behaviors, yes.

I see now! I’ll try to do more research on my end to help myself understand my past and my current self as well. Thank you so much for your tremendous help

You are very welcome ❤️