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Hi Micheerx,

I am so sorry to hear about what you went through. I am going to try to find the right words here, so bear with me a bit. First though here are some safe hugs if you want them 

Your work place does sound very toxic for that poor girl right now. It is so understandable that it has brought up memories for you.

It is not your fault. I promise you that, it is not your fault. The age difference and the ADHD do not negate the fact it was abuse,  you were 10 and had no idea what you were doing. At that age it is impossible to consent. And the development that happens between 10 and 13 can be vast so he could have known. That is just my opinion. I too had an abuser that was not much older than me, he was about 4 years older, which meant to start with he was 10 but at the end he was 16. Even when he was younger no one could fault me for what was happening.. because I didn't know. (that being said I did just post on self-blame and struggle with it a great deal)

Performing sexual acts on him doesn't change it either. Again, I struggle with that too. But at that age we get coerced into things by people we are supposed to be able to trust, and who are supposed to be good for us. You didn't know what you were truly doing, therefore you could not consent. It is a confusing line, believe me I know more than I would like to admit to, and probably more than I am ready to admit to.

I am so proud of you for opening up about this to your Fiance and to us. That is such a huge step, and a truly difficult one. Thank you for sharing with all of us. I am glad he was good about it, and trust that if you do ever tell him that he will be understanding. You would be surprised what good people will be understanding of.

I don't know that I have advice as much as a lot of "me too" statements. Know that you aren't alone, and that no bit of this was your fault. I struggle with self-blame so when you do don't beat yourself up about it, it is natural and we can learn to work past it, I promise.

I hope that made sense and helped at least in a small way 

Thank you Elphanigh for your reply, I'm sorry you have had to go through something similar your words have been reassuring to me, hopefully I can work through the self blame as it's really messing with my head. I'm really not good at this replying stuff, I never know what to say, but thank you for your kind words and taking the time to reply to me.

Michee x

First, I agree and it makes me angry that people would take the cousin's side.  Unfortunately, that is the way it happens far too often.

So try to put someone else in your shoes.  Do you know a 10 year old and imagine if she was telling you the story.  Would you feel she was wrong or that she even understood what was happening?  Could she have given any type of consent for receiving or doing what she was told?  I also really, really understand that is possible to know this logically, but connecting your head to your heart is another thing entirely.  It was NOT your fault, in any way.  Again, NOT your fault.

My suggestion is to find a therapist who can help you work through this.  Time doesn't heal trauma, therapy does.  A therapist can also work with you and your finance.  I suspect that knowing it was incest only increased the gravity of what you went through, not made you disgusting.

Thank you Dee, it's strange because I have a 10 year old step sister and if something like that happened to her I would not blame her at all... but I feel like because my uncle was also so young he isn't to blame either, I'm very confused at the moment to be honest.

I've talked to a therapist that deals specifically with complex trauma, just waiting on an email with an appointment but it won't be until September unfortunately.

Again thank you x

Hi everyone,

Basically I'm needing a lot of help trying to figure things out in my head...

So recently there has been an incident at work that doesn't involve me - a girl has said that she can't work there anymore because her cousin that raped her when she was 13 has started working there as well, lots of people have took the cousins side, I haven't got myself involved because if - it has happened which I suspect it has because I wouldn't imagine the girl has made that up - then I can't imagine how she is feeling never mind everyone calling her a liar... BUT ANYWAY!! This has triggered off some - I'm guessing - suppressed memories of my uncle touching me in a sexual manner when I was 10 years old.

I feel like this is my fault though and I don't know why, the memory has been playing in my mind repeatedly for days now and I can't get my head around it, my uncle is only 3 years older than me so he would have been around 13, he has ADHD which makes me feel guilty about saying this about him, because I keep thinking to myself "what if he didn't know exactly what he was doing" but he touched me in my private area, he rubbed it and performed oral sex on me... and then he asked me to do it back to him, telling me not to tell my mum... as he was out on contact with her from the care home he was in... it happened every time he came out to visit on contact... somehow I feel like it doesn't count as abuse because I performed sexual acts back to him, he made me touch him with my hands and I was asked to perform oral sex on him... like I was 10 so would I have known what I was doing?

I told my fiance the other day and told him it only happened once but it happened about 3/4 times, I completely broke down in work yesterday and had to leave because I kept getting flashback and I feel disgusting and confused and I really do not know what to do about it at all...

this is also the first time I have every opened up about it at all and went into proper detail I didn't even give my fiance all the details because I'm ashamed and I think he'll think I'm disgusting, because he asked if it was an in-law and I told him that it's my mums brother and he was so shocked because it's incest...

If anyone could give me any sort of advice that would be really appreciated,
thanks...   

Hey, so this is my second post - trying to find out more about myself and trying to find something that will work for me because I want to go onto a career in clinical psychology I'm currently working my way through my psychology degree... anyway I'll get on to the real problem...

So ever since just before Christmas time I have been CRAZY stressed out, I've had a couple of uni assessment due and then in between that I'm upping my hours in work to full time (40hrs/week) at the moment I'm doing 30 hours because me and my fiance have moved into a new flat and we need the money.

I've been super stressed out with money, I feel like I work so much and I never have the chance to spend any of it on myself, I'm constantly paying bills or paying off old debt (I don't have a lot of debt since I'm a student in the UK, but I have some money on credit cards that I want to pay off) and I just feel like I'm working for no reason. This leads me on to my next issue my job.

So my job is pretty easy I work in a call centre and my department is really quiet I only get about 8 - 12 calls in a shift of 5 hours at night. (On Saturdays I work 11 hours). The customers we get though are particularly difficult and I get a lot of abuse. It's not even the job that's really bad it's the management of the place and they always get the wages wrong, which just worsens my stress about money.

Because of when I work I feel like I have no time to study at all, I only really have from about 9 in the morning until about 2 in the afternoon to do work and then one of my two days off (one day I spent with the other half if he's not working). In this time I have to do housework as well though, and it's tough at 21 to clean a whole 2 bedroom flat by yourself, and obviously I have to fit in time to shower and eat. Recently though I haven't been studying at all on my last assessment I got a 2 week extension because I just have no motivation at all due to depression, I just lay in bed all day and only get out of bed to go to work, come back home have something to eat then sleep because I don't get home until about 9.30pm. I had an assessment due last Thursday and I got an extension of a week but I had to ask for another one until next Thursday. And here I am still can't find the motivation, I just want to stay in bed...

I've tried calling my doctor to make an appointment about going back to therapy cause I feel I'll really benefit from it again (because I can't really talk to my fiance about stuff he doesn't understand) but I only like seeing a specific doctor and it's so hard to get an appointment with her and I'm stuck on what to do.

Any help would be great, sorry for rambling so much, just wanted to build a picture so people know what's going on...

Hope everyone is well... 

Wow thank you everyone for the reply, really felt like maybe I was talking to know one and that no one would really understand, or maybe just think I'm talking rubbish... Really want to start using this forum more so I can connect with people who understand me 
Yeah I get the same way with my neck too it's a horrible feeling....
you can all feel free to message me if you ever need someone to chat to shouldn't take any longer than 2 days to reply just because sometimes I forgot to look at this, going to make more of an effort though to look every day take care 

okay so I might ramble and this is my first ever post! 

So I feel like I never really knew the extend of my c-ptsd until 2 night ago... I've been feeling super stressed out and it's been reeking havoc on my depression and anxiety, and I've been very easily agitated because of work and uni deadline etc (blah blah blah). So anyway, me and my fiance had a massive argument really over nothing and he was shouting in my face and I just broke down - this happens like a lot! Any time anyone raises their voice I get like a really bad fright kind of and cry for ages or if anyone touches my face at all or covers my mouth - I couldn't stop crying for like over an hour. And then I was thinking to myself, "why do I hate it so much when people are in my face or raise their voice at all?" and I thought to myself "well when I was younger my dad used to shout at me ALL THE TIME! And he slapped me across the face once - my old step mum like attacked me once too - she was a drug addict - and it makes me think that maybe I've been getting emotional flashbacks when people shout at me or touch my face and that's why I breakdown... I feel like the reason I breakdown when people cover my mouth is because of when I was raped and the guy covered my mouth so it just triggers me... and it's so strange because I feel like now I'm really understanding how deep at my core the c-ptsd is...

Just trying to work out my head really...