childhood experience

[lainey]

Ok here goes, I had a particular childhood experience and I was thinking maybe I could shed some light on whether it has had a negative effect on me even though it wasn't perceived as negative at the time and I'm still not really sure if it was a negative experience. I'm not the sort of person who likes to make excuses for myself or wear any type of "victim" badge so I think I need others to see for me whether or not this experience is of any importance to who I am now or not.
When I was at primary school (there were only 9 children in our whole school as I lived in the countryside in Scotland) during which year I cannot remember exactly, (I'm guessing quite early on like when I was 6 or 7) one of the older boys from the highest year used to take me away from our games to a secluded place and touch me. It only happened 3 or 4 times and I was never afraid, I never said no and it didn't feel like a bad experince. I just thought what are you doing?; this is a weird game. He seemed to enjoy it and so I let him. I never questioned it (I was very quiet and didn't speak out about anything) although I "knew" if we were found out we would get in trouble. I must have had some sense of it being wrong if this was the case but it certainly wasn't a traumatic experince.
A couple of the older girls must have found out somehow and took me aside one day and tried to bribe me with chocolate to get me to tell them whether the boy "took me behind the hill" I though I would be in big trouble if I told and of course the individual attention this boy gave me made me feel special (I mentioned in another post that my family aren't close and my mother wasn't the nurturing, hugging type) so I didn't utter a word. To my knowledge nothing came of it and I think it happened again once after the girls talked to me but I'm not sure. The boy, being in one of the top years eventually left the school and that was that.
Like I said I definitely don't feel like this was a traumatic event and it doesn't haunt me; I don't feel like I was abused in any way, but still there is that niggling feeling that maybe there is something under the surface that I'm missing that may be obvious to someone else. Clearly the older boy took advantage of me but it doesn't feel like a problem, I can't pin down any emotion attached to the event. I simply remember it like I would remember one time playing on the swings or going on a school trip. To me it just seems like something that happened.
So perhaps it's nothing and I am sorry to create noise or waste anyones time that they have used to read this but I thought I would just put it out there and see what comes back.

 

[edgitarra]

Hey lainey,
How much of your behavior and manifestation have you observed in order to conclude with the fact that your childhood experience didn't turned into a trauma which still hinders you? You described your experience, but how do you feel now about it? Is there any emotional aspects that arise in you when you think about the event? Are you sure about the fact that since you " never questioned it (I was very quiet and didn't speak out about anything)" it didn't turn out into a defense mechanism to cope with it?

I must say that that boy, no matter the age you had, shouldn't have touched you. That is one of the effects of a sick environment in which kids learn about sexuality at early ages.

 

[obyvatel]

[quote author=lainey]
Like I said I definitely don't feel like this was a traumatic event and it doesn't haunt me; I don't feel like I was abused in any way, but still there is that niggling feeling that maybe there is something under the surface that I'm missing that may be obvious to someone else. Clearly the older boy took advantage of me but it doesn't feel like a problem, I can't pin down any emotion attached to the event. I simply remember it like I would remember one time playing on the swings or going on a school trip. To me it just seems like something that happened.
[/quote]

Hi Lainey,
The incident that happened was a breach of your personal boundary. Not all boundary breaches lead to significant trauma.

If you remember what happened and the memory does not appear to have an emotional charge associated with it, you are probably at the state most therapists and clients aim for in treating PTSD type events. Acknowledging that what happened was improper with compassion for yourself is perhaps good enough in this case.

My 2 cents

 

[lainey]

Hey lainey,
How much of your behavior and manifestation have you observed in order to conclude with the fact that your childhood experience didn't turned into a trauma which still hinders you? You described your experience, but how do you feel now about it? Is there any emotional aspects that arise in you when you think about the event? Are you sure about the fact that since you " never questioned it (I was very quiet and didn't speak out about anything)" it didn't turn out into a defense mechanism to cope with it?

I must say that that boy, no matter the age you had, shouldn't have touched you. That is one of the effects of a sick environment in which kids learn about sexuality at early ages.

On reflection I believe I used to associate touch with something sexual, I never initiate touch with other people unless I know them very well. When I was younger I used to think the only way to get a boy to like me was to sleep with them which I suppose stems from the individual attention I was given from this boy through touch. Also my mother wasn't in any way affectionate so for me touch was something that only came from males. I don't have many, if any close bonds with females. So this for me is a hindrance, something inside me tells me touch is for sex only (even though I know that's not true) and is limited to male touch. I feel very awkward if a girl hugs me or even wants to hang out alone with me. So I think these are the behaviours that are caused by this incident and also by my mothers distance from me as a child. I have recently had reiki 1 and signed up for a shiatsu course which are of course hands on treatments. I'm hoping that through this I can reteach myself about safe, nonsexual touch. Do you think this is the right way to go about it? Just to put myself in these situations?

Hi Lainey,
The incident that happened was a breach of your personal boundary. Not all boundary breaches lead to significant trauma.

If you remember what happened and the memory does not appear to have an emotional charge associated with it, you are probably at the state most therapists and clients aim for in treating PTSD type events. Acknowledging that what happened was improper with compassion for yourself is perhaps good enough in this case.

That's helpful, aside from working on the above mentioned behaviours that have stemmed from this I see not other point in dwelling on the event itself. Like you said, acknowledge it, learn from it then move on. Thank you very much for both your replies. It has brought clarity to the situation.

 

[Windmill knight]

Hi laney, I agree with obyvatel. What creates a trauma is the emotional significance that an event had for a child. Two different children can get lost in a mall for a couple of hours. One could have experienced that as terrifying and the other could have been amused or distracted by something or other that caught her attention. For the first one the experience may have traumatic consequences but not for the second. So if what happened doesn't bother you, then there is no reason for you to bother with it. Just acknowledge that what the boy did was not appropriate, and that happily that didn't really hurt you. As they say, don't fix it if it ain't broken.

So I think these are the behaviours that are caused by this incident and also by my mothers distance from me as a child. I have recently had reiki 1 and signed up for a shiatsu course which are of course hands on treatments. I'm hoping that through this I can reteach myself about safe, nonsexual touch. Do you think this is the right way to go about it? Just to put myself in these situations?

How about some sort of therapeutic massage? I suppose any of these practices as long as you feel safe and comfortable with them.

 

[crystalicdream]

Reading this reminded me of something that happened in kindergarten.
Back then, I already had smaller breasts, and some kindergarten boys have persuaded me to go with them behind the bushes, so that they can touch them. I didn't know how to say no to that, so off we went. I just let them do what they wanted. But, we were found by the kindergarten teacher, and this whole thing developed into an affair in which the parents of the boys came to apologize to my mother on behalf of their boys. I don't remember the details very well, but I do remember the extreme embarrassment I had from this whole affair. Like I shouldn't have let that happen in the first place and that it was my fault.

I also never touched anybody too much. I was never hugged much in my childhood, and being hugged or touched for a longer time always makes me feel very uncomfortable. With females though, not as much as with males. If a man touches me, it almost triggers a feeling of wanting to get away. With a woman, I just feel a bit unsure of how to react to that, but not that feeling of wanting to flee.