YOU ARE NOT ALONE - A companion online community discussion board for The Mental Illness Happy Hour podcast with Paul Gilmartin

My mom had this boyfriend. Boyfriend had two kids, a boy and a girl. They're both older than me, but maybe not by much.

One night when I'm like, five, I'm sleeping and I get woken up. It's the boy and the girl. The boy has me take off my clothes and have sex with his sister while he watches. Then we go back to sleep. The next morning me and the girl tell my brother who tells my mom who goes absolutely fucking ballistic. She makes a scene, oh boy does she make a scene. We get out of there and my mom never talks to the boyfriend again, and I never see that boy and that girl again. Years later my mom tried to discuss what happened with me, but I didn't want to talk about it so I pretended that I didn't remember. That was a relief to her I think.

Also, around the same time, I had this friend. He was my best friend actually. Every time I saw him, he wants to fuck around sexually. He wants to take off clothes and fondle and role play. I just sort of go along because okay whatever. This goes on for a few years, pretty much every time we saw each other. We're still friends on Facebook but we haven't seen each other for years, since before puberty. Now I'm like 40. From time to time I want to send him a quick message on Facebook and ask him if he still fucks around with his friends like that.

Anyway, just wanted to share two experiences from childhood that I buried until listening to this lovely podcast. I'm listening for weeks and these "have you ever been sexually abused" questions are on the survey and I'm like thinking to myself, no, never. Not me. Then I'm thinking, well, except that thing with mom's boyfriends kids. Oh yeah and that other thing with my friend. I guess I was a hot little kid.

I don't think the sex acts damaged me. But I do think the secrecy did. The fact that these were both not discussed afterwards, leaving me to realize in the car listening to some podcast years later to wonder how I'd answer that survey question.

I don't think the sex acts damaged me. But I do think the secrecy did.

I so relate. I wish someone had talked to me about what they knew about what happened to me.

For me, it was some slightly older girls who were the daughters of the landladies in our apartment building we lived in for a period of time before I went to kindergarten. I was between four and five years old. All I know for sure they did is teach me how to masturbate by "straddling" a step on a staircase and rubbing myself on it. My memories are fuzzy and essentially memories of memories I had of the events over the next few years until I mostly blocked it out.

It is entirely possible what I remember is all that happened. It is also possible more happened. I know my parents were aware of the girls "bullying" me and I do feel they were intimidating. There is an incident I partially remember, too, and partially have bits of what my mom has told me where - according to my mom - these girls cut my wrist with a broken piece of bottle. I don't remember it happening, but I remember - or think I do - my mom being all freaked out on the phone and sort of a disembodied idea of myself in pain or danger.

I do think the experiences "switched on" my sexuality at a tender age. I continued to masturbate in the way I was taught throughout my childhood and I felt extraordinary guilt and shame over it. My family was church going folk and while I don't remember getting "caught" doing it, I do remember thinking to myself I had to quit before I "got saved" by professing my faith in Jesus in front of the congregation because what I was doing was sinful. Obviously, I didn't get that idea on my own. I was compelled to do it and did just about every night before falling asleep. I know now it's not unusual for kids to discover their genitals even without instructions - if they were really sinful to play with God wouldn't have put them right up front within easy reach, would he? Looking back, it's pretty easy to see I was treating my anxiety with feel good hormones just like I do now. It only took me to my thirties to accept there's nothing dirty about getting myself off to sleep better.

I do also have vague recollections a few years after living in that apartment building of "playing doctor" and sort of touching and laying down with a couple different kids. I don't know how far it went or what they made of it or even if I started it. I don't think clothes ever came off and since we moved so often, it was nothing sustained like you had, spoink. I been trying to think how I would feel if someone came to me asking about any of these memories. I think I would be glad to hear from them if they could tell me they weren't fucked up by what happened. It doesn't sound like what you and your best friend did was abuse from how you wrote about it but more like a weird thing a couple of kids did together. Unlike the other thing, it doesn't feel like you were forced.