Is this sexual abuse?

[Our abuse recovery guide]

This is a really uncomfortable subject for me. I am so grateful that this forum exists, because I need to talk about it, and I would really appreciate some feedback, but it isn't something I think I could ever discuss face to face with a friend. I can't imagine that most people would understand. I have mentioned this briefly in a previous post, and received some feedback that it would be considered sexual abuse. My therapist also keeps bringing it up, but I am just having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around it. Also he's a guy, so I feel like some of the subtleties might be lost on him- he might just see anything done in that area as abuse.

In my previous post I said my mother insisted on cleaning me. This makes me ill to say, but I will clarify what actually happened rather than just say it was cleaning. It was when I was just starting body changes, maybe 9 or 10 years old, and I noticed discharge in my panties and asked my mother about it. She wanted to inspect and decided to clean the clitoris area with a bobby pin. I hate admitting this. I feel so gross. When my legs started to shake I asked her why, and she said because it's a sensitive area. But continued cleaning. Then she wanted to check the area and do the same thing every week or so for a while. My therapist is trying to get it through my head that this was abuse but I am having trouble with it. I just feel so gross for letting it happen. Now that I am an adult and I have raised daughters of my own, it seems absolutely ridiculous, but still I can't categorize it as sexual abuse.

I have trouble viewing it as sexual abuse because I feel like there would need to be:

A: An intentional attempt to cause harm

B: Some sexual gratification for by the perpetrator

Also I honestly think my mother is completely unaware of how the female body works. Is that possible? For example, one time she went away with my dad for their anniversary and they had a hot tub. She called me to let me know that when they were in the hot tub he "had touched her "there" and she had felt something she had never felt before". Am I delusional thinking that she really didn't know what she was doing to me? I mean it's not like shes 100 years old, she's 67 now and this happened to me almost 40 years ago. Is it possible in this day and age to be a married woman who has borne children and not know what direct contact with that area does?

And if it is sexual abuse, well that feels like it's a half step away from incest. Which is, well, yuck. But she didn't have sex with me so... .Sorry for the ramble. Just having a hard time sorting it out. It's also weird because I don't really feel anything talking about it. I can remember the scene clearly, but like it was somebody else's life. Kind of surreal I suppose.

Thank you for reading this, I apologize for the bluntness if it makes anyone uncomfortable or if it isn't something I should be talking about on here. I would appreciate any thoughts.

[daughterandmom]

This is a really uncomfortable subject for me. I am so grateful that this forum exists, because I need to talk about it, and I would really appreciate some feedback, but it isn't something I think I could ever discuss face to face with a friend. I can't imagine that most people would understand. I have mentioned this briefly in a previous post, and received some feedback that it would be considered sexual abuse. My therapist also keeps bringing it up, but I am just having a lot of trouble wrapping my head around it. Also he's a guy, so I feel like some of the subtleties might be lost on him- he might just see anything done in that area as abuse.

In my previous post I said my mother insisted on cleaning me. This makes me ill to say, but I will clarify what actually happened rather than just say it was cleaning. It was when I was just starting body changes, maybe 9 or 10 years old, and I noticed discharge in my panties and asked my mother about it. She wanted to inspect and decided to clean the clitoris area with a bobby pin. I hate admitting this. I feel so gross. When my legs started to shake I asked her why, and she said because it's a sensitive area. But continued cleaning. Then she wanted to check the area and do the same thing every week or so for a while. My therapist is trying to get it through my head that this was abuse but I am having trouble with it. I just feel so gross for letting it happen. Now that I am an adult and I have raised daughters of my own, it seems absolutely ridiculous, but still I can't categorize it as sexual abuse.

I have trouble viewing it as sexual abuse because I feel like there would need to be:

A: An intentional attempt to cause harm

B: Some sexual gratification for by the perpetrator

Also I honestly think my mother is completely unaware of how the female body works. Is that possible? For example, one time she went away with my dad for their anniversary and they had a hot tub. She called me to let me know that when they were in the hot tub he "had touched her "there" and she had felt something she had never felt before". Am I delusional thinking that she really didn't know what she was doing to me? I mean it's not like shes 100 years old, she's 67 now and this happened to me almost 40 years ago. Is it possible in this day and age to be a married woman who has borne children and not know what direct contact with that area does?

And if it is sexual abuse, well that feels like it's a half step away from incest. Which is, well, yuck. But she didn't have sex with me so... .Sorry for the ramble. Just having a hard time sorting it out. It's also weird because I don't really feel anything talking about it. I can remember the scene clearly, but like it was somebody else's life. Kind of surreal I suppose.

Thank you for reading this, I apologize for the bluntness if it makes anyone uncomfortable or if it isn't something I should be talking about on here. I would appreciate any thoughts.

[Sarah girl]

Hi daughterandmom,

I think it will take time for you to really determine your feelings about this. Talking about it, as painful as it is, is a step forward. It must have been a horrific and probably physically painful thing to go through. Nobody should ever have to live through that sort of abuse. IMHO, what you described seems like a form of sexual abuse. For me, sexual abuse is when a person in a position of power sexually exploits or takes advantage of a more vulnerable person. It doesn't have to be actual sexual intercourse. If the touching was humiliating, against your will, made you feel bad, scared or confused, while the abuser insisted on continuing, it was sexual abuse. The sense of gratification in a sexual abuser isn't always necessarily sexual - it can simply be the gratification of exercising power over someone. This is just how I see it - my opinion. I am no expert. When I was five, a distant male relative sexually abused me. He was much larger and heavier than me but to this day, I don't have any recollection of the feelings of having to bear the weight of someone so much bigger than me. All I remember is that I felt numb and disconnected while it was happening  :'(. Hope this helps.

[Turkish]

daughterandmom,

Though we're all anonymous here, a safe place, it's brave of you to write about your past, because it's a lingering trauma.

The legal definition: "Child Sexual Abuse" is defined as touching or being touched as a child by someone at least 5 years older for his or her apparent sexual gratification.

After S4-5, and D2-3 were molested by their 17 yo uncle, my ex (their mom) was towling D3 between her legs to dry her off (I've never done this), our daughter said,.":)on't touch it!" My ex told me this, and I told her, "listen to your daughter. Stop doing that." There is no medical reason for her to do that. Despite our daughter's protestations,.it's vald for caregivers to touch their genitals for a legitimate medical reason. We were told this by the professionals.

That being said, there was no valid medical reason for your mother to do something so intrusive as she did. Does it meet the legal definition of sexual abuse? Probably not, as you seem to have concluded. Was it a violation of boundaries? Yes. Traumatizing? It sounds like it was. You were also confused, maybe scared, and perhaps you felt shame. So was it abuse or abusive? I would say yes, even if not criminally.

Given what I know know having reported the kids' uncle, if I were to describe the same thing happening to my baby daughter, I am pretty sure it would result in an investigation being launched, however.

This is the problem. The majority of these cases go unreported. 1in 4 girls are sexually abused by age 14, and 1 in 6 boys by age 16.  1 in 20 males are perps, and 1 in 3,300 females are under the criminal definition. Sobering and scary. Only 10% of cases are by strangers. The majority are family members, then friends or neighbors. Most cases go unreported. Forgive the aside, but it needs to be put out there.

For you, daughterandmom, I do think it was abuse. She didn't do it for her own sexual gratification, but it was still a violation.  Still abusive. The past can't be changed. You may be stuck on the intent, rather than the action. I hope (based upon my readings of the subject) that this helps give you perspective in some way.

Turkish

[Kwamina]

Hi daughterandmom,

Thank you for reading this, I apologize for the bluntness if it makes anyone uncomfortable or if it isn't something I should be talking about on here. I would appreciate any thoughts.

It's ok, this is definitely something that can be discussed on here. I had been thinking about your story and wondering how you had been. Thanks for this update and for your courage in sharing this. Sexual abuse is a very difficult and sensitive subject to discuss. I am glad that you do feel safe enough here to talk about it. By sharing your story you are also really helping other members and lurkers who might have had similar experiences

Both Sarah girl and the resident wolf Turkish have raised a lot of good points. We sometimes can get stuck in definitions and rationalizing or minimizing certain (traumatic) experiences. Perhaps another way to look at it is like this:

- Did what your mother do make you feel uncomfortable? The answer seems to be yes.

- Did your mother violate your physical boundaries? It's seems clear that the answer is yes.

- Was it unnecessary to do this to you? Based on what you've shared I'd say the answer is yes.

- Do others view it as sexual abuse? Your therapist does and several members here do too.

- Would it also be officially classified as 'child sexual abuse'? Perhaps, or perhaps not, it also depends on what you would consider 'apparent sexual gratification'. That too is a hard thing to define and can be viewed differently by different people.

- Was your mother's intent to sexually abuse you? Very difficult to tell since you can't look into her mind. But even if it wasn't her intent, her acts were still highly inappropriate, totally unnecessary and had significant consequences for you.

You might not be able to tick off all these boxes, but many you can unfortunately. Perhaps it can help you to not only focus on if it can be officially classified as sexual abuse but also more on how it has affected you.

Also I honestly think my mother is completely unaware of how the female body works. Is that possible? For example, one time she went away with my dad for their anniversary and they had a hot tub. She called me to let me know that when they were in the hot tub he "had touched her "there" and she had felt something she had never felt before". Am I delusional thinking that she really didn't know what she was doing to me? I mean it's not like shes 100 years old, she's 67 now and this happened to me almost 40 years ago. Is it possible in this day and age to be a married woman who has borne children and not know what direct contact with that area does?

I do not believe you are delusional. It is very confusing to have these things happen to you, it's very hard for a child to see his/her own mother as someone who sexually abused you. Even if you don't feel anything about it now, it can help to look at people who have said they have experienced sexual abuse and how it made them feel. Not feeling anything about events like this, could quite possibly be a psychological or emotional defense mechanism to protect you from the trauma. Can you perhaps also recall other extreme experiences that you now don't feel anything about looking back at them?

And if it is sexual abuse, well that feels like it's a half step away from incest. Which is, well, yuck. But she didn't have sex with me so... .Sorry for the ramble. Just having a hard time sorting it out. It's also weird because I don't really feel anything talking about it. I can remember the scene clearly, but like it was somebody else's life. Kind of surreal I suppose.

Perhaps you have cut yourself off from these event emotionally and psychologically so it would feel and seem less like a part of you so it would be easier to move on. This could very well be a coping mechanism that you developed as a child to help you deal with your mother's problematic behavior. Perhaps this was to difficult to process on an emotional and psychological level so instead you found a way to move on that didn't require a full processing of the events.

I hope this helps. I am glad that you have returned here  

[Lifewriter16]

Hi daughterandmom,

I feel for you in your struggle with this issue. Here's my two-penny worth on the subject:


Some men rape or sexually assault women, yet it is commonly considered that the motives are about power and not sexual gratification. Some adults clearly gain sexual gratification from their contact with children, others are so damaged that they are probably replaying their own past as abused children. Is this notion of there having to be a sexual motivation a red herring?

Your mother's actions were 'odd', 'abnormal' and inappropriate not a creative use of a dolly pin for medical purposes. I'd guess your mum is also a survivor of sexual abuse... .but that's only my guess. She may not have intended to hurt you, but she has. The 'icky' feeling you describe having felt indicates that what happened was inappropriate. Kids have a radar for things that are wrong. That's yours, I'd say.

Does it matter what the intention of the adult was, if harm was done? It still means there is a valid wound and a need for healing.

Does it matter what label we give an action, if it has damaged us? We can heal without applying a label as long as we accept there is damage to heal. We don't need to call it anything.

Fixating upon the label and the intention can be a way of denying pain. I should know, I've done that.


There's a book called 'The Courage to Heal' by Ellen Bass and Laura Davis. I can't recommend this book to you highly enough. It will help you get through the stage of denial into the process of healing.

Love Lifewriter

[upsidedown333]

Hi daughterandmom,

Thank you so much for sharing your story. I hope that this might be a first step toward making sense of your experiences and healing!

I actually have a somewhat similar experience that I wanted to share, especially since there's so little discussion about this on the internet. My mother had undiagnosed BPD and had quite inappropriate sexual boundaries with me throughout my childhood. She insisted on showering with me until age 11/12, and if I refused on a given night, she would insist on cleaning my vagina very carefully while I lay on my bed like an infant. When I was 9 or so, I told her that I felt uncomfortable showering with her anymore and asked to shower by myself (it took months to work up the courage to ask her), but she told me that I was crazy to be uncomfortable, and that I must have been brainwashed by my friends and didn't always have to do what my friends did. I never felt like I could approach the subject again. Even afterward throughout high school, I still had no physical privacy, as she would come into the bathroom or bedroom at any point without knocking. I later had PTSD symptoms as a result of these experiences, among many other stressful experiences from my childhood through living and being with her (e.g., her own self-harm, suicidal threats that I needed to calm her down from, volatile relationships with other family members and close friends).

I, too, don't think she intended to make me uncomfortable, but she had issues around cleanliness that intersected with her lack of boundaries associated with her BPD. I struggled for a long time about how to describe what happened, and recently decided with the help of my therapist that it makes the most sense for me to think of it as sexual abuse. However, whenever I try to describe it to someone I'm close to, I have such mixed feelings as it doesn't fit the classic sexual abuse paradigm (especially of creating sexual gratification for the abuser, as I don't think that was happening for her) and I feel like I'm being a fraud or something. But, like the other posters noted, it did make me uncomfortable, it violated by personal boundary, and caused a lot of pain for me as I developed further. I'm curious to see if others had similar experiences too, as I feel like this might be a common manifestation of mothers with certain presentations of BPD... .

[Confused#2]

Hi

I would like to also interject that although you do not view your mother as "old", she is just a few years old than I am.  She would have been born in the 40's. This was still the "dark ages" when you consider women knowing about their bodies. Even talking about their bodies! How people talk about their bodies now and how we know how to care for them is light years away from what was going on then. Mostly info passed from generation to generation since most people were not running to the doctor for regular check up, etc (did not have the money). Most people did not see a doctor unless they were really sick. This might have more to do with what she learned about "women's issues" coupled with her BPD. Just saying.  I am not saying that is was not abusive or scary just her motivation may have more to do with her ignorance.

[cobwebfaery]

my mother once got me to undress and lie down under a blanket and wait for a doctor to arrive.  i think all these things are about they want to start again in life, can't, so spoil it for us; even though we're thier daughters, seeing a newstart female is too much for them to bear; they're angry at us for some espression of future womanhood we've done, and they take it out on us in these ways'

[daughterandmom]

Thank you everyone for reading this and offering such kind insight.  And thank you all for allowing me to talk about a difficult subject in a safe environment

I think it will take time for you to really determine your feelings about this. Talking about it, as painful as it is, is a step forward.

Sarah girl I think you are right. Talking about it is helping me sort it out a little, I have never told anyone other than my husband about this or some of the other things I have posted, and I suppose I will be able to determine my feelings better later when I am more in touch with them. Right now it feels sort of distant, like someone else's story, but still makes my stomach turn.

If the touching was humiliating, against your will, made you feel bad, scared or confused, while the abuser insisted on continuing, it was sexual abuse. The sense of gratification in a sexual abuser isn't always necessarily sexual - it can simply be the gratification of exercising power over someone.

This is a different way of looking at it than I was seeing. I appreciate your viewpoint. It did make me feel those things, and I guess that's why I am still struggling with it all these years later.

When I was five, a distant male relative sexually abused me. He was much larger and heavier than me but to this day, I don't have any recollection of the feelings of having to bear the weight of someone so much bigger than me. All I remember is that I felt numb and disconnected while it was happening

I'm so sorry Sarah girl. That's a terrible thing, and you were so very young. My heart goes out to you. Are you seeing a therapist?   Here's to healing.

Turkish thank you reassuring me about posting about this and for taking the time to reason things through with me in a logical fashion.

Does it meet the legal definition of sexual abuse? Probably not, as you seem to have concluded. Was it a violation of boundaries? Yes. Traumatizing? It sounds like it was. You were also confused, maybe scared, and perhaps you felt shame. So was it abuse or abusive? I would say yes, even if not criminally.

This helped me a lot. I tend to see things in black and white (as my therapist repeatedly points out to me), so I guess I needed it to be a bad thing done by bad person equals sexual abuse or disordered person not having boundaries doesn't equal abuse. I wasn't able to find a place in the gray area. Thank you.

I am so, so sorry for what you are going through with your kids. I have read a few of your other posts, and as a parent myself I really feel for you. Your kids are really lucky to have such a caring and proactive parent as yourself and I truly believe that will make all the difference in their lives.

Kwamina thank you so much for welcoming me back, and also for the reassurance about posting on this topic. I am so grateful to be able to discuss it and get feedback from people who understand where I am coming from. I have never had anyone to talk to before about my mom and the weird and disturbing things she did and it is really helping me process some of this for the first time. Thank you also for laying it out in a clear way.

Perhaps it can help you to not only focus on if it can be officially classified as sexual abuse but also more on how it has affected you.

After reading your reply and the others, I think this is what I am going to try to do. Thank you again for helping me sort it out.

Not feeling anything about events like this, could quite possibly be a psychological or emotional defense mechanism to protect you from the trauma. Can you perhaps also recall other extreme experiences that you now don't feel anything about looking back at them?

Unfortunately, yes. It all feels like stories about someone else's life. I started another thread about trying to feel my own feelings, I suppose it takes some time. Even though I am in my 40's, I have never addressed these things before so the whole process is new to me.

Lifewriter16 I really appreciate your viewpoint on this. You helped me to see that I really need to let go of trying to find a label for the motivation.

Does it matter what the intention of the adult was, if harm was done? It still means there is a valid wound and a need for healing. Does it matter what label we give an action, if it has damaged us? We can heal without applying a label as long as we accept there is damage to heal. We don't need to call it anything. Fixating upon the label and the intention can be a way of denying pain. I should know, I've done that.

I appreciate you sharing your experience with me. I have ordered the book you recommended and I look forward to reading it

upsidedown333 welcome to the board   Thank you for sharing your story with me. It really helps to not feel all alone.

I struggled for a long time about how to describe what happened, and recently decided with the help of my therapist that it makes the most sense for me to think of it as sexual abuse.

This is where I am at with my therapist too.

However, whenever I try to describe it to someone I'm close to, I have such mixed feelings as it doesn't fit the classic sexual abuse paradigm (especially of creating sexual gratification for the abuser, as I don't think that was happening for her) and I feel like I'm being a fraud or something.

This sounds exactly like me! That's why I am using this board to talk about it- when I heard the words out loud from my therapist and when I tried to explain it to my husband, that's exactly how I felt. Like a fraud. I really appreciate you sharing Have you done an introduction post yet so we can learn a little more about your story?

Once again- thank you to everyone who took the time to read this and help me sort it out in such a kind and empathetic way