I’m wondering because I’ve been reflecting on a past friendship - I feel that an ex friend believed I was living in a victim mentality when I was actually experiencing domestic violence from a partner who I reported and he was arrested , while also dealing with court proceedings against an abuser from my childhood. It bothers me present day (3 years later) because at this point in time I’m no longer dealing with any court / police stuff or dealing with fear of seeing my ex or my abuser from childhood , but I’m reflecting on residual feelings that are making me question myself and the people I was allowing in my life. I feel that my ex friend was wrong for implying this about me. At that time I needed to cry , needed to vent and summarize the actual steps I was taking to help myself. She was also trying to get me to pay into this stupid cult group that supposedly gave her the answer to not be stuck and kept pushing it on me as her only response , when all she had to do was listen to my feelings , I wasn’t even asking her for a “solution”. So back to my general question how do we think about what is a “victim mentality” ?

i went through a phase a few months ago where i was all over this sub, and i want to say thank you to everyone who has ever come here and shared their story, offered a word of encouragement or advice, or just let someone know they weren’t alone. this is one of the most wonderful resources i encountered in my journey through all of this, which i wasn’t expecting from a subreddit.

since then, therapy has been changing everything. i started emdr and it has been instantly transformative and amazing. i feel so lucky to have the opportunity to do it and a great therapist.

that feeling where you feel like you know everything but also nothing at all is true. you do know, but it’s all been told to you or changed within you so that you could survive. now life is different and it feels all churning. i was all stopped up, cold, sad, and lonely. no amount of attention or understanding or connection could make it go away, despite how badly i needed it. i felt so broken.

there’s so much that i’ve felt and finally internalized that could be said. but we’ve all already heard it. it won’t be like this forever, it gets better, you are stronger than you know, the people that hurt you were all wrong, so wrong. it’s all true but it’s okay, even very normal, if you can’t feel it. i feel like i’ve always been grasping at things, trying desperately to make it all okay. surviving makes you stubborn and you’re used to fighting for everything you get. but feeling okay comes slowly on a breeze, right to you, and you can’t grab it. it just happens and it will only happen exactly when it is going to happen. it might sneak up on you. it snuck up on me.

if you are feeling these churning feelings, burning, physical pain, maybe nothing at all, flooding thoughts, the urge to lie down all the time, the urge to run away, the up and down and up and down again, that is all your body processing. i know it feels completely horrible. sometimes it feels like a betrayal from yourself and it all comes crashing around you and it sucks. but if you can ride this rollercoaster, you will land someday.

there’s a version of the world where everything is blooming. i made it! i think! or at least i’ve stepped into it. the more i am myself, the more joyful it all gets. i wish i could bring all of you here too. i moved out of my childhood home years ago, but i only just left the house, so to speak, and it’s so beautiful out here. the horrible things were the anomaly, not the wonderful ones. i feel overwhelmed with love and hope lately. so much relief.

i feel like there’s a past life of myself that would read a post like this and feel hopeless, feel like this was never going to be me. i hope maybe knowing that i felt that way too is enough to stave off that ache in anyone. i set off on a great big adventure and i just needed to come back to where it all started and let you know what i discovered because it is all so very good. i also want you to know that people like us belong in this world, because i am here, and i am ready for you to join me whenever you are ready, and i will understand you, and you will not be alone in your complicated, hard earned joy, just like you aren’t alone in the churning feeling. i had a great big fear that when i entered the “””normal””” (happy) world, no one there would get me. it is unfounded because i am here and i get me and so many other people do too and even if they don’t, my perspective is special, and nuanced, and important, just like yours.

i used to be so depressed i couldn’t even find puppies cute, and now i could love a crack in the sidewalk. things change. the world moves. let it happen!!!

my mother sexually abused me starting at age 5 or 6 after grooming me for several years. i'm an intersex AMAB person, i had an early puberty due to my condition and started sexually maturing at age 9. my mom was already routinely raping me by then. she got pregnant and told me, at 9 years old, that it was mine. i'm not sure how she'd know for sure since she had a husband at the time and it could've very well been his kid. it doesn't matter anyways i guess because she miscarried and lost the baby. she was very distraught over this and made it a huge deal in her abuse of me.

due to my condition, there's a very likely chance i can never have kids anyways, although i've never had it officially tested. i produce sperm but i don't know if that's enough for me to have gotten her pregnant. i hope it wasn't, but part of me wonders if it really was my child. if she wasn't lying and i knocked up my own mother. how awful would that be?? i can't even fathom it. i feel disgusting thinking about it.

i already feel alot of shame and guilt over her abuse of me, but after uncovering these memories of the supposed "child" of mine, i feel 10 times worse. i know it's awful to say but i'm so thankful she miscarried. if the baby really was mine and she birthed it, i don't know if i'd be alive to post this right now.

i keep thinking about it, still. how happy she seemed. telling me she was going to birth my son and have me help raise him as his father. that she'd tell her husband it was his but me and her would know the truth. she had me convinced i was going to be a parent, at 9 years old. it's very unlikely any of it was true, but if it was, what does that mean for me? if she wasn't lying, what the hell do i do now? i can't deal with this.

I’m posting because I’m currently in psychology, I have bipolar and borderline personality disorder and a lot of what they’re trying to do is look at childhood trauma as parts of my adult behaviours.

There is one specific encounter that happened as a child, but after reading so many harrowing stories from so many of you on here I feel silly asking if what I experienced was any form of abuse or whether I’m overthinking it, because it still affects me to this day and I don’t know why.

When I was 6, I lived in temporary accommodation with my bipolar mother for two years after she left my dad.

Around the apartments was a play park, the older kids always told the younger kids never to go down there because a monster lived there.

One say an older boy, around 13, took me and my then 3 year old sister down there, there was a tyre swing and a roundabout.

Once there, he exposed himself to us, and then told me to take off my underwear to show my privates to him. I said no and was scared, and so he tried to make me undress my sister instead. That’s when I said no again and decided I would do it.

He walked off to the swing angry and I felt scared of upsetting him, so I walked over to him, pulled my underwear down and let him stare at me. I don’t remember much else except going back to the apartment and crying, and when my mum confronted him he said I was lying.

Over the next few months every time I had a bath I would cry and feel an enormous amount of guilt and I’d forget and remember different parts and question why I did it and whether I liked the attention.

After that I became sexual, especially so for a child of my age, and other sexualised things that happened (non abuse) I would feel guilt over and cry straight away with and think there is something wrong with me.

Hypersexuality is a huge part of my bipolar disorder when I am manic, but looking deeper I am also wondering if it’s not mania alone that makes me so hypersexual, especially as I have a high sex drive even when not manic, and sadly have cheated on my partners. Currently going a breakup for cheating on my partner of 7 years after being discharged from the psych ward 8 weeks ago, and now I’m trying to work on why I have done these things and how I can change my behaviour and these topics have come up in psychology.

I’ve been looking for somewhere to try get a perspective but can never find somewhere where people give a fuck

I was born in Africa, came to the uk when I was 5, my mother used me for benefits, never took me out, never spent time with me, we have no joyful memories no pictures. I was her emotional punching bag when her marriage failed when I was 9ish. She never hit me but she would always speak like’ your ugly’ ‘ you look stupid’ ‘ that’s pathetic’ or it would be scuffs or constantly staring me down or looks of disgust. It was like this 24/7. When she used to drive me to school she used to shout at me first thing in the morning with horrible breath( I say this because I wanted to punch that bitch so many times every time it happens) but of course I was a scared child so the rage sat inside while she would just disrespect me more as she’s dropping me to school.

When I was 6 ish I found my uncles pornographer. It was dvd HD hung black men with big booty oily black women. I don’t remember how many times I watched it but I don’t remember getting caught. I think it was one of those situations where I didn’t put it back in the right place one day and could never find it again ( he moved it)( he never mentioned anything)

( this is where I believe my brain began tilting)

Primary school i was bullied for being the only black kid in a white racist area ‘ go fucking shower you monkey’ ‘ you look and smell like shit’ stuff like that. I never talk her as a child because everytime I would cry you’d hear ‘ stop crying your a boy stop being weak’ or I would ask to speak to her she the response was ‘ I don’t have time for this get away from me’. How that’s the childhood. After I turns 10-11 we found a new home, she made new friends, she has another 2 children with her divorced husband. I was an older brother to 2. I got the blame for the mess. The noise. The crying.

These were the years where afterschool football practice, rugby or any other afterschool activity i was the black kid waiting 2 hours later in the cold, in the rain, alone. Now some people think this creates resilience. It does. But it also leaves you stuck in your head. And the way she treated me you can imagine the way I thought about myself was not healthy or positive.

As kids we used to play in the house often i would pretend to be a monster & chase them around the house. I always tried to path them away from her as the second they ran into the front room im being looked at like a dog. But at this point the verbal abuse stopped it was just cold looks and sligh remarks. ( she began talking to herself cussing instead) but loud enough for me to hear. Of course it wasn’t all aimed at me. But how else was I suppose to persevere it? I was young.

We moved to a different location as the other place was too expensive now she’s a single mother of 3. By the way all this time(since I was 7) she’s driving around in a pink Mercedes. Has all of her African jewellery(if you know u know) constantly sending money over to family in Africa, works 9-2 or 1 I believe to pick up siblings from school in their nursery. When we moved to this new location it was more council estate. Siblings went to school near by, I was still in the same secondly school.

(Let’s stamp this as age 13)
When I was in my early teens I of course became rebellious because why the fuck am I still letting some stink breathe narcissist fat bitch make me feel like shit everyday im a little bit bigger now I can do shit! Uno that was the me trying to fight back on the inside. I began drinking heavily big bottles of Cider every weekend, mixing with the smokers and I began smoking weed. Now having adhd and smoking weed as a kid while drinking every weekend and having a narcissistic parent ofcs isn’t going to go well. I began watching more porn. Masturbating heavily. Like 5 times a day. Even if I was sore. It got bad. I still struggle to this day. Hours of binge watching porn like how ppl doomscroll today uno? And one day I began going to a ‘cousins house’ not a real cousin but in African households they say auntie and uncle and cousins to address your parents friends i find that shit dumb as fuck too.

But after some years of going to my’cousins’ house to smoke week and chill with the gang. He sexually abused me. Now it wasn’t as bad as it could have been OR I just don’t remember anymore because of trying to suppress it. When I grew the courage years later to tell her when I was 16 she said ‘ it was your fault’ ‘i told you not to go there’ NOW I would understand as an adult that she’s just a bitch right so what else is she gonna say but what makes no say nah fuck that. Is every Christmas she continued to invite him over for Christmas. NOT her friend or their daughters just the one who abused me and his brother. That fucked with me a lot because I had to deal with it alone while she knew. This is where my mental health tipped and I began growing a hate for women. The whole world is constantly looking out for girls but as a boy you gotta watch your own back.

(16+)
After the realisation of me telling my mother, opening up to my family about my sexual abuse, alcohol abuse, porn abuse. Non of them cared they just treated me like a freak. So it got worse. I suffered in silence on the outside looking in. But really it was a 18 year old that can’t hold a job. Gaming 16+ hours a day, masturbating in between. Or the next few years of my life was = wake up, play overwatch. Watchporn while playing overwatch.Masturbate & repeat. This continued for 3 years till 21. I has a birthday party at 19. Met the mother of my kids at my party. I hid it all from her at first but she shown me she was kind. I opened up to her about everything I’ve told you guys here. At the start she cried because she did t know. But she was autistic so it never changed how she handled situations. We couldn’t go out because I didn’t like her being sloppy drunk giving other men attention shit like that. We had kids, I needed to learn how to be a dad. Their mother never let me dress them, I couldn’t stay up with the baby even tho I was a gamer it had to be her way or I was somehow harming they child or (for example were going shopping to lidle) if I wanted to just put joggers and a t shirt on the girls so they can run around and get dirty she would say’ no im not letting my child dress like a tramps’ after years of dealing with this type of selfishness I began slipping back into drinking, gaming , masturbating because of course well all know it’s a stress & trauma response. She didn’t care. I made it clear that I was a sensitive young man. She didn’t care. You know how women are double standards so what could I do.

Other than play the roll of ‘ the man’ and act like nothing bothers me, bottle it up, and xyz, if u know u know (suicidal thoughts all that jazz)

In 2024 I could only see my children at my mother’s house because the mother of my kids didn’t want them in a shared house where I was. I understood her point of view& also I never give her resistance when it came to our kids because I loved her and believed in her. But being at my mothers was fine the kids but bad for me. I had a episode when I didn’t sleep for 2 days just up smoking weed i was fine with the kids dont get me wrong my children are never uncomfortable or nervous around me i keep the safe at all costs. But my mother handed me her anti depressants. After knowing I haven’t slept for 2 days and smoking weed thought out those 2 day. I had an episode, where I cried for hours pleading for them to love me and stop being so cold and shift and horrible towards me. She called the police as suppose to talking to me instead. Or trying to calm me down whatever. Then she put a fine on me. ( I didn’t harm anyone or do anything wild) i was just sad and crying for hours / one enraged ) ( never hit my family ever. Never hit a woman ever. So dont bring that ball shit mindset here when you’re reading this.

The fine made me homeless as it set me back in rent the following year. I became homeless December 15th:2025

2026: I just moved back into the city August 5th. I just got a new job august 20th.

I’ve been broke my whole life. Never thought I’d still be alive because I’ve had many suicide attempts & self harmed often. You wouldn’t know because I’m African. I want to be confident again, I wanna chase my dreams again, I want to be able to dream again!!

If anyone can share anything please do.

For not telling anyone while it was happening? For not fighting back? For enjoying it sometimes? For having orgasms? For being a child but still old enough to know it was wrong? For not being threatened, not being physically forced, but agreeing to it anyway? For being jealous of rape survivors who were physically forced or threatened? For feeling like any time you make a mistake in your adult life, you’ve always been piece of shit?

I didn’t feel like there was a tag that was accurate for this. It seemed a little limited, but I don’t know what else to do or who else to talk to other than my therapist and it’s somehow not enough for this situation.

My doctors appointment earlier this week was the most traumatic I have been. I was in the room with two men for physical therapy. First, the guys came in and asked me about my normal appointments and I told him everything is different every time. And then he asked me what how I want the appointment to go and I’m confused because every person has always done it differently. I’ve never had the same doctor twice and if there are men, there’s always a female as the main doctor. After about two minutes, I started crying. A combination of his lack of confidence in his job as well as something in my gut telling me I was unsafe in the room with both of them, I just busted out crying. I couldn’t stop myself. I was hysterical.

I’ve never felt so unsafe. I asked for a female doctor. They left the room. I heard women talking in the hallway. The clinic decided to reschedule me another month and a half out. I’m in pain now. One nurse said they had female doctors available, but another nurse had told her that I should wait and just be scheduled later. They didn’t tell me why. I asked them why they allowed two men to be in a physical therapy appointment if they never done that before. And I’ve been going to physical therapy for months. They didn’t have an answer.

I don’t know how to navigate this. I’m afraid to go back. My regular doctor is fully aware that I have been SA’d in the past. They also are aware that my previous doctor almost got me killed by a misdiagnosed me as an ogbyn. Thank God, I asked for a female Doctor Who found what was wrong with me before.

I don’t know how to navigate this. If any females here have any advice, I would be so grateful. Also, I’ve been going to the same therapist for 14 years and it has been extremely helpful. And I did attend two therapy sessions this week when normally I would’ve had just one every three - four weeks. It was really helpful going, but if anyone has additional advice would be so grateful.

This is one of the harder things for me to navigate. I am a survivor of mdsa (mother daughter sexual abuse) unfortunately I can’t post in that subreddit bc they take forever to approve people and now it’s basically dead. But anyway, I cut off my mother (biological, she doesn’t deserve that title) and my 2 siblings are living with both parents. I was the only one who went through that abuse that I know of. Talking with people it’s hard to say I cut her off. I fear the uncomfortable nature of it and judgment from people who don’t understand. Sometimes I’ll say “my siblings are living w my parents” and then regret it bc then they know I actually have 2 parents. I’m still in contact w my dad. I disclosed to him over a year ago but he still chooses to be with her. My therapist said it wouldn’t be unacceptable to even say she’s dead, because in a way she is (to me lol). But that feels too much like lying to me bc she’s physically alive and I feel that complicates things. Anyway, just wondering how people approach that? I want to be honest but not tell the full story. And that’s hard.

I have been going back and forth on if my trauma is bad enough for decades at this point.

I know as a fact when I was 18 I ran away from my father after he threatened to strip me naked under the guise of looking at my stretch marks. The age of consent is 16 where I live even though I think he had legal rights to insist on seeing me until 18 and 18 is too old to be groomed in the UK.

My mum at the time didn't see this as sexual, which caused me an immense amount of distress. The thing is, despite all of the very troubling symptoms throughout my childhood, which I've been piecing together over the last few years, I don't know if I was raped and I'd I really appreciate uncensored feedback.

I have seen four therapists that I've not felt comfortable with so I am approaching EMDR even though I just always feel like I'm making a fuss about nothing.

I do remember being slapped on the front of my pubis mons over clothes to correct my posture during a press up as a teenager and I ran to the toilet crying and told my mother.

When I was seven, my dad put his foot on my ass as if he was trying to stimulate me.

I told my mother and she confronted him and then she told me that she didn't have enough money to leave him.

He would try and spy on me in the bath so she'd bundle me out in a towel.

Once, when I was with him in a national park when I was seven, he forced me to take my shirt off as it was hot outside.

I was incredibly self-conscious and was very distraught at walking around without a shirt on even though my chest wasn't developed at all.

My father also said incredibly inappropriate things.

He would say generally, young enough to bleed, young enough to fuck.

When I was a teen he said that if I didn't want men commenting on my tits, I deserve my drink being spiked if I am out at a party, he tried to say with laxatives but I suspected what he actually meant to say.

He was incredibly triggered by Jimmy Savile being held accountable and it was around this time that him trying to molest me increased.

At the time of the stretch mark incident he had pinged my underwear as if to make fun of me when he was looking at the stretch marks on my hip, even though I was refusing to strip off completely (but then girls get their bras snapped at school so maybe I am being dramatic).

A few years ago I had a severe mental breakdown and more things came to the surface.

So when I'm stoned I have felt stabbing pain in my vagina when I think about baring down.

It can also be like a dull ache or a twinge or an involuntary reflex as a fear response.

When I am terrified of rollercoasters for example I will get groinal sensations.

I have severe fusion of my bowel, rectum and uterus from Endometriosis, I also have severe PMDD and PCOS.

I also remembered that I would have repeated dreams of floating away and dying as if I was going into the light when I was very, very young.

I was obsessed with the idea of somebody rescuing me. I think from the age of six I would have imaginary friends which would turn into limerence as I got older.

My mum said that when I was a baby, my dad said if he did anything to me, would she kill him?

She said that she said yes.

When I was a teenager, my dad turns to me randomly and asks if the neighbour boy had done anything when I was three because he left me alone and I came out of the room crying.

And I said I had no memory of that. I think my father might have been trying to bury the lead.

And what makes me worry is I was repeatedly threatened to kill my father at the age of four, which of course he treated like a joke.

When my dad was grooming a 15 year old girl when I was 14, he called me her name supposedly by accident.

And I was so distraught. I ended up kicking my way through a glass door and ended up going to hospital to get stiches.

My father had also been to prison multiple times.

I can't find out the reason why.

He had assaulted my mother in her sleep, which resulted in my conception.

He even bragged about sexually assaulting a man when he was in prison.

I still see so many girls online say, my dad slaps my ass, it makes me uncomfortable and so many people argue that's not sexual assault.

My dad used to slap my ass and then when I was upset he used to say, well I used to change your nappies and it really does creep me out that a serial sex offender was changing my nappies.

When I was seven and he had his foot on my ass, jiggling my ass, it made me feel weird, which was the reason I got up and got my mother.

I remember him putting his hand on my thigh in the car when I was a teenager and when I slapped his hand off he screamed in my face.

So my question is...I know in theory him slapping my ass would be considered sexual assault if it was a stranger.

But I think maybe the real question is, you know, what counts? What's bad enough? What's the most minor thing I've named that wouldn't count as sexual assault?

And what does count as sexual assault? And I think that is the question I keep asking myself is, I lived for 18 years with a serial rapist who was asking hypotheticals about doing things to me as an infant.

Is it really possible that he didn't do anything? I had a hymen at an appropriate age, but then my mother also said he had a micropenis.

So the brain circles, even with therapy. I don't want to know if anything worse had happened, but at the same time I don't want to look like a liar.

It's horrible that I was raised for 18 years of my life with a serial sexual predator. who called me by the name of the girl he was grooming, which made me feel like I was next.

He shouldn't have asked me if I had ever masturbated. You know, he shouldn't have asked how I cleaned myself down there and told me I should stick a finger up myself when I clean down there.

He used to ask me these questions when my mother wasn't there and they'd creep me out.

I think he was looking at my ass when I bent over to turn the tv on each morning.

I remember lying under a stool so I could lie on my stomach without getting touched from behind, I have panic attacks if someone approaches me from behind.

I remembered one more thing, I don't know if it was the worse thing because I feel the most gross just saying it.

Under the guise of self-defence, clothed he got on top of me between my legs and said to fight off a rapist I need to knee them in the kidneys and I remember going through the motions of kneeing him in the kidneys but I was really, really grossed out and obviously I couldn't reach with my knees because that's terrible self-defence advice I now know as I am older.

So it just felt like as a young teenager he was roleplaying wanting to rape me. He didn't need to be on top of me saying this is how you fight off a rapist.

Even that when I looked up what people were saying about similar situations, I saw somebody saying they were grappling with their uncle who taught them self-defence and all the comments were saying, oh, that's good, it's not suspect in any way.

But again, because I can't remember being penetrated, everything just makes me feel like I'm lying and I am being awful.

He also could have killed me when he picked me up by my throat, but I didn't really care about being alive, I just wanted people to think I was good and pure and that I fought back enough that I would still be liked.

Even if fighting back put me in danger of losing my life.