Is it possible to be molested and not remember?

[jstonegate]

This may be a dumb question. Can someone by sexually abused as a child and not consciously remember it? I don't consciously remember anything happening to me, but I have been profoundly affected by something. When I was a young child I would expose myself to other kids, draw sexual images in school and try to play touching games with other kids. When I was a teenager I started having dreams about being molested by my grandfather and having sex with my father, and would wake up feeling icky. When I was a teenager I became involved with some older guys online and met one for sex. Starting in my teens I began to use sex to validate myself with older men. I also became addicted to porn which I am now dealing with to try and fix.

Throughout my life I've felt a deep sense of shame about what happened when I was a child and why these series of events happened like they did. I just figure that something must have happened to me. A child wouldn't do these things for no reason. I don't want to say I was sexually abused if I wasn't but I want to understand what happened to me.

Can someone provide some input?

It's quite possible that you were molested or harmed at one point in your life. Myself, for example, was used as a child around the age of 7. In that situation I've always remembered it. However, more recently when I was 19 I was raped and after it happened I went to bed tried to forget it ever happened... and I did. For me, I was just sleeping with my boyfriend at the time and I heard something outside and all of the memories came flooding back. I started to sob for over an hour and a half. I couldn't control myself and it ended being a point for me, realizing where I was in life and how hooking-up was never the right thing for me.

As far as the whole having sex with older men. Often time gay men seek "approval" from a male figure, doesn't always have to be older, just some guy that finds you attractive, or sexually appealing. I mean of he guys on here, has anyone else had sex just to feel better about themselves? I think in my situation, I have had sex with a type of guy that made me feel better and validated.

My best recommendation to get over it is simple, and frankly it's helped me out a lot. Grow up. You have you realize that these are urges, and when you want to have sex with an older man yes it will make you feel better for a bit but not a long time. I've gone to years of therapy for being raped and frankly I've learned that in order to get over something like that it requires you to commit your thoughts an actions to getting over it.

If you don't want to have sex any more, don't. Just find something that makes you feel validated and do that. For me it's giving advice to others in my off time. So, that's my best advice.

[unkown21]

Actually I do believe it is possible. Your brain is very capable of convincing yourself something did or didn't happen. Think about brain washing for a second, better yet Stockholms syndrome, or battered wife syndrome... Two terrible things but what happens is, these ideas are forcibly planted into someone's head that the reason why they are getting abused is becauae it's their fault, as if they did something wrong when they didn't. The victims will tell themselves that they were indeed wrong and that they deserved whatever punishment they got.

I believe the same thing happens with repressing memories. When something disturbing happens to you over and over again, you start to convince yourself that whatever disturbed you never actually happened. After years of telling yourself it never happened ultimately your
Brainpower Will convince you that it never happened

[Dreamer]

The younger you are when something like that occurs, the more likely you are to shun it away deep into your memory, since at such young an age your comprehension of shit like that tends to be very weak.

I'd never really had totally forgotten my own experience with sexual abuse, but more so maintained an innocent distorted mind-frame about the whole situation for the years to come. As in it didn't really traumatize me, up until I came out about it, oblivious of the firestorm that would follow (with the authorities and legal process), because I originally had thought nothing of it. From there on out, I'd experienced random, periodic, flashbacks that would throw me into fetal-positioned crying spells. They've simmered down through the years, as it's something I can say I've overcome to an extent.

In reference to being overtly sexualized at a very young age, I was before the abuse (maybe it's normal for all young kids?), and after it definitely intensified to a new level where I mimicked my abusers initiating techniques and mannerisms with other boys my age as I got older.

I recommend you seek some sort of counseling or therapy to counter what you are experiencing now from it. It will only get worse if you continue to wait and ponder without any professional intervention.

Good luck!

[partisan]

Yes its possible, that doesnt mean it happened to you, like someone said, your asking a question, really to be dealt with by specialists. We cant tell what you dont know yourself. Though i assure you its possible

Who knows you may have just come across some porn or had an active imagination.

Hypnotherapy ???

[partisan]

Interesting, there's an organisation called the British false memory association and something called false memory syndrome.

case of psychiatrists telling people you "must-have" sufferered some childhood trauma to account for your problems, even without solid proof, these organisations are mostly made up of the "accused parents" they began in the U.S and now there here too.

[pellaz]

There a movie along these lines Mysterious Skin

[Kiid]

Anyone can "shut something away" in their minds and make themselves forget, ignore, or pretend it never happened.

Can but I'm sceptical TBH

[elad12]

I was sexually abused by my next door neighbor age 4 to 8 and although I never really forgot it happened it was something I so did not want to remember that I was somehow able to eventually put it out of my mind for long periods of time until something such as a news report would remind me and then I was able to quickly stuff it back away again. The affects of the abuse were still there though throughout my childhood and adulthood. Eventually at the age of 38 I found myself in a situation where I could not stop remembering and thinking about it and had to deal with it. It was initially an awful time but I came out of it a much better person.

I have met several people in life that totally forgot they were molested until much later in life. I can believe it. It is not something you want to remember.

[Bowyn Aerrow]

Trauma causes blocked memories.

I cannot recall that much about my life between age 8 and 14. I do know that up to age 8 I was abused - pretty badly in many different ways. When I was between 14 and 15 I was shipped off to my father on the farm and that is when I start having clear recall of my 'childhood'. However I was shipped back to mother and a new round of abuse started which I recall distinctly.

It was the trauma of the abuse that caused me to block memories. I'm still blocking.

I also have typical symptoms of PTSD, vivid dreams of things I know that happened and dreams of events I do not actually recall.

I would like to warn you away from therapists - especially those who use hypnosis to recover memories. There is a lot of debate over false memories.

I do know many others who have had traumatic experiences, some totally block out a chunk of their lives, others have only blocked out those moments of trauma. I guess it depends on the level of trauma and the kind of trauma they had.

There is the tendency to 'act out' behaviors that are tied into events that happened during ones life that one cannot recall. I did it a lot, resorting to self destructive behaviors in order to 'treat' my inner wounds.

Epiphany usually doesn't come all at ones. It can often be just 'I suspect X happened' - however that can be a false path in that the brain builds up 'stories' to fit situations - these leads to 'false memories'.

So one must be careful.

As for interpretation of dreams. In the Case of say your father, it may not have been your father at all - but a man who was a father figure to you. Your brain unable or unwilling to identify the real man replaces the character with your father. Thus the event may have happened but not with the person in your dream.

I have a few dream where other people who I know were not able or willing to do 'stuff' to me are the main character.

If you do decide to use a therapist, I strongly suggest you read up on 'false memories' and get a decent idea of how false memories are implanted, so you can observe your therapist with a bit of knowledge to make certain that that therapist isn't accidentally feeding your information to help you build false memories.