Conversation

1/When I was eight, I was molested. The experience wasn't scary or painful, just confusing and uncomfortable, because I didn't understand what was going on. After becoming an adult, I experienced a strong incentive to reinterpret what had happened to me as-
22
331
2/traumatic. Sexual assault on children was considered to be one of the worst things that could happen, and if it happened to me, then it should have seriously fucked me up, right? I started to interpret problems in my life as having been caused by those childhood events.
3
130
3/But after some time, I stopped doing that, because I realized I was trying to force a narrative. In reality, the experience I had as a child had very little, possibly no long-term adverse effects on me. The actual adverse effects came from other things - a sense of
2
163
4/betrayal of adults who were supposed to had been more protective of me, and a serious awkwardness around the molester in later years. I feel a bit of fear saying all this, because THE IMPLICATIONS. Did I want it? Am I saying it wasn't serious? Am I minimizing? Am I delusional?
1
159
5/No, yes, no, and no. I'm being honest about my experience. I also don't mean other people need to interpret their experiences the same way - but I DO recognize that culture seriously pressured me, with partial success, into experiencing suffering I wouldn't have had otherwise.
23
303
Replying to
I think it's kinda funny that anyone would feel "pressured" to suffer in any way seems like a horribly privileged thing to say I think that's what really annoys me about some of your tweets a little insensitive, a little nonchalant because you are oh so lucky
2
Replying to and
I wasn't raised in that culture? After it happened everyone was very hush-hush about it, nobody talked to me, nothing bad happened to my abuser (my mom just didn't allow me alone with him). We were raised in a sexually repressed patriarchal cult where I didn't know I had a vagina
1
1
Also to be clear about the patriarchal cult: We were homeschooled, weren't allowed to watch secular media, all of my friends were also in the cult, I had zero contact with the outside world beyond stuff like going to the store, and I didn't know a single unmarried nonvirgin.
1
Replying to and
Being pressured into viewing abuse as traumatic is bad. Refusing to acknowledge abuse as painful is also bad. I think our culture has the second class totally covered, but has issues with the first. Other cultures have issues with the first and are great for the second.
2
Show replies