Child Abuse?

From a teen in Saudi Arabia: while growing up my family was very close to another family consisting of a couple and their son who was 2 years younger than me. i loved them and considered them to be my 2nd family. But when i turned 9 and i started developing breasts, ‘the husband’ began touching me and i thought it was inapproppriate back then. but now that i think about it he never touched me anywhere private. i remember him rubbing and pinching my upper arm which in no way is sexual but it was the expression on his face the made me feel disgusted. another time he put his arm inside my shirt and rubbed my back when no one else was around.

i knew from the 1st time he touched me that he was doing all this with sexual intensions. i don’t know how my younger self recognised it as sexual when the first time all he did was rub my hands. and if it wasn’t for the latter incident(putting hand in my shirt) i would’ve thought my younger self was delusional. being a 9 year old i was very innocent and this made me very upset.

i told my parents the very 1st time but obviously they thought i was assuming things. my parents however asked me to stay in the same room as they were when we were at the house. while this was quite reasonable back then i felt that my parents didn’t care about me. all i did was cry and i dreaded every time we visited them. but thankfully we gradually reduced the time we visited them n i didn’t have to endure anything more.

i know this isn’t as bad as my other abuse experiences i have read on this site, but i can’t help but wonder if this has affected me in someway. i had posted another question regarding my messed up sexual fantasies and i wonder if this is a cause for it. because as messed up as it is i have mastrubated about this man sexually abusing me and many of my other fantasies are also based on men using me. i feel disgusted by the things that trigger my orgasm. a much more detailed description of the latter is there on the other problem i posted and i hope you’ll be patient and kind enough to read them both.
thank you.

A: Unwanted touch is unwanted touch. This man violated your sense of personal space. As a young child, you couldn’t understand sexuality but you could sense that something was wrong. It’s positive that your parents did listen to you and that the family gradually stopped visiting.

As for the masturbating: Often young children do what is called a repetition compulsion. They repeatedly play about or imagine something bad that happened to them as a way to try to make sense of it. Unfortunately, the intrusion by this man got connected for you with sexual feelings.

And also unfortunately, the more you masturbate to fantasies of this man, the more you will probably do it. Orgasm is a powerful feeling of pleasure and release. In your case, it is reinforcing the masturbatory behavior. You need to find another fantasy that arouses you and substitute it for the ones you’ve been using.

This is important. If you don’t separate sex from an abusive fantasy, it will be difficult to have an intimate, loving, physical relationship with someone you love.

I wish you well.
Dr. Marie

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