It's actually only been five days since I first thought I might have been abused as a child. I'm 20 now, taking some time off of college. I've been struggling with anxiety, panic attacks, self-harm and suicidal ideation for 5 years now. A couple of days ago, my doctor diagnosed me as severely depressed and referred me to a therapist - who again referred me to someone else. When my doctor asked me if I had any idea about the cause of my troubles I couldn't answer. However, the next day I suddenly had this flashback. The exact same flashback I've been for about 10 years now - a guy forcing himself on me while I was lying on the ground unable to move. I've always suppressed this scene from my memory as it was just too much too deal with when I was younger and I thought it must've been my fault or at the very least something I deserved.
The problem with this story is, over time I've been having so many flashbacks and nightmares about this, that at this point I'm not even sure it actually happened (My head tells me I over-dramatized the whole thing). Plus, I don't have a good memory regarding my childhood - I probably would've been between 5 and 9. Now, the guy in question is someone I shared a class with in elementary school, so he would've been at most one year my senior.
After reading some of your stories I'm just not sure if this actually deserves to be mentioned on this site, or if it was just some bad memory I've over-dramatized to not feel as ashamed.
Still, there's a lot of things that went on in my head that never really made sense to me. For instance, I've always had a crippling fear of going to the gynecologist. I thought I may get in trouble if he'd find out what I'd done or that he might tell me I was pregnant (which was pretty irrrational, since I had this fear from when I was about 9, so several years before I had my first period). Plus, I've always feared being intimate with someone. I've had several attempts to meet up with guys, starting relationships via SMS/Whatsapp but I keep panicking about actually meeting up with them.
I'm so tired of having to sort out my own memories. I just feel so ashamed of what has happened, I get nauseous whenever I let myself think about it for more than 10 seconds... So anyways, this is why I'm here. Maybe someone reading this has had a similar experience or maybe you just have some advice for someone having trouble sorting out her own thoughts. Either way, I appreciate whoever takes the time to read this and I hope this makes sense somehow. All I want is to understand what is going on in my head right now.
