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Hi, So for some reason over the past few days I have been rembering random things from my early childhood (preschool to kindergarten). I’m currently 17 and most of the memories that are coming back to me are things I had never given much consideration to or had long since forgotten until now. I also wrote a post in the “sexuality issues” forum but I’m not sure these memories are related to the subject of that post. Some brief insight to my life before I share my memories: I’m a 17 year old male, currently living with my dad. I was raised by two loving parents but two years ago I lost my mom to cancer ( I was 15). Ok, now for the memories, and I apologize in advance if some of these seem bizarre. When I was in preschool, my family took in a foster child. She was about my age and she stayed with us for a few years. I have memories of pushing her around and bullying her to an extent (which I now feel pretty bad about) but I think it was due to jealousy of having a new child in the house, and I never really hurt her, I could just be mean. And for the most part we actually got along fairly well. Now here’s where I’m confused; I remember “experimenting” with her in some fairly innocent ways like kissing, hugging, etc. but now that I reflect I think I also displayed some abnormal sexual behaviors toward her. For example, we kissed once, but I remember trying to put my tongue in her mouth. Or there was a time where we took our pants off and got in my bed and rubbed our legs together. I’m not sure if this was 100% innocent or if I was trying to gain some sort of sexual satisfaction out of it, even though I was only 4 or 5. However these aren’t what concern me most. We were playing upstairs by ourselves once and somehow we ended up naked. I had an erection and I remember we tried to fit it into her... you know what. We didn’t succeed and thankfully gave up. This is confusing to me as I’m not sure where I learned this behavior, as being so young my dad had not yet explained to me how sex worked. I got quite a few erections as a kid which I realize is fairly normal, and while I didn’t masturbate I would touch my penis a lot and I remember feeling some form of something similar to arousal. I remember seeing my mom naked once and trying to touch her vagina, but she scolded me and so I stopped. I also would take my pants off and rub my legs on my moms, and once I tried to take off my underpants and rub on her, but she told me no. Are these things normal?? When I was older and my dad gave me the sex talk, I got scared that he was going to show me his penis and I felt pretty uncomfortable and nervous. Of course he didn’t, and my day was normal after that. Also when I was younger, I’d get really scared at night. This fear was something I’d completely forgotten about until very recently. When I was young, I was scared of being either upstairs alone, or downstairs alone. And when I say scared, I mean i HATED it. It scared me sh*tless and I don’t know why. I would also get really scared when I was in bed. I know being scared of the dark is really common for kids, but I would get so scared that I was afraid to move or open my eyes. I was paralyzed with fear and would feel like someone was watching me. I even imagined that if I left my hands out from under the covers as I slept, a man would come to steal my hands. Recently this feeling of paralyzing fear has come back, and as I lay in my bed I am scared to move and feel as though someone is watching me, or that someone is standing over me. Everything I hear when I’m this scared seems enhanced. The sound of my dad in the hallway, the sound of the TV in the other room. Even the other night I fell asleep on the couch and my dad came to wake me up. His dark shadow standing over me made me uneasy. I realize I rambling now, but there’s a few more memories that are sticking out to me. In 1st/2nd grade I got a lot of intrusive thoughts about hurting my family members or my dog. I felt deep guilt and shame during this time and remember sitting in class thinking “nobody here knows what I’m thinking and going through, nobody can help me”. I remember camping with my dad and being scared of him when I was younger, thinking he was going to attack me with a hatchet. I don’t know why I feared this, it’s totally irrational. Lastly, I remember not liking it when my mom wore glasses when I was young. I thought they made her look angry and she didn’t seem like my mom, it made me feel uneasy. Or when my mom would come back from a Halloween party dressed in a costume, I didn’t like it when she’d give me a kiss because again; she didn’t seem like my mom and it made me nervous. Sorry for this rambling post, I’m just confused as to why I’m suddenly remembering all these things and they’ve been causing me quite a bit of stress as a lot of them seem strange to me now. Is it normal for teens to randomly remember things from their childhood? I feel like there’s something important I’m forgetting but I’m not sure what it is or if I’m just overthinking.

Hello, I don't know if anyone is seeing this but if so please help me. I'm a 14 year old girl from America and I masturbate about 2-4 times a day on average, watch porn, and am an overall horny person. It's basically constant like I just cannot get over the horniness. I have no memory (even a repressed one) of being molested, raped, or touched at all. Yet I feel so sexually messed up. I started masturbating when I was 4 (I didn't know what I was doing) when I was in preschool me and this other girl would sneak off to the bathroom and touch each other. I now find it really weird and perverted even though I didn't know what I was doing. My parents had to be notified about it once the teachers found out and I pretend like I don't remember it but I definitely do. It's become increasingly worse over the years too. I used to just masturbate regularly but in the year or two I've been doing it to porn. I started out on Instagram with "tame stuff" like dick pics, booty pics, etc. then it just got increasingly worse. One day I was in the bathroom doing it and I came across actual child porn. It was an adult man having sex with a child. I was repulsed yet I couldn't help but be aroused. I quickly masturbated to it to relieve myself and then reported it over and over again to make myself feel better. I still feel ashamed and like an awful pervert for even stumbling across it. I've never seen anything like that ever again thank god but I still get the yearning for more "heavy stuff" like it. I've started watching porn on Pornhub for their large selection. I find myself searching up things like "Forceful gangbang", "Kidnapping", "Real virgins", etc. but it takes me a while to get off on those. What really brought me to realize how disgusting I am is when the other day I was watching a documentary about the youngest sex offenders in America and one of them, Garrett I think is his name...raped his sister multiple times over the course of 4 years. I tried to stop myself but I couldn't and I masturbated, like always I felt the shame and disgust wash over me. It should I mean that is absolutely disgusting why would I do that??? I don't know but the fantasies don't stop there. I have constant fantasies about the worse stuff and I just hate myself for it. I feel like a disgusting pervert even thought I'm a girl and I would NEVER do any of the stuff I fantasize about. I'm also a virgin so I've never had any actual experience so I literally have no idea why I'm so messed up. If you can please help me understand why I'm like this.

Hi everyone, I've been ignoring this problem for a long time, let sleeping dogs lie etc., but that hasn't been working out so great. My boyfriend and I have been together for 8 years. We have had our ups and downs, have managed to overcome most of them, some of our issues still need to be ironed out. Anyway, I met his best friend shortly after we started dating in 2007, and we've developed our own friendship over the years, with the encouragement of my boyfriend. Problem is, I'm pretty sure his friend has at various times had feelings for me, and honestly I've had a recurring thing for him since maybe 2012. If I wait it out long enough/suppress it the feelings fade. But the problem is they *always* resurface. It's starting to eat me up inside... I've tried avoiding him but my boyfriend keeps encouraging that we should talk etc. After a good 10 months of not speaking with the friend, we've started talking again these past few weeks (nothing major, really simple stuff) and of course my feelings are all over the place, once again. I don't know what to do... I don't want to be unfair to anyone or cause tension in their friendship by telling anyone about this. I've cycled through these feelings 5 or 6 times in the past 3 years. I don't know what to do. Should I talk to the friend about my feelings or is it better if I continue keeping this to myself? The thing is I don't know if keeping it to myself is ever going to be a permanent solution since the feelings continue to resurface. I believe there is a difference between being truthful about how you feel and working through it vs acting on those feelings. I don't want to do anything inappropriate and I'm not looking for an excuse to do so. I just don't know how to deal with this and I'm feeing very confused and overwhelmed.

There's something wrong with me. I feel like I want to slip away and I barely feel real anymore. I don't know if I will make it through this summer.

I would like to start this off by saying thank you to whoever chooses to read it. Ever since i was a young boy my family, mom more than the others, told me that i would grow up to be or do something great. These words sort of haunt me in a way, because i'm not doing or being anything great. Everyone i meet tells me they see compassion in me and that i am just genuinely a kind person. Well for the most part at least. I prided myself on being that kind of person for a long time, but not so much anymore. I have sort of given up. My father died when i was four years old but i didn't take it too hard. We weren't close (i hardly ever saw him) and i didn't have a grasp on what it really meant to die yet, but my mom was devastated. I remember watching her cry for some time. She eventually moved on though. After he died we moved out to New Orleans (from Tucson, AZ). That was his home town and it is where him and my mom originally met. We lived there for two years, during i became really close to my cousin who was a year older than me. He was kinda like the older brother i didn't have (I had a little sister 3 and a half years younger than me at the time). But before Hurricane Katrina hit my mom had me move back out to Tucson with my grandmother. She came home a while after i did so i lived with my uncle, grandma, sister, and two cousins who were both younger than me. Nothing really bad happens for a while and life is going on smooth. But my mom eventually started dating again When she got back to Tucson and when i was about half way though my fifth grade year she started dating the man who is my step father now. When i first met him he seemed cool and fun. I was already sorta a punk rock kid because that's what my mom was into, but he furthered my ambition for it. I lived on and off with my mom for the rest of the year and then fully moved in with her and step father. Before i moved in there was really no domestic violence or abuse, maybe like one or two verbal fights. But after i moved in with them full time with my little sister everything started taking a turn for the worst. They fought all the time, weather it just be them yelling or pushing or shoving, whatever. They were at it constantly. It just never got better and gradually got worse and worse. I was failing basically everything at school in sixth grade because i hated the school more than anything else. I got bullied a lot when i first arrived there and it sort of changed who i was. The innocent child who was a fifth grader living in a nice neighborhood was lost to this school. I was one of few white kids there so naturally i was going to catch some grief. But the other white kids there were already somewhat hardened because they had lived in the area and grew up there. Me, on the other hand, thought that everyone still played pretend games at lunch and ran around like little kids. Eventually after getting picked on so much, being the person that i was, i stood up to them and as a result i got in many fights. That's the big game changer. You really can get prepared for what it feels like to get punched in the face for the first time, but i had somewhat of an anger management issue (still do in respect to being hit) and lost it. I ended up winning that first fight and it gave me some amount of pride in myself which was new. I got in quite a few more fights thought that year and got suspended more than once for it. That aside this whole time my home life is hard as well. My parents were still fighting all the damn time. I immersed myself into video games and it helped alot. But the fights were starting to get serious at this point. There was one that i remember clearly. They were getting out of hand, throwing and breaking things, so my little sister came into my room crying. I calmed her down but then i heard my mom start to scream from the living room. That worried me and my little sister started to freak out again. I told her it was going to be alright and that i would go see if everything was ok. I opened my door and walked around the corner to the living room and my step dad had my mom in a chock hold and a knife to her neck. He looked at me and yelled to get back in my room so i did so immediately. It eventually died down because he left to go to a friends house like usual. Time went on hectic like that for some time until one summer when i wen't to go visit my family in New Orleans. When me and my little sister got off the plane to get driven home i felt something was wrong. There is always sort of a lingering heaviness when someone is holding onto bad news. We went to my uncles house instead of home and when i got inside i could feel the thick angst on the air. There were a lot of people there, almost like a party. And then we gathered everyone up in the living room for the news to be announced. my mother had died while i was away. My two cousins that were there and my little sister immediately burst into tiers and crying. Whoever, i knew for quite some time that she was going to die soon. I almost prepared myself mentally for the encounter. I ended up breaking and let out some tears so i went outside to gather myself. I wanted to be the one not to cry, the one that everyone could lean on and cry to. So i went back in with my new demeanor ready to face them and to my surprise i stopped caring. I lost the urge to cry altogether. The next year at school was rough. I moved back in with my grandma and attended the middle school there. I guess the thing to to that year was to add "your mom" to everything. That was horrible for me and i almost got into more fights, but i was able to keep my cool for the year and not lose it with anyone. Time passed seemingly effortless. And before i knew it i was in high school. Nothing to big happens here. I had a crush on a girl since seventh grade but get turned down pretty bad freshman year. I tired my luck with her again sometime sophomore year too. That ruined dating for me and i still don't try to make romantic relations anymore. Then i start smoking pot late freshman year, but not because i was depressed. I thought it was fun for a time, but that lost its charm and I went back my my online gaming. All this time the gaming helped keep me together. I got pretty good at Halo Reach for the Xbox 360 and it gave me some self worth (i ended up switching to computer gaming as of now). I ended up failing a bunch of classes and had to go to a credit retrial school. And here i am about to finish junior year. My problem is that i don't care about much anymore. I feel apathy for almost everything. I always say i'm just lazy but lately i have been questioning that. My friend from school was talking in my group about how i never come to school and he said something like "yeah, the difference between you and -john- is that john is lazy by choice, but your lazy by nature." That got me thinking really hard about why i just don't give a damn. I find myself thinking about concepts to big for myself to handle without any proper education. Like about personal morals and social standards. And I can't help but view myself as a psychopath sometimes. I don't even get fazed by these sick stories of people raping their own kids and drowning puppies in rivers. Every once in a while it gets to me but only briefly. I wonder where the person i was when everyone had hopes that i could be something went. That kind hearted, uplifting, energetic kid who was always smiling. I have become the vessel of lost memories and confused thoughts. My original intent with this post was to see if anyone could identify a mental problem or state i hold but now i'm not sure. People in my family have told me i seem depressed but i honestly don't know what depression is supposed to feel like. I got prescribed vyavanse to help me focus in school and they really help. I get this feeling of motivation that i lack when i'm off of them but when they wear off its like waking up from a good dream that you wanted to go on forever. I wish I knew what i wanted. i wish I knew what i need to do. I wish I had all the answers. I wish someone else had all the answers too. But the sad reality of this all is that it's unrealistic to hope that someone will be able to help me get away from the place i'm stuck in and change the way i am just based off this post. Don't get me wrong though, I appreciate any feed back. i would love to hear all of your opinions, and thank you for reading. ~TheLonelyReaper

I dont really know how to communicate. I like to pretend like I know what the normal protocol is, but that's all it is- pretending. So I'm just gonna start rambling about whats on my mind. no one needs to listen- no one needs to care. I just like the idea of talking- even if its into a void. anyways, how to begin... how about like this? I don't go out ever. I don't really know how to. I'm 22 years old and I've spent virtually all of it hiding wherever I can to avoid people. Im not entirely sure why- I rather like most peoples company. But I also feel excluded- sorta like a drifter. I don't really have any friends- aside from a small handful. I don't really have any talents either. I'm apparently disabled- working memory and audio processing in the 12th percentile. So I wasn't even allowed to do normal high school courses. Due to the lack of a high school education, and profoundly poor language use skills, most people think im a retard. However, I did a bunch of correspondence courses and now attend uoft with a 4.0 GPA. To be blunt tho, its still not very good. I only do 3 half course equivalents (since accessibility wont let me do more due to the working memory problem), so I don't know if it really counts- and ive had a lot of extensions due to various suicide attempts and visits to the psych ward. Plus, I don't consider any of my courses terribly impressive- its just intro to computer programming (not computer science- but programming), modern symbolic logic (a bird course if you have half a fucking brain), intro to cognitive science, and intro to linguistics (again, a bird course). I would really love to do some hard classes that are really impressive- but to do anything worthwhile, I need calculus- and to get calculus, I still have to get my high school math credits. and don't even get me started on how science illiterate I am. I have a deep theoretical understanding of evolution- but a working knowledge of chemistry and anatomy that's no better than a grade 8 student. I am deeply ashamed of this fact, but find it very hard to focus on any of this. Its not that I don't care about he world around me- I do. and Ive read countless books and academic articles on very specific, niche topics. but I have very little interest in most of the specifics about the world around me. and even less interest in politics. I don't even have an interest in math. I just like the idea of being really good at something ppl find hard. I should mention that I got a 90 in computer programming and so far about a 92 in logic (I got 97 in my first first logic midterm but fucked up the second and got 86). I should also mention that I am very vain and if anyone tells me that's a god mark, I will lose my temper and tell them to fuck off. I don't fucking care what you "think" is a good mark- I care what actually is a good fucking mark- a graduate school level good mark. The kinda mark you cant get just by studying hard- but by actually having talent. I should also mention that a lot of people hate me probably for this reason. Sorry if that rant was insensitive to you. truth be told, I don't actually know what its like put in the effort and not yield the reward. in fact, I'm starting to believe that my courses are too easy- that if you put in the effort, you will always yield the reward. and anyone who fails to get a mark equivalent to mine is just a fucking lazy idiot who deserves none of my sympathy. Yes, I am not a nice person- its something I'm trying to work on. Its also made it harder for me to tolerate people who come to these forums to complain about how ugly or unsuccessful they are. Its hard for me to think of anything other than that they aren't trying hard enough to make themselves happy. I mean, for each person here that thinks they are a loser, i probably consider you to be more successful than at least one person who actually does think they are "successful". I mean, most people can sleep at night with a shitty job and a shitty degree from York with shitty marks, and a shitty spouse that's not very attractive or successful themselves. Well, that's my rant.

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