NSFW Warning and Trigger Warning for CSA and Grooming
I 19(afab) am starting to realize that some of the things that happened in my childhood were not okay and I’m not sure how to cope with it.
To start, I have an uncle (not related by blood) who I disclosed to at 14 or 15 that I was nonbinary. At the time I was staying at their house for a week during the summer because I liked staying with my aunt and him as a mini vacation. I had also confided in him the year prior about my issues with self harm and cutting.
For context, he is incredibly autistic (I say this as someone diagnosed with autism) and suffered CSA as a young child and says he hates pedophiles. He’s always been odd and difficult to be around because he can never read the room or understand when something is appropriate or not (like talking about sex stuff around the family dinner table inappropriate). As a child I found him fun to be around and the “cool uncle” but now as a 19 year old, I’ve started seeing him much differently.
After I came out to him, the conversation got really uncomfortable really fast. He started talking about how he knew trans people and talked about dysphoria in really weird ways. He started talking about how he viewed himself as nonbinary because he was aroused by touching his rectum and that when he was younger he cut the tip of his penis off. I was obviously really grossed out as I was a rather sheltered kid and was never really taught about sexual stuff, but I was really timid and didn’t know how to get him to stop talking. At some point he proposed this thing that doctors did where they had people with dysphoria stand in front of the mirror naked and draw with a marker what they wanted to change. Eventually, he got me to strip and do the exercise while he watched me. I recall him touching somewhere but I don’t remember where. It could’ve been my arm or my breast or my leg, I still don’t know. Either way he assured me that he was trained to be a massage therapist and “wouldn’t get hard from seeing someone naked.” After that, he told me he would help me bind my chest and did so with some first aid tape. He obviously had to touch me while doing so which only made me feel more weird about the whole situation.
The day after that, things got worse. He said he would buy me a packer, which I knew about obviously, but didn’t really want (I’ve never had dysphoria down there). Either way and despite me trying to tell him no, I ended up in a sex shop with him and he bought me a dildo and strap on but shielded his eyes from looking at what I picked because “that would be weird haha” even though he could obviously see it. After that he insisted on helping me put it on but I managed to refuse.
During this week or so I stayed there he also confessed that he was raped multiple times as a child and hates pedophiles. He also talked about having sex with men as an adult in order to cope with his trauma. Afterwards he added that I couldn’t share this with anyone (not even his wife) as he’d never told anyone any of this and it was a secret just between us.
Just a couple years ago when I was 17 I learned that he also attempted to take a shower with me when I was much younger in front of my stepfather, but was chastised by my aunt as if he was asking a stupid question. My stepfather himself told me this after trauma dumping about how horrible of a father he was to me because of his own childhood experience with CSA. He told me about being assaulted as a child by adults and other children in graphic detail. Apparently this was again stuff that he had never told to anyone else, including his parents and my mom. He ended the talk by saying that he was just glad he never “touched me” and I’m still not sure if he was joking or not.
Now that I’m older I don’t know what to do. I live with my grandparents now who live right next to my aunt and uncle (2 minute walking distance) and I see him multiple times a week at minimum. They also now have a small child that struggles mentally. To this day I’ve never said anything to anyone about him even though I feel increasingly uncomfortable whenever he’s around. I’ve never viewed anything he did as malicious, with ill intent, or even sexual intent. He’s always had issues discerning right and wrong when he interacts with others but it still feels so gross to me regardless.
TLDR: my uncle did some really uncomfortable things with me as a teenager and I’m not sure if I’m overreacting. My step father also made some uncomfortable remarks to me at 17. Both adult men trauma dumped to me before their parents or wives when I was underage and I still don’t know how to cope with how grossed out I feel.
Comments
You’re not overreacting, I promise. You were a minor, and it was your uncle’s and stepfather’s jobs to protect you rather than use you for emotional support. It is never okay for adults to trauma dump to minors.
Additionally, your uncle’s issues discerning socially-appropriate behaviors do not exempt him from being a creep — his intentions do not change the (extremely understandable!) impact his actions had on you. He is also old enough to have learned right from wrong at this point.