Child Abuse Story From Dan1
by Dan
(Northern California, USA)
I first want to thank you Darlene for having a website where we can all write down our thoughts of what happened to us victims so that we can get some of the weight off of our shoulders...my story is a little different from the ones I've read in this website.
My story starts when I was 7 years old. My mom had a friend that would drop off her 3-year-old son at our house so that my mom could babysit him while my mom's friend worked her nightshift. I really enjoyed him being with us. I would help my mom take care of him. I played with him a lot and I even tried to show him how to play the Sega. I admired him a lot. He always made me laugh. He would even grab the 2nd controller of the Sega and say he was helping kick butt in the video game. My mom babysat him 4 days a week: Mon - Thur. By the time I was 9 and he was 5, I began calling him my little friend. We understood each other a lot and I was glad he was my friend, especially since there wasn't any kids in the neighborhood for me to meet or play with.
My mom still took care of him up to the time he was 7 years old and I was 11. By that time we were more than friends, we were partners in crime. Even though he was a little kid, he was always there for me and I was there for him through good times and bad times. We weren't bad kids I would say, but we did do typical boy things like egg houses on Halloween, play ding dong ditch, picking fights with other boys our age, and even secretly taking a cigarette from my dad and going behind the shed to smoke it and see what it was like. He looked up to me a lot and I did the best I could to be a good friend.
We bonded a lot. Both our parents were glad we got along well. There were times when he even took the blame for something that I did. I also started doing the same for him. For awhile I was the one taking care of him when his mom would drop him off at my house because he would always hang out with me. Things were great. But something happened one day that I never in my young innocent mind thought would happen.
One day my little friend and I were riding our bikes around the neighborhood. We turned into a corner and I saw something on the ground right off the curve. I picked it up and my little friend was right next to me. We look at the content it had on it. It was a pornographic VHS box with the video still in it. We both knew well what it was too. We were both more excited about it because of the fact that it was the first pornographic material we've seen up close. We both agreed on not to tell anyone we had this for we would get in trouble if we were caught watching it. We both raced home and somehow managed to get it into my room. I locked my door and played the movie. We were both thrilled and we even felt "cool". We would watch it every time he came over, and I would hide it in my Pokemon themed room when he was gone. But I think we watched it a little more than we should have.
After a couple weeks we started getting curious and wanted to feel what it was like. So we decided to "experiment" with each other. We started to do small things like showing each other our private parts which soon led to us touching them. We didn't think anything at first. We would just laugh and continue on. Eventually it led us to the part where we both took off our pants and underwear and started to copy sexual acts from the movie. This went on for about 2 months. I always assumed that this was something all boys did eventually at least once in their life. All that ended that same year when my little friend and his family moved out of the Bay Area. I didn't see him a lot then. Maybe once or twice every other month when they would stop by. Once I didn't see him for a whole year.
A few years later I was in the 9th grade and I had my first health class. We learned about what sexual abuse was. I remember that day I went home locked myself in my room and cried badly while I called myself a rapist because of what I did with my little friend when I was younger. I felt dirty, I felt guilty, and I felt like a criminal. The more I would learn about sexual abuse and how it affects people the more horrible I would feel. During my mid and late teen years I would see my little friend now and then. I couldn't look at him in the eye a lot because I was so ashamed. I always wanted to talk to him about what we did when we were kids because I want to know if he's ok, but I'm too scared to bring it up. Or he might not even want to talk about it. We never quite talked about what we did when we were kids neither. I hated myself for what I did and I do not blame my little friend for willingly participating in the acts we did. I always told myself that it was my fault for letting those acts happen. I was the oldest one; I should have known better.
Today I am 20 years old and I still feel bad for what I did as a child. My little friend is not so little no more. He's now 16. And I saw him 4 month ago when he came to my house with his mom. There was not one time when I did not pray to god for forgiveness for what I did. When we were outside we talked about how long we knew each other and he asked me if we were related. I told him we weren't. He replied by saying, "Whether or not we are, I see you as my big brother." I felt like crying. That really honored me. I would hope that my friend would forgive me if I ever got the guts to ask him. Even if he did forgive me, I don't think I'd be able to forgive myself. I want to talk to him about what we did because I don't want him to ever feel like a victim, but I am too scared and ashamed to bring that up. I don't know what to do.
Thank You
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