Someone touched me repeatedly over the course of seven years. They always made it seem like a joke, and the friends who were around when it happened didn't seem bothered by it, so I've spent a long time questioning whether it was real or whether it counts. The touching was things like shoulder massages, standing uncomfortably close to my face. It wasn't overtly sexual. Can it still be classed as sexual harassment? I've recently started talking about it with a therapist, and I'm noticing something confusing happening. Feelings I had toward the original person, including something that felt like love alongside anger and hopelessness and confusion, seem to be coming up again but getting projected onto my therapist, even though I know they are safe and nothing like that person. Is this normal? And I'm sorry if any of this sounds silly.

Nothing about what you're carrying sounds silly. The fact that it took years and involves touches that were framed as casual, with witnesses who shrugged it off, makes it harder to name and harder to trust your own read on, not easier.

To answer your first question, sexual harassment does not require overtly sexual touching to be real or to qualify legally or clinically. What you're describing, repeated physical contact over seven years, closer-than-wanted proximity, contact that happened without your consent and was minimized when you reacted to it, fits the pattern. Unwanted physical contact that targets a person's body, however it's framed by the person doing it, can constitute harassment. The "joking" framing is actually one of the most commonly documented ways that people who cause harm protect themselves from accountability while continuing the behavior. It shifts the burden onto you to either tolerate it or be the one who overreacted. And when bystanders don't react, it compounds that confusion because it can make you wonder whether your perception was off. It wasn't. The duration alone, seven years, tells you this was not accidental or incidental. You are allowed to name it for what it was to you, regardless of how others around you responded.

Now, what you're describing with your therapist has a name. It's called transference and it is one of the most well-documented phenomena in trauma therapy. Transference happens when feelings, patterns, or expectations you developed in a significant past relationship get activated by a current relationship, often without you consciously choosing it. When the original relationship involved someone who had power over you, who made you feel confused about love and fear and anger all at once, it makes complete sense that your nervous system would start reaching for those same maps when you're in another room where someone has a certain kind of authority over you and you're being vulnerable.

The fact that it's your therapist doesn't mean therapy is dangerous or that something is going wrong. It actually often means the opposite. Your system is starting to surface the material that needs to be worked through, and the therapeutic relationship is becoming real enough for those feelings to attach to. What you're experiencing is uncomfortable and disorienting, and it is also a clinically recognized part of healing from relational harm.

The most useful thing you can do right now is tell your therapist exactly what you told us here. Many therapists actively want to work with transference directly because it gives both of you a live, real-time window into what happened, not just a historical account. A therapist who is skilled in trauma will not be rattled by this. Naming it out loud in the room is one of the most powerful things you can do with it.