When I was 5 or 6 years old, my neighbor and I started imitating sexual things we had seen on TV. No one had ever explained any of it to us. My parents were never home, and the most anyone ever said about what I was seeing was that it was "wrong." I was the one who suggested we try it. We both felt uncomfortable when we did, and I told her we should stop. But I still feel sick about it. I told my mom and she hit me. Then I went back to my neighbor's house and she greeted me with a smile, asking about the "game," but when I told her we should stop because it was wrong, she pulled away. We were so proud thinking we knew everything, but we really had no idea what we were doing. Why did I show her that? I feel disgusted with myself.

Thank you for reaching out to us. It sounds like what happened between you and your neighbor, at five and six years old, was sexual play rooted in curiosity and imitation, not predation or something that tells us anything dark about who you were or who you are. Children at that age do not have the cognitive or emotional architecture to understand sexuality. What they do have is curiosity, a drive to imitate, and absolutely no filter when adults are not explaining what they are seeing. Research in child development is clear that sexual curiosity and exploratory play between same-age children is a documented, normal part of development. What was not normal was what surrounded it...adult content left on in an unsupervised home, no adults who could explain what you were seeing in a safe way, and then a mother who responded to your reaching out with physical punishment instead of care.

The pride you both felt, that sense of thinking you knew something grown-up, is completely recognizable. Children often act confident about things they do not understand, especially when a topic feels adult and off-limits. You were two kids trying to make sense of something way too big for either of you, handed to you by a world that was supposed to protect you from it. There is something worth holding gently about that, for both of you.

What is really worth sitting with is that you were the one who stopped it. You felt discomfort, you noticed your friend's reaction, you named it, and you ended it. Then when she smiled and asked to continue, you held the line even after your mother's response had already taught you that speaking up brought pain. At five or six years old. The disgust you feel is not evidence of guilt. It is what happens when an experience gets met with shame and punishment instead of gentle correction, and the nervous system files it away as something to feel bad about forever. Shame also has a way of distorting memory, making the past feel more deliberate or more wrong than it actually was. The disgust is not telling you the truth about who you were.

Your mother hitting you when you came to her in confusion and honesty added another layer onto something you were already struggling to carry. That response taught you that your instincts about something being wrong were dangerous to voice. The shame got attached to you when it belonged to the circumstances around you.

If this memory keeps returning with the same weight, a trauma-informed therapist would be worth seeking out. If therapy is not accessible right now, consider writing a letter to your six-year-old self. Not to go over what happened again, but simply to say what should have been said to her then. What did that child need to hear? Sometimes putting that on paper begins to shift something.

The shame you are carrying belongs to the circumstances that exposed a child to adult content without guidance, not to the child who was trying to make sense of what she saw. You knew to stop. You have always known more than you are giving yourself credit for.