When I was around 8 years old, an older cousin who was 3 to 4 years older than me forced me into sexual contact that continued for several years. I did not want it. I remember pretending to be asleep hoping she would stop, and crying, hoping she would notice. But sometimes I also enjoyed it, and I carry so much shame about that. It happened with more than one person around that time in my life. Was something wrong with me as a kid?

Thank you for asking this. Sitting with these questions alone for any length of time is exhausting, and reaching out takes more strength than most people realize.

To answer your question directly...nothing was wrong with you. Nothing at all.

What you experienced sounds like child-on-child sexual abuse, sometimes referred to as COCSA. Research suggests it is far more common than people realize, which means the silence and shame around it are also far more common than they should be. Many survivors of COCSA spend years wondering exactly what you are wondering, and most never hear a clear answer. Being pressured into sexual contact as a child, not wanting it, trying to avoid it...that is not a reflection of your character. It is a reflection of a situation you had no real power to change.

Your cousin was also young. Holding that truth alongside your own experience is one of the harder parts of COCSA, because it does not fit the simple story we tend to tell about harm. Children who initiate sexual contact with other children are often acting out of their own confusion, their own exposure to sexual material or abuse, or simply a developmental misunderstanding of boundaries. That does not erase what you experienced, and it does not mean what happened to you was acceptable. Both things are true at once: your cousin may not have fully understood the harm being caused, and you were still harmed. You do not have to choose between those two realities.

Now, about the physical response...the times your body reacted in a way that felt confusing or pleasurable. Shame around a physical response is one of the most common and least discussed parts of childhood sexual abuse, and it is the piece that most often convinces survivors that something was uniquely wrong with them. What we know clinically is that the body responds to physical stimulation automatically. A physical response is a neurological reflex, not consent, not desire, and not a verdict on who you are. Children have no framework for understanding why their body responds the way it does, and that confusion tends to calcify into shame over time. That shame is not yours to carry.

The fact that more than one person was involved during that period of your life is also not a sign of a flaw in you. Children who are already in vulnerable situations are at higher risk of further harm. That is a pattern documented consistently in the research on childhood trauma. It speaks to your circumstances, not your worth.

When you feel ready, a trauma-informed therapist who has experience specifically with COCSA can be a genuinely helpful place to bring all of this. Not to fix something broken, but to finally have a space where the full complexity of what you lived through is understood and taken seriously.

You were a child navigating something no child should have to navigate. You deserved protection then, and you deserve support now.