--- title: When I was 17, I engaged in sexual text conversations with a 13-year-old girl. Yes, I knew it was wrong. I used every available rationalization to convince myself that it was okay (such as my parents' relationship and friends who had dated older guys). What can I do to make amends for this? It never happened again, but I feel that no matter how much I suffer, it isn't enough. ~ Our Wave Community description:

Thank you for sharing. Before we talk about making amends, I want to appreciate the ownership you are sharing here. What you did was harmful. A 13-year-old... url: https://community.ourwave.org/en/answer/when-i-was-17-i-engaged-in-sexual-text-conversations-with-a-13-year-old-girl-yes-i-knew-it-was-wrong-i-used-every-available-rationalization-to-convince-myself-that-it-was-okay-such-as-my-parents-relat-960.md --- {{customAnalyticsScripts}} [\[Image: Our Wave Logo\]\[Image: Our Wave Logo\]](/en/) [ Community ](/en/)[ Questions & Answers ](/en/learn)[ Find Support ](/en/resources) Share story Post a message 0 Users 0 Views 0 Reactions 0 Stories read ##### Need to take a break? 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Send it to us 🇧🇷 # When I was 17, I engaged in sexual text conversations with a 13-year-old girl. Yes, I knew it was wrong. I used every available rationalization to convince myself that it was okay (such as my parents' relationship and friends who had dated older guys). What can I do to make amends for this? It never happened again, but I feel that no matter how much I suffer, it isn't enough. \[Image: Dr. Laura\] Answer by **Dr. Laura** PhD Mental Health Nurse & Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner Topics:[Making sense of childhood experiences](/en/learn?tags=making-sense-of-childhood-experiences) Thank you for sharing. Before we talk about making amends, I want to appreciate the ownership you are sharing here. What you did was harmful. A 13-year-old cannot consent to sexual conversations with a 17-year-old. The reasons you gave yourself at the time, however understandable for a teenager trying to make something feel okay, did not change that reality. You knew it was wrong then and it sounds like you see that more clearly now. The feeling that no amount of suffering will ever be enough is not the same thing as accountability. From the inside, they can feel identical, but they are actually doing very different things. Real accountability looks outward. It asks: what was the impact of what I did, what can I do to make sure I never cause this kind of harm again, and how do I live in a way that reflects what I now understand? Suffering without direction tends to loop back on itself. It does not produce anything that actually helps the person who was harmed, or the person who caused the harm. Punishment and healing are not the same thing, and staying locked in pain indefinitely does not repair what happened. It is also worth holding this piece of context, not as an excuse, but as something essential to understand. The teenage brain is still developing. It has not yet fully built the parts responsible for moral reasoning, impulse control, and understanding how our actions affect others. Research in developmental psychology, the study of how people grow and change over time, is clear on this. Being a teenager does not erase responsibility. It does help explain why a young person might talk themselves into overriding their own conscience, and that context matters for how you understand yourself, not for making what happened seem smaller than it was. Making amends in situations like this is genuinely complicated, and it deserves careful thought. Reaching out directly to the person you harmed is almost never the right first step, and often it is not the right step at all. Contacting someone who experienced harm, especially years later, can bring something back into their life that they may have worked hard to move past. It also centers your need for resolution rather than their wellbeing. The most important work right now is internal. That work begins with understanding what happened and why. A therapist with experience in sexual harm, particularly one familiar with adolescent development and the dynamics of online sexual harm, can help you work through this in ways that are structured and honest. If professional therapy feels out of reach right now, consider reaching out to [Stop It Now](https://community.ourwave.org/_external/link?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.stopitnow.org%2Fhelp-guidance%2Fget-help-now&resourceId=non_specific&localeId=en&countryId=us&src=answer&questionId=2a633d75-ebc0-4022-b4d0-a5202d9e48d1&sig=7f0d481101d79dab4afb418df6ec9dc726169d0c4987baafde7b44c3aa7ff601) . They offer free and confidential support specifically for people processing harm they have caused, including situations that happened years ago. They are not there to shame you. They are there to help you understand what happened and how to move forward responsibly. The other part of making amends, when direct contact is not appropriate, is living differently. It means being someone who understands the harm of sexualizing young people and who does not contribute to it in any form. It means being honest in your relationships. It means, if you are ever in a position to do so safely and without making it about yourself, supporting organizations that work on child safety and prevention. Many people who have caused harm find meaning in quiet, consistent contributions to prevention, whether that is supporting such organizations, learning about healthy development and consent, or simply committing to being someone who models respect and accountability in their daily life. It is about choosing, over and over, to do less harm in the world than you did during that time. The idea that you should suffer indefinitely is not accountability. It is a way of staying stuck. Growth and change are possible, and that is grounded in what we know about human behavior and the capacity to do things differently. You have already done one of the hardest things, which is to look at what happened without flinching and ask what it requires of you. You are welcome to explore the Our Wave community at ourwave.org, where people grapple honestly with harm, healing, and responsibility in all its forms. You are not alone in carrying this, and you do not have to figure out the path forward by yourself. Random Question 0 Upvote(s) Upvote(s) [ 0 Comment(s) Comment(s) ](/en/answer/when-i-was-17-i-engaged-in-sexual-text-conversations-with-a-13-year-old-girl-yes-i-knew-it-was-wrong-i-used-every-available-rationalization-to-convince-myself-that-it-was-okay-such-as-my-parents-relat-960#comments) ### Discard message? You have a comment in progress, are you sure you want to discard it? 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Name the following out loud: 5 – things you can see (you can look within the room and out of the window) 4 – things you can feel (what is in front of you that you can touch?) 3 – things you can hear 2 – things you can smell 1 – thing you like about yourself. Take a deep breath to end. From where you are sitting, look around for things that have a texture or are nice or interesting to look at. Hold an object in your hand and bring your full focus to it. Look at where shadows fall on parts of it or maybe where there are shapes that form within the object. Feel how heavy or light it is in your hand and what the surface texture feels like under your fingers (This can also be done with a pet if you have one). Take a deep breath to end. Ask yourself the following questions and answer them out loud: 1\. Where am I? 2\. What day of the week is today? 3\. What is today’s date? 4\. What is the current month? 5\. What is the current year? 6\. How old am I? 7\. What season is it? Take a deep breath to end. Put your right hand palm down on your left shoulder. Put your left hand palm down on your right shoulder. Choose a sentence that will strengthen you. For example: “I am powerful.” Say the sentence out loud first and pat your right hand on your left shoulder, then your left hand on your right shoulder. Alternate the patting. Do ten pats altogether, five on each side, each time repeating your sentences aloud. Take a deep breath to end. Cross your arms in front of you and draw them towards your chest. With your right hand, hold your left upper arm. With your left hand, hold your right upper arm. Squeeze gently, and pull your arms inwards. Hold the squeeze for a little while, finding the right amount of squeeze for you in this moment. Hold the tension and release. Then squeeze for a little while again and release. Stay like that for a moment. Take a deep breath to end. Try another grounding activity I feel grounded and ready