Hey everyone. For the first time in 15 years (I'm 26 now) I'm trying to confront how I feel about the brief experimenting I did as an 11 year old to my 8-ish year old brother. I never even considered ever telling another soul until a few days ago when in a pit of anxiety and obsessive thinking, the memories hit me in a way they never have before.
I've spent my whole life ignoring the memories because I never had ill-intentions as a clueless child and always thought I'd just keep the secret forever because it was terrible and embarrassing to ever think about. So today for the first time in my life, I decided to Google it trying to convince myself I'm not a disgusting PoS, because looking back, it SEEMS gross and horrible. I've had severe anxiety/depression my whole life and this year discovered the depth of my OCD-thinking, and suddenly out of nowhere I got hit with a train of guilt and disgust at my actions that I feel like I'm in a surreal dream. Like suddenly after 15 years, it's all I can think about recently.
All I did, two different times, was convince my brother to let me try kissing him on the mouth. I was curious I guess? I didn't understand anything about sex, none of my friends ever talked about anything... I was genuinely naive and clueless, but seeing or listening to media that I shouldn't have been made me curious or something. I didn't like it, he didn't want to do it... and I never did it again. Or considered it. Or even thought about it, as a kid. I was curious. I tried. He said no after. 11 year old me accepted no as an answer after that. I think I knew I wasn't supposed to have done what I did, but again... I think it was because I didn't understand sex and it had this "forbidden" quality to it that made me afraid, like I'd be in trouble for being curious about things I wasn't supposed to know about yet.
I guess I'm terrified to find out that I'm some kind of abuser, even though those actions never followed me in the rest of my life. In fact, I was terrified of relationships and sex. My vague clueless curiosity as a kid just turned into real fear through highschool and only up until a few years ago did I ever really begin to feel comfortable with myself or relationships. I didn't know what any of it was like, so the only male friend around my age was my brother to test something out on. I keep reading how common stuff like this is, but it hasn't made me feel any better so far. I otherwise had a perfectly normal relationship with my brother, mostly that he annoyed the hell out of me until we were both adults and I was so happy to finally be able to be friends with him. We never talked about it and I've always been afraid that it scarred him or something.
On top of it all, I feel like I'm keeping some huge disgusting secret from my boyfriend. It's a committed relationship and he knows nearly everything about me, but here I am freaking out lately and I can't tell him why because I'm just imagining him being disgusted and grossed out and it ruining the way he views me.
I'm working on finding a new therapist lately, so eventually I'll try to bring it up to a professional, but until then... any thoughts on the subject would be greatly appreciated, or respected research, experiences, ect. I don't know how to convince myself that I wasn't accidentally a clueless child predator. All I wanted to know was what kissing was like, and I f**king hate myself for doing that to him and I'm scared.