I struggle with this all the time, since when it happened I wasn't a child yet I wasn't an adult either. Rather, I was a minor teenager living on the street + engaging in survival sex with older men in order to stay alive. I talked about this with my counsellor recently. She started by asking me how I made money while living on the street. Despite that she and I had never talked about it before I just blurted out what happened. She was very supportive and encouraged me to look at myself in that situation as a boy rather than an adult. However, this is very hard for me since it is a challenge for me to rememeber how it felt to be a kid in general. Is this normal?

jls

I think not remembering how it felt to be a kid is very normal, there are many of us here that feel the same. You did what you had to do to survive.

Dusty

I don't remember what it was like being 14-16

Jls, varying degrees of memories of being a child are common in survivors.

I remember before and after. Not in between so much.

I don't remember much feeling like a kid either. As I kept surpressing feelings and memories, I remember being very angry when I was 14-16 and constantly got into trouble. In fact, I sought out things to do wrong like vandalism.

I was never a child and have no idea what that feels like. I have said all my life that I was born old.

I remember my childhood - every stinking bit of it, I just never felt like a kid. I was in perpetual survival mode all time.

I started turning tricks at fourteen, just after I escaped my 'familly home' and I continued to make my money that way until I was twenty eight.

Turning tricks was easy for me and a natural progression in my life. The violence, in all of its manifestations, that I grew up in set me up for a life on the streets. I couldn't believe at first that men were actually offering me money for what I had be forced to give for free when I was younger.

To survive on the streets at fourteen, you'd better be damn grown up. So no, I was never a kid, don't have a clue......