u/Chemical-Cell6106

I’ve recently been trying to process something that happened with a male friend and it’s really affecting my mental health and my relationship.

Without going into every detail the situation involved unwanted sexual contact and behaviour that crossed my boundaries. Since then I’ve been anxious and unsure how to label what happened or how to deal with it emotionally.

The biggest issue now is that it’s impacting my relationship with my boyfriend. I feel distant and sometimes disconnected from him. I also feel guilty because I haven’t fully processed what happened but it’s affecting how I show up in the relationship.

I haven’t told many people about what happened yet and I’m struggling with how to process it and move forward. I’m not sure if I should be focusing on therapy how to talk about it with my boyfriend or how to stop it affecting my relationship so much.

I'm 17F I'm trying to understand something that happened with a male friend and whether it counts as sexual assault.

I’ve known him for a couple of years and he was a close friend. He was the only guy who would stay over and hang out in my room. He’s openly gay and my parents were comfortable with him being at my house.

We were alone in my room and things started off normally. He became more cuddly than usual, which felt a bit strange but not completely alarming at the time.

He then tried to kiss me. That felt out of character for him so I pulled away and asked what he was doing because I felt uncomfortable. He said he was just messing around It was awkward for a bit but we carried on hanging out.

Later, things escalated. He exposed himself to me and also touched me inappropriately on my chest and intimate areas.

I feel really confused about how to label what happened and whether it counts as sexual assault. I haven’t told many people yet and I’m struggling to make sense of it.