When I was maybe 9 or 10, my older brother used to have his friends stay overnight at our house all the time. One night I woke up to one of them in particular laying on the floor next to my bed asleep. Of course, I had no idea why he was there, so my kid-brain decided he must have been interesting in reading the books I kept next to my bed, and he'd just fallen asleep there while reading. I woke him up and he ran out of the room. The sleepovers continued, but nothing else weird. Maybe a week later, I awoke again to him, this time kneeling over me. He had his hand placed just below my pubic bone, and was moving it around. I guess when he saw my eyes open he freaked out and left. I was really weirded out at that point, but since I didn't really know about masturbation at that age (or really just that girls could do it too), I rationalized it as him just trying to wake me up in a weird way to be mean. There was one final time when I awoke to him sneaking into my room. I think this time my mom saw him because she asked what the hell he was doing. He lied and said he was looking for a pillow. Again, I assumed he was just an ass and was trying to steal pillows from me, but somehow I think I knew what was really going on. After that I slept curled up under an umbrella in my closet rather than my bed when he came over, hoping that he'd not be able to find me if he came looking again. After that summer he didn't sleep over as much once my brother and him went to different high schools, so as far as I know, it stopped happening. Realistically, I still have no idea if there were other times that he snuck into my room and did things, because I only remember those times when I actually woke up. I eventually forgot, or maybe suppressed all of these events until I was almost 20.

Everything came back to me when my bf and I woke up in the middle of the night and I propositioned him for some sleepy sex. I have no idea why it was triggered by that, since nothing about sex with him has ever been threatening or unpleasant. Either way I finally worked out that I had been a victim of child molestation. I'm still trying to figure out how to tell my bf why I'm a little weird about my sexuality, and have been ever since I remembered, or why I sleep so lightly, or about the nightmares I have about men doing things to me in my sleep.