I was a perpetrator of COCSA and I can't handle the guilt.
At the time of writing this i am 18. I need to know if this was exploration or COCSA or circumstances because it is eating me alive and my therapist says I am a victim of circumstance but as I am writing this I feel sick and disgusting and I need some opinion. When I was 13, I had a neighbor who was around 11-12, we started to become friends and as we became friends we began to "experiment" with each other sexually. At the time this was happening, in my home my stepdad was (not physically but every other way) sexually abusing me and I was also exposed to porn at 11 and surrounded by a generally sexual age-inappropriate environment. This is not an excuse but an explanation. I consider myself a perpetrator because it was my idea although it was more of a back and forth. The memories are blurry, but as I remember there was times where we would do "dry" things, she was okay with it at the time, nothing was physically forced or violent. This would go on for maybe a month. My main concern is around coercion, I did NOT say anything like "if you don't do this I'll hurt you" or anything of the sort, but since i was 13 i did not know what coercion was, I just knew that threats were not okay. (Not saying that makes it better, just adding context.) I understand that knowledge and power dynamics also depend but I believe we were on the same level of sexual knowledge because she would show me porn on her phone and there were some times where I was uncomfortable with it but did it anyways because I thought it was normal and "even". This is what I mean by a "back and forth". I really want to reach out to her and apologize because almost everyday i spend worrying if i seriously affected her or not. I mentioned this to my mother and she says that we were both kids and not to worry about it and that the neighbor probably feels the same way i do, but i just cannot bring myself to believe her. If i genuinely harmed her I am seriously remorseful and am getting therapy and wish to apologize to her. My only fear is that I am an evil person because some people get called that when they admit to these things although I personally think that would only apply to people who were with an INSANE age gap and things were violent and forced. Thank you for reading.