I’m 18F. This summer I worked at a summer camp/daycare, and after an entire life of being abused myself, I thought I could be a good presence in the lives of other children, but it seems I turned out to be abusive. 

One day I had a difficult child who wasn’t getting off the ground so I asked my boss. She went up to him and poked him in the ribs a few times/tickled him. I probably would have questioned this had it been a coworker, but since it was a boss, I figured it was okay. She did this a few more times in front of me and I just thought it was acceptable, and probably a better alternative to yelling which is what I had been doing. 

This lead to 2 incidents I feel guilty about… the first one, a kid tried to tickle me so I tickled him back, but I eventually made him stop. When he reached up to tap my shoulder I flinched, and felt like I had to explain to him that I thought he was gonna tickle me again. He tickled me, I tickled him back, then made him stop again. The second one, a kid was acting up so I poked him, but he asked me not to so I stopped. However, a few hours later, I did it again without thinking and he just asked me not to again, but this made me realize this likely wasn’t entirely appropriate. I asked on Reddit and that was correct. 

This made me think about other interactions I had that I hadn’t had a second thought about… wiping sand off a kid’s bare back because he asked me to when he was uncomfortable, letting a kid hold onto my shoulders in the pool to help him get to the shallow end, accidentally touching a kid’s butt when helping him pull his trunks up, asking a girl to lift her shirt after she got punched to make sure there wasn’t a bruise… as well as other gestures that just came naturally like putting my hands on kids shoulders when talking to them directly or putting my hand on their upper back to guide them. 

I didn’t mean to be an abuser, but nobody ever does *mean* to, do they? I don’t know how to deal with this. I did the same thing that was done to me without even thinking about it. I really am corrupted.