'I was humiliated on a livestream by a creator I have a lot of respect for.'
"I was humiliated on a livestream by a creator I have a lot of respect for."
I did something stupid and now I feel awful about myself. I (33F) once had a love affair with my cousin (32F). The TLDR on that is she and I didn't even know each other existed until we met for the first time, which happened at 15-years-old. We immediately became wrapped up in each other from that point on and fell hard in love.
We had a secret on again off again (though more off than on) love affair that lasted into our twenties. Ultimately, it definitively didn't work out, mostly because she was too afraid to face the stigma of being in a relationship with her cousin, and we sorta stopped speaking, which wasn't due to a falling out and just more something that naturally happened.
Since then, I've struggled a lot with internalized shame surrounding it. As I've aged, the stigma has worn on me greatly, and I've at times felt like a gross monster for what was a mutually consensual and beautiful, if hidden, love. Any time I hear people talking about how awful and disgusting all incest is, I flinch.
It's something that happened to me. In the last few months, I've been working to kind of reckon with such deep shame and make peace with myself.
So. Now that's all said, we get to now.
The other day, a particular content creator I follow who seems super sweet and positive announced she was going to do a livestream where she would react to viewer submitted secrets or advice requests. She had an anonymous form to submit the secrets. On a whim, I decided to submit the story of me and my cousin.
I figured it possible she wouldn't react positively, but I also thought at worst she'd talk about how it's a juicy story, etc etc.
Well. the livestream was last night and she did read my secret and to say she reacted negatively was an understatement.
She expressed how gross and horrible it was, how it wasn't really love, etc. Really vitriolic gross reactions. I don't know what I was expecting but it was dumb and naive to think she might find it fun. The things she said about it and about me really really hurt. It wasn't fun, wasn't treated as in good fun, and ultimately a terrible time for everyone, including the other viewers.
She also kept saying the story seemed fake, and it very much isn't. Idk. I'm just struggling intensely.
I feel like a monster, like all the peace I've been working to be comfortable with myself and my past has been washed away in an instant.
Quick edit to clarify a couple of things:
1: I do have a therapist. As I mentioned I've been working to confront the shame for months.
2: I am a woman and so is my cousin.
Here's what people had to say to OP:
counterfeittruth wrote:
Partly, you shouldn't have submitted something that you weren't ready to brush off, if the response was horrible. just a good rule of thumb. BUT mostly, she's horrible for that. as a content creator, even AS A PERSON, it's important to consider the other person's feelings when commenting on something so clearly personal.
I think for content creators, it's way too easy to forget that you are talking about a real person when you say the things you say. She doesn't even have to condone the behavior or act without being cruel about it. And if it was so hard to keep it jovial, she should've skipped it.
I can just imagine the vibes of that chat slowly being destroyed as she rips way too hard into your story. Its making me cringe just thinking abt it. I'm sorry that happened. At least the majority of people are with you, though.
OP responded:
Yeah the vibes were awful awful awful. I didn't even finish watching the vid. I'm almost glad I wasn't able to catch it live.
arlolior wrote:
You are definitely not gross, and you're definitely not a monster. No one chooses who they fall in love with. It's disgusting that this content creator profited off your pain like this. I hope you can take some comfort in this.
aneythot wrote:
One of my biggest takeaways in reading this is that you met your cousin at 15! It’s much different than growing up from birth with the knowledge that someone is your family. It’s also much different than an adult family member grooming and manipulating a child into something non-consensual.
When I express how vile I believe incest to be, I am talking about the truly horrible and inconceivable acts that parents inflict onto their children, aunts and uncles inflict on their nieces and nephews, and things that just truly cannot be understood by the average person.
There are studies and research that prove that people who share genetics tend to be attracted to one another when they meet for the first time as adults and did not grow up together. This is literally science. There are siblings that grew up in foster care and met as adults that are married and never knew the truth until years after falling in love.
It’s complicated, and the stigma is intense. But this doesn’t define you and it’s also no one else’s place to judge you. You said yourself, it was a beautiful experience. No one can take that away from you. How you both feel about the situation is all that matters. There’s nothing wrong with you!
ButterMyPancakesPlz wrote:
They are not in the business of your best interest, they are in it for engagement and that usually comes from some form of outrage/shock, you gave her a prompt to exploit and she did just that. They're online to make money and this is how they do it. It's not nice and not ethical, and not like actual therapy more like daytime talk shows but worse.
Big-Imagination3324 wrote:
I'm sorry this happened to you, but a livestreamer is the last person you should have confessed to. All they really care about is making money from their large audience, and their content is entirely focused on that goal. She probably reacted in a way she thought would entertain her viewers or get their approval. She doesn’t actually care about you or how you feel.
OnOurBeach wrote:
“Submit” your secrets to a therapist so that you can get through this. God, I can’t stand “content creators” and influencers. They are about themselves, not you or me.