Anxious fixation on a memory - need to know if this was bad

I’ve not been here in a while but something has been eating me up recently sooo I’m back

This is extremely embarrassing but I’ve been fixating on and off on something that happened almost four years ago and recently I’ve been super anxious and it’s been taunting me more than usual.

It was around Christmas and we had family to stay, I was home at my parents house from uni. I ended up sharing my bed with my younger cousin, she was maybe around eight on nine at this point? I am now 24(F) - was 20 at this point.

Ok this is so so embarrassing but I tend to get very itchy ‘down there’ at night. I went to bed quite a while after her so I’m fairly sure she was already asleep. I was starting to drift off and got really itchy so scratched for a bit before I fell asleep.

The next day I remembered this and started to feel uneasy worrying that it was inappropriate for me to do that when sharing a bed with my younger cousin. She complained about not sleeping well and said that I moved around a tonne in my sleep at that I kicked her (I do move around a bunch so this probably happened). I got really worried that she’d seen or heard me itching and maybe she thought I was masturbating or something (I wasn’t - I’m asexual and I have never masturbated - but if that was something I did I would obviously never do it in this context).

I also remembered hearing about a controversy surrounding Lena Dunham about how she describes masturbating in bed next to her 10 y/o sister when when was 17 in one of her books, and a lot of people have accused her of sexual abuse. I know this isn’t what I was doing but it feels somehow like it was the same thing. I wonder if these people would have been just as disgusted if they knew what I did.

The other half of this memory is that I have some vague idea that I momentarily held her hand while I was half asleep? But I think that might have just been a dream since that would be such a weird thing to do, but for some reason I just have this memory of it.

Ive been running this in my mind on and off since it happened and it was literal years ago now. I don’t get why I didn’t just leave and go to the bathroom if I was that itchy or just ignore it. I mean seriously such a gross thing to do. And I’m so paranoid that I made her feel violated even though at the time I was fairly sure she was sleeping.

Did I really do something awful here or am I being irrational? I’m having such a hard time with obsessive thoughts atm but I genuinely can’t tell if I really deserve it.

Sorry if this is TMI, but if anyone has any insights at all I would so appreciate it.

I hope it helped to discuss it. I don't think you did anything wrong. I also don't think that it was embarrassing. Masturbation affects the body in a way that goes beyond physical movement "down there". It is a mood and it affects respiration, and general people get more vocal. I don't think itching is anything that could be considered masturbating.

I haven't seen your other posts but I assume you suffer OCD. It's not surprising that OCD has latched on to something like this. Did you notice any change in your relationship with your cousin in the subsequent years?