Can't live with myself

This is my fourth time trying to post on here, so my ability to articulate what I need to say may not be at its peak. Still, I feel the need to post this because I am going through a particularly intense bout of guilt. This post will be like many on this forum, but I still feel the need to say it because I have not seen a post on here detailing a scenario similar enough to mine to set my mind at ease and I feel that what I have done is worse than anything I have seen on here.

To start off, I am a 19-year-old college student in the US. I come from a very normal family background; my parents are still together and everyone gets along. I have no memory of being abused myself, and I sincerely doubt that I ever have been, save for one minor incident of physical violence by my father that didn't have any lasting effect on me. I have never been formally diagnosed with OCD, but I exhibit many symptoms and have since childhood, particularly Pure-O. I will admit that I have a history of obsessing about things that I later recognize as much ado about nothing, but this time it feels different. I would also like to point out that I grew up in a family that was very lax about nudity. I bathed with my younger sisters for years and my sisters would often run around the house naked/nearly naked. I know this does not excuse my actions but it might provide some useful background info.

My current obsessive thought pattern has popped up on-and-off since I was about 14, but it has never bothered me so much as it has in the past six months or so. Sometimes I can repress it enough to go about my life in a semi-normal way, but I believe that I have nearly reached my breaking point. This thought pattern has to do with the fear that I sexually abused other children, especially my sister who is 5 years younger than me, as a child and possibly even as a teen. I am not positive that what I did constitutes sexual abuse, but I fear that I am just not admitting it to myself and I am in denial. The evidence is based on a few vague (but definitely not false) memories, so the easiest way to present my case would be to list them:

1. I remember, as a young child, my aunt calling me "the queen of undressing cousins". I don't have any memory of actually physically undressing any of my cousins, but I must have done it quite a lot if my aunt thought to comment on it in that way. My cousins are all quite a bit younger than me (except for one who is older), so this disturbs me.
2. I was once at my grandparents' house as a child (I could not have been THAT young) and I remember going into the bathroom and inventing a "game" in which my sisters (2.5 and 5 years younger than me) and my cousin (5 years younger than me) would undress down to their underwear (I suggested they undress completely but my cousin asked if they could keep their underwear on and I agreed) and "take a bath". No touching occurred but I am disturbed that I would create such a game. I am 99% certain this is not the only time I asked my younger siblings/cousins to undress (not even close), but this is the only incident that I can remember clearly enough to articulate.
3. I was once reprimanded for taking a picture of my 5-years-younger sister in her underwear on my digital camera. I tried to justify my actions by the fact that I had seen my parents do this before, but this was only because she walked around in her underwear often and they had captured her in her natural state. I believe (and fear) that my motive was not as innocent.
4. I remember taking a cell phone video of the same sister walking on a treadmill in a bikini top and miniskirt for a "music video". I could not have been younger than 11 or 12 (making her 6 or 7) because I did not receive a cell phone until I was 11. This was not the only time I dressed my sister in skimpy outfits and asked her to dance/something similar. I remember showing the video to a neighbor girl (also younger) who asked if my sister was topless in the video, I said no but remember thinking something along the lines of "she should have been".
5. When I was around the same age as the video incident, my parents once pretended to be mad at me as a joke and would not tell me what I did to make them mad. I remember becoming extremely anxious that my sister had told on me about some of this inappropriate behavior. This memory is particularly disturbing to me because it indicates that what I did was not just a few isolated incidents, but a pattern.
6. As an adolescent, I would often play Barbies with the same sister and try to lead the "Barbie game" in an inappropriate direction. It never quite escalated to "Barbie sex" but I would often suggest nudity and lesbianism (I had recently discovered my same-sex attraction). I know that it is normal to enact sexual fantasies using Barbies, but I am unsettled by the fact that I did this while playing Barbies with my much younger sister and it continued into my teens (in fact, I could have been as old as 16 at the time of the last incident).

I do not remember ever having to use bribery or coercion during these incidents as my sister usually agreed to what I asked but I DO remember bribing my sister for other (non-sexual) favors. I was extremely bossy as a child and wanted control of all games I played with other children. This could have to do with the fact that I was the oldest kid in my neighborhood and often played with younger children. I have a good relationship with my sister now and she doesn't seem to suffer from emotional trauma, but she is only 14. She is pansexual and takes a lot of pride in being gay, but I am afraid I somehow negatively contributed to her sexuality (even though I have no problem with being gay, I am bisexual myself). She was extremely aggressive and violent as a young child, but I truly believe that my actions did not contribute to that, and that the violence mostly sprung from me and my other sister (2.5 years younger than me) paying more attention to each other than to her. I also feel guilty about this neglect but it is a guilt I can live with. My 5-years-younger sister also discovered pornography at a disturbingly young age and while I am confident that I did not expose her to porn, I am afraid that my actions could have aided her discovery (lesbian Barbies and such). I have a very close relationship with my mother but I am afraid to tell my parents about this because they are extremely loving and supportive and I am selfish and don't think I can bear what their reaction would be. I also have a wonderful boyfriend who I love and care about deeply but I do not feel like I can talk to him about this because again, I am selfish and afraid of losing him. I feel like my relationship is a lie because he doesn't know the REAL me and he doesn't know the dark secrets of my past. I have an amazing group of friends but I also feel like these are false friendships because I've seen how people generally react to people like me, and I do not believe anyone could like or even tolerate me if they knew this information about me. I feel as though I deserve to feel intense remorse for these actions forever, and like I'm deceiving the world by living the normal life I have now. I believe (and fear) that I would be universally condemned if people were to find out about my actions, but I feel like until I admit to what I've done and receive this punishment I am living a lie. I hope my sister was not affected by this now or in the future, as I already can't live with myself right now.

Hello. I'm sure you've seen the numerous posts on this forum from people who feel guilt over childhood (under 16) incidents.

It's important to make a sharp distinction between actions as a child and those as an adult. I'm sure I don't have to explain why that is, and that you can rationalise this distinction. It's your OCD that is blurring this distinction and making the adult you accountable for the child you.

What I would ask yourself is, could I have done any differently at the time, given my genetics and life experiences leading to that moment? We are all conditioned, to arguable degrees, to behave in the way we do. Nothing just pops into existence - it's a gradual process of the brain building pathways shaped by the world around us. Our genetics and life experiences, which form the structure of our brains, are therefore what ultimately create the impulses that lead to the actions we take.

As a child, the ability to "override" this conditioning is more difficult than as a fully grown adult. And remember that this conditioning is mostly unconscious. That is, we are mostly unaware of what is creating the impulses that result in us choosing A over B and C.

So, back to the fundamental question: could the child "you" have done any differently? If we placed anyone into that child's body, with the same brain structure and life experiences, how could we say they would not do the same every time?

The point I'm getting at here is that you need to let go of the "I could have done differently" mentality, based on a rational explanation of what creates human behaviour. Doing so will at least give you that degree of separation between the present you (the more aware you) and the past, child "you" (unconscious of conditioning, poorer impulse management).

Regardless of the above, all your potential exists in this moment, and this moment alone. So the good you do now is just as important as if your childhood was 100% squeaky clean. Nothing changes in that respect. So whatever you feel is necessary to make the world a better place, that work still has the same value, regardless of your past.

You are only 19. You have your entire life ahead of you - to do immeasurably more good than harm. I say that not to imply you DID harm (I don't think you did), rather that, in the grand scheme of things, your life has the POTENTIAL to do more good than harm, no matter how you see your past.

And coming out of childhood, I see a clear line drawn under the "child self" and marking the beginning of a new, more aware "adult self".

What you do from this moment forward - everything you have to offer your loved ones, fellow human beings and the world - is what really matters. If remorse is to do anything, it's to make this realisation all the more profound.