Nine years ago, I found out that I was “an adult survivor of child abuse”. I have always known that I was sexually abused as a child, but I didn’t have the words. I had not known that there were words for what my relatives had done to me - abuse, incest, rape, molestation. As a child, I did not even realise that I had a right to be scared, or to struggle, and I did not know that I had a right to ask for help and be protected. It never struck me that what was done to me was a crime. Bad, sad, mad things had happened to me, that was all. I had no idea that millions of other children around the world had gone through the same thing. I didn’t know that Child Sexual Abuse was written with big letters, or that it was a big deal to anyone but me.
Three and a half decades of my life, I went through not knowing, not connecting, assuming that I was my problems. Depression, rage, addiction, self-sabotage, self-harm, self-hatred - they were all me. That was just the way God made me. I was weak and useless and bad. I carried this secret with me a long time. Until one day, finally, someone asked me the question that brought me here today.
Were you ever sexually abused?
Like me, your answer might be, “Yes, but - “
It’s a start.
