After 50 years, I'm learning you have to talk about it to SOMEONE to begin to heal from it. AND to help prevent it from happening again to someone else.
My mother was sexually abused and never talked about it to anyone. She was so damaged by it, her personality so fundamentally altered, that she sent me to spend unsupervised time with him.
"The blame that roars out of their violence sticks to the child’s spirit like super glue. The fight, for the rest of that child’s life, for some sense of belief in one’s own worth is a steep uphill grind. Shame of what others will think of them “if they knew” haunts them. If they don’t become haters and blamers themselves. Which, if they don’t, is miraculous. And a testament to a more than resilient spirit." Dr. Margaret Rutherford
My mother's spirit was less than resilient.
Women may tell themselves it's too private, too shameful to share. Or even that it's over, done, why rehash it, why pick the scab?
Two reasons.
To understand and deal with how it changed you. And it DID change you.
Control issues and powerlessness.Insecurity and validation and self-worth.
Fear (and loathing) of intimacy.
Trust.
To prevent it from happening to others.
If even ONE woman can hear your story, feel a smidgen of "Ah! She knows!" maybe she'll feel the weight of it all begin to lift an inch or two. Shared trauma is a shared burden, and confronting it is the beginning to surviving it. To alter the outcome. If your spouse or older children can begin to understand what happened, why you are what you are, they can maybe take steps to prevent it's happening to them or to others.Be the safe place your daughter or granddaughter knows. Ensure that she'll trust you. Have the conversation, often, so she'll tell you if she's scared or hurt. Abusers are powerfully skilled at ensuring silence.
My sexual abuse happened between the ages of 9 and 16. I'm 65 now, and to this day I still view men at best as Pickle-Jar-Openers. I struggle to find value in men. I know it's there (in most men), but I've hard-wired myself to only see their flaws. To see the threat. It's terribly unfair and absolutely undeserved, but it's there.
I dread physical contact. It's a violation, abhorrent, and a trigger.
My eyes narrow when I see men with children. I watch, measure, evaluate.
I want it to stop. The recent Me Too movement has been helpful in dissolving the "I'm so alone" feeling. I want to heal. I'm reading, talking to some people, writing about it. Beginning to heal.
One in three. How many do you know?
