What would my life have been like if I had not been sexually abused as a child ? I have asked myself this a lot lately. I do not have words for an answer. I only have emotion. Deep, aching emotion in my solar plexus. A grief so true I can only stare at the wall within my knowing. My mind swirling with the realities of what being sexually abused took from me. Because it took everything that was myself, the girl and the woman I may have become. My life. It left me fighting and battling constantly, trying to get back to that girl who had been stolen, annihilated by rape. Underneath all the parts, the personalities I had to create, to survive the violence, was buried a little girl, real and true, who never gave up believing she could be free to be herself. Screaming to be heard she raged her way through drug and alcohol addictions until we crashed into rockbottom, finally still and quiet enough for her voice to come out.
To be free to be yourself. What does that mean to this survivor of sexual abuse ? It means being able to speak my truth not having to pretend to be someone else. To be able to feel all my feelings, however painful they might be. To feel safe. To feel joy. To know myself. To accept myself. To trust myself. To have complete autonomy in my body. To have choices. To know it’s ok to ask for help. To trust and wonder at life. To not be afraid all of the time. To learn to be still, allowing myself to listen to all the child parts of me that carry my story. To be there for them in mind and body, so I can hold their pain, being released from it in the process. To feel connected to life, rather than completely alone, and in feeling this, know I am loved. To be able to live in the present and have peace of mind. I could go on. There are so many elements of being myself that were stolen from me by sexual abuse. I am grieving them all and it has felt annihilating at times. In between the sadness I can laugh at the ridiculousness of it all, my work continues to be trying to restore what was so unfairly taken. I am a lot closer than I ever have been.
So this week, Sexual Abuse and Sexual Violence Awareness Week, 6th-12th of February 2023, I will share more of my experience of what I know of sexual abuse, just how it has impacted my life and how it is possible to recover from it. And it is possible, but it is fucking hard work. Hard work I had to make a decision to commit to when I got sober. I’ve stuck to that commitment, but a lot of days I’ve wanted to give up. The belief that often kept me going was, I will not let them beat me. The last few years have been awful. Having to wear a mask because of the Pandemic triggered so much trauma in my body and mind, trauma I thought I had dealt with in the 7 years of EMDR therapy I completed in 2019. After all that work I discovered I had only felt the tip of the iceberg, my body had so much more to release. I have been experiencing nightmares about the sexual abuse for over 2 years. I was even offered a drug that is given to veterans with PTSD, to stop me dreaming, but up until now I haven’t taken it. I may change my mind about that ! Anyway I have lots to share this week so my hope is it will help anyone who is also battling along with living and coping with sexual abuse. We have felt so alone but it does not have to be that way anymore.