Survival
Might as well jump right in....Sexual abuse in children is rampant in this country and worldwide. It's an epidemic that will probably will never be conquered. Before I go any further let me make it clear that I am not an expert in this field, but I am a victim and a SURVIVOR! My experience comes from first hand knowledge and goes no further, except in other people that I have come across that have walked the unspoken path of sexual abuse.
Yep, it's unspoken. If your not told to say anything, something inside of you tells you not to tell. It's an innate gut feeling that something just happened that was bad, but when your a child you don't understand it. It's conflicting because the person abusing you is usually someone you know and so you trust them, but then they commit this eternal sin to you and you feel bad. You feel you did something wrong, that you're being punished. But it's NOT YOUR FAULT!
My abuse started when I was 9, coincidental at the time my adopted parents got divorced and my protector moved 4 hours away. Not only was I sexually abused, but all the other abuses followed as well. Severe physical abused and truly damaging emotional abuse. My abuser was my adopted Mom, the abuse lasted 5 very long, horrible, disgusting years. 5 years stolen from my childhood. Years I can never regain. Years I lost to someone I could never confront. Someone I could never look in the eye and say "Why"? A person that died with her secret buried with her. So, I had no closure with her. I turn 54 on the 5th of August and all of these years I never had that opportunity and I've had to come to terms with it on my own. Years of counseling did help, antidepressants helped, maybe. I don't know that. It's like putting sugar on Cherrios. Your just covering up the taste. You have to do something though, because the feelings, the pain is so raw, so deep and sharp. It's so destructive, so much that it ripples across your circle of people around you. It effects those you love and those you associate with. It affects the adult you become, the mother you become, the wife you become. The PERSON you become.
As an adopted person and especially as a sexually abused child, as a child knowing I was adopted I went to my safe place mentally during my "episodes" and created a place where I was safe and happy with my birth Mom and Dad. So, from an early age I had my Birth Mom on this high Pedestal and I always knew I would search for her at the age of 18, the age when you can legally find your birth parents in the state of Washington.
So, when I was being abused I would create this illusion and that was how I got through it. Because of decisions and situations in my life I couldn't start finding her until I was 24 and it took 3 years to find her and so finally in October 1991 we talked on the phone for the very first time and it was like everything was washed away and I was healed finally.
Not so. I don't believe you totally get healed. I do believe though, you can be a happy person, successful and yes forgiving if you choose to be. Forgiveness is a whole another post, but in general you really can't live a life with anger and hatred. I don't believe it's possible.
If you have the opportunity to face your abuser take the step, take the leap of faith, gain the strength you need to make that step. Take all the power inside of you to look that person in the eye and take all your anger and pain towards them and say "Why"? Look at what you did to me. Look at what's happened to me. How come you took my life away from me? You had NO right! I was just a child, a baby...innocent, pure and clean. You made me dirty.
In my case, my abuser was also my parent, so I had no one to go to that was my protector and confront them as well. So, I had a double issue with my abuse. I had the abuse as well, then I had issues of not being protected by my mother. She was both!
Like I said earlier I never got that chance to confront her and in reflection I'm not sure I would ever have the strength to confront her. I don't like confrontation. It makes me very uncomfortable. It's easier for me to stay in the closet, hidden, safely away from everyone and everything.
But, there is a situation I'm aware of where a person has the ability to confront her protector and she has had that ability many times and the protector has always been sorrowful, apologetic, loving and gentle. However, there comes in everyone a time when they want to let the pain go. In this person that time hasn't come yet. She wants to hold onto it. She insists on carrying the baggage, the anger, the pain and hurt. As a victim myself, I do get it. I do understand it. I do feel her pain in many ways that she doesn't understand. So, many ways she will never feel. An eruption of guilt, remorse and love all wrapped in one seems so surreal and impossible that remorse and love can be together.
Something, only a mother can feel. Something, only a victim can feel. Something, I've let go of.....
