Sep
15
The Force that Drives You to Speak
I was 15 years old before I told anyone about the abuse that I had endured as a child. I was with an ex-boyfriend and had just had a panic attack that I could not begin to explain after something as small as a touch. In just minutes I felt like my entire world had been picked up, jumbled around a bit and thrown into the distance. Everything that I had thought about my life and life in general changed; my perception of the world around me and my part in it changed and it was at that moment that I first began to get acquainted with myself.
Everyone grows up. Everyone goes through a period of adjustment as they mature and settle in to who they will be for the entirety of their lives but it is a completely different feeling when you look into the mirror and have literally no idea who you are, where you’re going, or who you were to begin with. These feelings consumed me after the first time I spoke about my abuse.
I had always carried my childhood with me but my recollection of my early years was skewed; I accepted certain events and buried the others. After my years of coming face to face with my past I learned that many survivors of childhood abuse bury their past and that is exactly how they were able to survive it and it was after that night where everything from my childhood began to come back to me because something inside of me knew I could handle it now. There was a force inside of me that told me to let that one sentence slip from my lips and it has been that force that has been pushing me since to break the silence of not just my own abuse, but to reach out to other survivors. There comes a time in many survivors’ lives where if they buried their abuse and can’t even remember it for years of their lives that it comes back and your mind makes you start piecing everything together. I believe that happens because it needs to; because you need it to and because it is a part of who you were and who you will be.
To survive from such abuse is remarkable and to have survived it at the time is equally as remarkable to me; to know that at one point when life was cruel and confusing I was strong enough to simply live. The mind does amazing things to protect us from what we cannot handle until we can and that is what I believe happened with me. The journey I have taken through healing thus far has been a series of ups, downs and in-betweens. In the past six years my life has taken many turns and I have broken the silence about my childhood. I have seen several therapists, psychiatrists and psychologists, been a part of rape and sexual assault groups and have read a great deal of books about coming to terms and healing from abuse. I have the building blocks of healing and here is where I continue the journey–Literally, right here.
While my childhood was extremely abusive, psychically, emotionally and sexually, and while I did start healing when I was 15 and first started talking about that abuse, I attended the first and only party on a college campus when I was 18–And I was raped. After that was when my entire journey kicked into overdrive. I sought out counseling at a crisis center for women and it was then where I really began transforming into my ’survivor self.’ It was then that I realized that it wasn’t just my childhood that was affected by abuse and trauma that as a child, I was told by my abusers was a “normal” part of life, but abuse and trauma also existed elsewhere and it was not normal, nor was it okay.
I started this website to give myself an open space to speak about my healing journey openly. To have a space that would not pass judgment on me and give other survivors the space that they also so desperately needed and craved in order to start or expand upon their own healing journey. This website will not be written solely by myself, but also by other survivors from around the world who want to share their stories, help other survivors and share their own personal journeys.
Thank you so much for this website. I’m really struggling with my healing (have been stuck in a place of denial for a few years now).
I’m glad you’ve created this website and I’m glad you are recognizing your strength and resiience and courage in surviving–and that what was done to us wasn’t right or normal or our fault. And yes, as we heal ourselves, we begin to heal the world.
Hello Holly,
I love the title of your website and I’m sorry and angry that men attacked and used and hurt you for their own selfish purposes. Abuse is such a soft weasel word.
I notice you use the ‘passive voice’ describing the attack of the rape. I have had this terminology pointed out to me on feminist blogs, reports always say ‘a woman was raped’ not ‘a man raped a woman’. A man raped me too. He is 100% responsible for what he did to me. I also refuse to call him ‘my rapist’ - he is not ‘mine’ at all, he is THE rapist. I hate him.
Best wishes for our healing.
Robyn