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Survivor story
Victim? Perpetrator? Human?
A few days later
More Human than I Thought.
Message to a Survivor
It gets lighter the more you unpack.
Message of Healing
I want to move away from this term healing. Recently, I have been wanting to use the word 'being' instead. There is no wound, I am not broken, but I have been stifled, derailed by trauma and abuse. So I want to focus more on just being. Not changing or in a constant state of becoming. When that urge to transform myself or 'improve myself' is no longer present, that will be the first sign that I am on the path I want for me.
I appreciate how many people read my story on here. Even providing some support. Thank you for giving me the courage to tell someone in my life I hold dear this one shame I have held on to for so long. My best friend never understood why I have been so hell bent on blaming myself in almost every bad thing/inconvenience in my life. Once I told her this, she said 'wow...you know that makes sense and is a normal thing that children who have been abused sexually themselves do right?" I nearly burst into tears as my best friend of over 25 years who has never really been interested in psychology was able to easily make that connection. It felt so validating and let out a bit of the air. It felt good to hear from someone close to me that I am not paying to tell me that I am still a good person. I am still the person who reunites lost pets with family, loves to cook, sing and dance. This person watched me grow up and never fully understood why some of my more maladaptive behaviors were coming from. I have been very open with the things done TO me but never this. I think I believed that it took credibility away from me as a victim somehow or would cast me into the light of a thousand suns, people would see through me. And they would find there would be something ugly. I know now that there is no point in trying to make certain things not what they are. If we let the ugly truth be just that, we can process, accept and really begin to be comfortable with what is staring back at us. This felt more poetic than I intended but I like it.
Original story
Message of Healing
I want to build more self compassion. I want to truly accept all parts of myself radically. I know I can't hate myself into loving myself so I will work everyday to change that.
The shame I hold is like a dull ache. I have been in therapy for the last year and finally shared the one deep and dark secret I have held. I sexual abused my brother for years... I was groomed in my home for 7 years by a female cousin who is about 9 years older than me. I had been sexually curious from a too early age and I never knew why. Now that I have faced that I was a victim who perpetuated the abuse done to them, you would think I would feel better right? Wrong... I still hold a shame that is too deep for me to even fully engage with. The things that I did to my brother were violating, I have a hard time balancing my identity as a human being and not thinking of myself as this predator, monster, disgusting. My therapist said to me that I am viewing the things I did through an adult lens of morality but to remember I was a child... but... other victims of CSA do not go on to be perpetrators. Why me?
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Grounding activity
Find a comfortable place to sit. Gently close your eyes and take a couple of deep breaths - in through your nose (count to 3), out through your mouth (count of 3). Now open your eyes and look around you. Name the following out loud:
5 – things you can see (you can look within the room and out of the window)
4 – things you can feel (what is in front of you that you can touch?)
3 – things you can hear
2 – things you can smell
1 – thing you like about yourself.
Take a deep breath to end.
From where you are sitting, look around for things that have a texture or are nice or interesting to look at.
Hold an object in your hand and bring your full focus to it. Look at where shadows fall on parts of it or maybe where there are shapes that form within the object. Feel how heavy or light it is in your hand and what the surface texture feels like under your fingers (This can also be done with a pet if you have one).
Take a deep breath to end.
Ask yourself the following questions and answer them out loud:
1. Where am I?
2. What day of the week is today?
3. What is today’s date?
4. What is the current month?
5. What is the current year?
6. How old am I?
7. What season is it?
Take a deep breath to end.
Put your right hand palm down on your left shoulder. Put your left hand palm down on your right shoulder. Choose a sentence that will strengthen you. For example: “I am powerful.” Say the sentence out loud first and pat your right hand on your left shoulder, then your left hand on your right shoulder.
Alternate the patting. Do ten pats altogether, five on each side, each time repeating your sentences aloud.
Take a deep breath to end.
Cross your arms in front of you and draw them towards your chest. With your right hand, hold your left upper arm. With your left hand, hold your right upper arm. Squeeze gently, and pull your arms inwards. Hold the squeeze for a little while, finding the right amount of squeeze for you in this moment. Hold the tension and release. Then squeeze for a little while again and release. Stay like that for a moment.
Take a deep breath to end.