Showing my Scars

WARNING: This covers a very sensitive topic in my life. Please keep that in mind before you decide to read this.

I have been trying to write this post for a long, long time. I haven't been able to find exactly what to write because I have been afraid. Very, very afraid of the reaction. There are so many factors to consider and feelings to worry about. But, now more than ever, I feel it needs to be said. It needs to be said for so many reasons that I will explain as I go on. This has been one of the hardest things I have ever had to write so know I chose my words as carefully as I could (and that my hands shook the entire time I tried to type this).

When I was a little girl I was sexually abused. The woman who babysat my little sister and I at the time had a teenage son who regularly "watched" me while she tended to the younger kids. He would take me in the basement and make me do things I wish I could forget.

I haven't forgotten though. I haven't forgotten any of it for the past sixteen years.

The boy who did this ended up committing suicide a few years later. I sometimes wonder if he hadn't taken his life how I would have come to feel about all that happened to me. Would the rage and white hot anger I used to experience still be here instead of the pity I feel for him now? Would I have learned to forgive him any less had he still been alive?

This moment in my life has defined parts of  me. It made it hard for me to relate to kids my own age. It made me feel constantly guilty. I still remember the day I was baptized (when you are 8 in the LDS faith) and praying that I would finally feel clean. It makes me so very sad that my eight-year-old self who should have been in one of the most innocent and pure stages of life was carrying such a heavy burden. I constantly felt and sometimes feel as if there was something wrong with me that caused this to happen. It was hard with my family because I didn't know exactly why, but I knew whatever had happened was wrong and that I couldn't tell them (the boy made me promise I would never tell anyone).

Eventually I was able to tell my parents and they got me a wonderful counselor. I think back about what they went through too and it was horrible. I know they both felt as if they hadn't protected me or something else that is completely not true. My parents did everything for me. They are the ones who have continuously pulled me through this. One of the lessons I've learned from this is that everyone has free agency and we can't control anyone else no matter how much we want to.

The counselor I had was wonderful. In fact, she was the one who had me start reading Harry Potter. Whether necessarily good or not, it was she who helped me discover you could create a world no one else could touch. You could escape into a place separate from your own life if only you could imagine it. Imagining myself as strong or brave or invincible helped me cope with the fact that I most certainly wasn't at that point in my life.

This experience also gave me a crutch I leaned too heavily on most of my life. If I had relationship issues, it was because I was abused. If I had any negative emotion, it was because I was abused. If anything went wrong in my life it somehow related to being molested.

Why am I saying this? Why here? Why now? Why on this very, very public blog?

Because I am not alone. I am very sadly very much not alone. The more I have talked with others and heard their stories, the more I have found out how much of the majority I am. Yet everyone I have spoken with about their abuse has some part of them that believes they are alone. They believe very few have also experienced one of the darker sides of humanity. It took me a while to realize this. Once I did, it threw me deeply into depression. Into that horrible feeling of lacking power or control over my life and lacking the power to keep others from that same harm, those same scars.

I have come to realize something though. All of those who have been sexually molested have been broken. They have had something stolen from their soul they will never get back. Some fill that gaping broken piece with things that threaten to break other parts of them. Others, though, figure out the only way to fill that hole is by stuffing it full of compassion and forgiveness and strength.

Another thing I have realized is that I shouldn't have to keep a secret like this. Isn't that what hurt me the most as a child? Having to keep a secret so dark and so painful. Isn't he still winning, still causing me to suffer if I fear to ever utter what he did to me? Why do we have to whisper the word "rape" or "abuse" or "molested"? Shouldn't those who have experienced such things be able to feel as if they can talk about it without feeling even more horrible than they already do?

I hate more than anything in the entire world finding out about more people who have had their life torn apart by sexual abuse, but I love hearing about those who have figured out how to not let it define them. To be honest, hearing others who have been able to overcome it all and live a life without the memory constantly hanging over them is what has helped me the most to find peace.

 The last thing I have learned very, very slowly to accept is that this moment in my life does not define me.

 I am not a solely a victim of sexual abuse.

How can I let myself be defined by one horrible memory. How can I let myself lean on something when so many others have gone through worse and come out ever better, even more beautiful, even stronger.

I wrote this today because I don't ever want anyone to feel as I did. As if they have to hide this shameful part of them and can only reveal it in a moment of dramatic conversation. If sexual abuse victims keep quiet as so, so many do, it is only giving the abuser more power.

I wouldn't say I am grateful for this experience in my life, but I am grateful for what I have taken from it. What I, with the agency I was given, chose to take from it.

The only thing I used to think I would ever take from this experience was that people were inherently evil and children no longer had a chance in this day and age to experience true, blissful innocence.

Instead, I have discovered a deeper empathy and compassion that I hardly know what to do with sometimes. The only thing in life I can confidently say I am is compassionate. I don't know that without this experience I would have such an overwhelming care for others.

I am very protective of the ones I love. Especially those who are younger than me. I don't know if I would have such a strong urge to shield others had I not gone through this.

I want to understand people. I have learned from this there are always more parts to discover that make up the whole. No one can be easily fit into perfectly square, labeled boxes. I don't know if I would be as understanding of others had I not been one hiding my whole story.

I have such a deep love for those around me. For those around me and not around me who are harboring their own secrets and their own struggles. I have such a fierce desire to help others for I truly know "everyone you meet is fighting a great battle".

There it is. My heart, my soul, my past in tiny little characters for the internet to now have possession of. I am afraid to push the publish button, but I am more afraid that the world will continue to have this close mouthed view on how to approach sexual abuse. I am more afraid for the girl or guy who thinks they don't have anyone else who could ever understand what they went through or is going through. I am more afraid that I won't believe I can do something, no matter how small, to make sexual abuse that tiny bit less prevalent.

And I think now I am ready to let going of being afraid.