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Mumsnet has not checked the qualifications of anyone posting here. If you need help urgently or expert advice, please see our domestic violence webguide and/or relationships webguide. Many Mumsnetters experiencing domestic abuse have found this thread helpful: Listen up, everybody

Original poster

Support thread for survivors of childhood sexual abuse.

999 replies

CailinDana · 19/03/2012 12:51

I was severely sexually abused as a child. I have spent the last few years trying to come to terms with it and I'm slowly getting there.

I have found that a huge barrier to dealing with it is the lack of space to talk about it, how I feel and what I think. It's like this horrible painful scar that I have to keep covered for fear of offending other people. It has been a massive source of shame.

I don't really feel like keeping it covered any more. Yes I was abused, in a horrible, horrific way, but I'm still a good person and I'm still capable of being happy.

I'm hoping this thread will be a place for people to open up about things that happened to them. A fantastic, caring poster on MN spent hours yesterday "listening" to me and it has helped me immensely. I would like to do that for other people.

Nothing is taboo. Say as much or as little as you like. Say what you think and feel even if you think it sounds batty. I will bump this thread regularly so even if you're not ready to post now, it will be here for you at a later stage.

OP posts:
ToxicToria · 19/03/2012 22:57

Sorry for any spelling mistakes, lack of punctuation and if none of that makes any sense sorry

Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:00

It makes sense Toria :( I'm so sorry that happened to you. My heart goes out to you.

What happened afterwards? Did anyone know about what happened at the time?

OP posts:
ToxicToria · 19/03/2012 23:04

No I have never told anyone at all. One of them have children at my sons school it kills me every time I see him

Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:07

I can imagine. What awful, vile men to do that to a young girl. You were in no way responsible for what happened, not at all.

How are you feeling?

OP posts:
ToxicToria · 19/03/2012 23:14

I actually feel better sometimes I feel as though I am going to explode with everything building up inside me, thank you for talking to me x

ToxicToria · 19/03/2012 23:16

Sometimes I think it's not my fault but other times I know I shouldn't have been going there and I should have knew they weren't nice and not to have got involved with them

Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:17

I'm glad you feel better Toria. Do keep coming back to the thread and posting if you feel it helps. Sometimes just getting your thoughts down, even if they are incoherent or even seem a bit weird, can really help you start to make sense of things. No one here will judge you for anything you say.

OP posts:
DioneTheDiabolist · 19/03/2012 23:18

I work with survivors of abuse. As a result I have learnt much and dealt with many disclosures.

Abusers have shame. In order to not feel it , they have to pass it onto the children that they abuse. They do this in a number of ways.

They use biology to make their victim feel pleasure.
They use psychology to make their victim feel special.
They use the victim's love for others to maintain the silence and keep the abuser safe.

All this results in shame in the victim.

Shame leads people to believe that the abuse was their fault. If they were nicer, smarter, better, more confident, it would not happen.
This is not true. The abuse happened because you were at the mercy of an abuser. Someone who was cruel, clever and manipulative. You are not shame. You are not bad.

You are you. And I am sorry that an abuser did that to you. You didn't deserve abuse.

AnyFucker · 19/03/2012 23:19

Toria, first of all no way are you toxic

I hope it's ok just popping back onto the thread like this, but I wanted to say how sorry I am you experienced that. My dc turned twelve today and your post made me shed a few tears for the 12yo you, and I cannot imagine how awful you must feel looking back to your childhood

xx

Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:21

Please believe me when I say it wasn't your fault. You were very young, far too young to understand what was really going on. It was not in any way your fault. Yes, you went with them, but you are entitled to go anywhere you like with anyone in the world, that doesn't give them the right to rape you.

Please don't blame yourself. These were evil men who used gifts and bragging to draw a young child in in order to rape her. They knew exactly what they were doing. They were the adults in this situation.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 19/03/2012 23:26

I totally agree with Cailin, and Dione's summing up of how these people operate makes me understand even more how some vulnerable children just simply have no chance at all Sad

Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:27

I used to blame myself. I told my friend that I was to blame for what happened. He got very worked up and I asked him why. He took out a picture of his young daughter who was about the same age as me when my abuse started (7) and said "If she came to you and told you the same thing had happened to her, would you think she was to blame?" I said of course not. It seemed ludicrous to blame a tiny child for something adults did. Yet I blamed that tiny child that I once was.

I think for me taking blame was a way of taking control. It was very hard for me to accept that someone did something so awful to me totally against my will, so I convinced myself that I invited it, that I was in some way responsible, because at least that would mean I wasn't totally at the mercy of someone else, there was a reason for it happening to me.

Letting go of that sense of blame is hard because it means you have to accept that you were in fact totally manipulated. You actually could have done nothing about it because you were not responsible. It's hard but ultimately it's worth it. The blame thing is poison.

OP posts:
ToxicToria · 19/03/2012 23:28

Cailin you have done so much for me thank you I can't tell you how it feels to have told someone and for them to have been supportive I honestly never thought that would happen x

Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:30

I am very glad I could help in some small way. Please keep posting if you feel it benefits you.

OP posts:
ToxicToria · 19/03/2012 23:32

Anyfucker thank you I have spent this full time thinking no one would believe me or they would blame me so it means so much that you have been so kind x

AnyFucker · 19/03/2012 23:35

Toria, we believe you.

Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:39

Something that took me a long time to come to terms with is the fact that my abusers didn't see me as a person at all. I kept trying to rationalise their actions by trying to make them fit with how I know normal people behave. Normal people take other people's feelings into account. They don't want to hurt others and are ashamed of making someone else cry. Abusers don't operate that way. They see their victims as a means to an end, and feel zero shame or remorse about the damage they do to them. To my abusers I was just a vessel, I wasn't a person.

OP posts:
Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:42

How are you doing Toria?

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 19/03/2012 23:42

As an adult, with all our life experience (some of it good, some of it very bad) it is difficult to picture yourself as a child before you acquired it.

The memory is hazy of the innocence and naivety that we all are born with. How when you are a child, our only instinct is to seek comfort wherever we can find it. Sometimes what we lack in our own life, if we are very very unlucky, unscrupulous people can target us to offer it.

It's a matter of chance not blame, not culpability. The MN slogan about rape is that the only person responsible for rape/abuse is the rapist/abuser

It is so true

Original poster
CailinDana · 19/03/2012 23:44

I agree AF. A lot of it is a matter of luck, mad as that may seem.

OP posts:
AnyFucker · 19/03/2012 23:47

It's a scary thought to think we are at the mercy of wrong place/wrong time

I beieve it to be so though, in many situations

DioneTheDiabolist · 19/03/2012 23:47

You are not to blame.
You are not toxic.

Blaming yourself is not control, but I understand what has led you to that conclusion.

No one is completely in control of their life. Survivors of abuse or not.
A grown up imposed their will and body on you. They used every tool in the box to make their shame yours.

You are not toxic, they made you feel their shame because they could not bear it.

The shame you bear is not yours. It's theirs. They gave it to you because they could not handle it.

On top of being abusers, they are weak cowards. They can't deal with the reality of being them so they put it on those they abuse.

ToxicToria · 19/03/2012 23:47

I can't believe you were only 7 some of the stories on here are truly shocking and so so sad. Have you told anyone other than the friend you mentioned?

TOTU · 19/03/2012 23:48

So many sad stories on this thread. Dione thank you for your post.

In a way I find it good to talk about these things, but it also brings it all back to the front of my mind.

Some may judge me for the comment I'm about to make. Abuse makes you suspect people. Perfectly innocent people that just want to invite your child for a sleepover for example. I do let my daughter sleep at her friends house but there's always a niggle, a tiny part of me that thinks...is she safe? Has anyone done anything wrong?

The chances of that kind of thing happening are tiny and I don't want to hold back my daughters life because of what happened to me.

AnyFucker · 19/03/2012 23:49

and why I believe rap/abuse myths are so damaging

this idea that you can prevent an abuser targeting you, especially when you have the underdeveloped communication, emotional understanding and social skills of a child, is pernicious