Found out I was sexually abused as a kid. What now?

[BrandNewSofa]

I knew I was abused as a child already- violence and verbal bullying. However, having just opened up about some other events that happened to my therapist, she told me that these were sexual abuse.

those events were:

• my stepdad stripping to his underwear, making me sit astride him and massage him with lotion
• him commenting on my boobs and bum- e.g ‘I can’t stop loooking at your boobs in that top’
• him modelling some new underwear for me and asking me to do the same (I refused)
• Him repeatedly ripping open a dress I had so I was naked underneath

I also emailed NAPAC (abuse charity) and they confirmed this was sexual abuse.

I don’t know why but I feel thrown through a loop. I’m so anxious and distressed. I don’t know what to do now and like I can’t process this information.

That's a difficult thing to process.

Don't feel obliged to rush to resolving it. Dwell with it a while. Let it sit. Decide whether it makes a difference to you or not, given that you already recognised it was an abusive situation.

There are lots of possible implications, and only you can decided how you want to feel about it and what you want to do.

My therapist gave me some great advice.

She said that when the abuse was happening to me, I was too little and didn't have the vocabulary or even the knowledge to process what was happening to me. Now I'm a grown up I can put the words on the feelings and actions and process it.

In my case, the abuser died years and years ago, so there was no action to take apart from figuring out my feelings for me.

It's a big thing to get your head around. I agree that you should take time to think about it, ideally continuing to speak to your therapist and figure out what you want (if anything) as an outcome.