Stuck, I really got stuck with this one, stuck for a long time. I meant  to finish and post so much  earlier, but I was struggling to find my courage, struggling to find the right words, struggling to figure out what I actually want to say about this and now I am publishing this, I still don’t believe I’m doing the subject matter any justice. Obviously, I have written about surviving childhood abuse before and it goes without saying that any form of child abuse, any form of abuse at all is horrible and it can never be put into words, how horrible it truly is. 

Being an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse is far from being easy, but some aspects of this may not be so obvious to others, who never had similar experiences. I can, of course, only really speak from my own perspective here, but I know that I am not alone in experiencing these things. 

A big one right off the bat,  is that talking to others about this may be much harder than they’ll ever know. This is not only due to the shame and embarrassment, we survivors feel (which really should be with the perpetrators, but it is what it is…). Talking about this often just reminds us of the fact that the people, who should have been protecting us, took our innocence and scarred us for life in an unimaginable way.  Talking about it even a little bit, can easily reopen those often barely healed wounds.  Another big issue, when it comes to opening up about being an adult survivor of childhood molestation, is that it is seemingly impossible to describe what this means for our lives.

We as survivors often suppress the heck out of this, and if we’d let those memories surface at all, we often simply don’t talk about it.  But when we do, things often get complicated. Not only does it make people extremely uncomfortable, which is hardly encouraging when it comes to being open and sharing. If they have had similar experiences, it can trigger painful memories for them as well, and if they cannot relate, they often rather ignore the topic or struggle to find the right words. In either case, most of the times it creates an uncomfortable situation, which isn’t helpful to anybody. 

So, it comes as no surprise, that this topic is not talked about enough. Acknowledging it, can tear families and communities apart, as so many refuse to accept the unthinkable. The sad thing is though, that due to this, too many survivors face disbelieve and aggression when they do try to speak out.  A line we hear (I am very familiar with is)may be:  “Why didn’t you say anything when it happened?”

To that I say, when you are a child, it is a necessity to your survival to  be able to trust the adults. Ergo, we had to believe that whatever they were doing to us was acceptable, that this was normal and something that happens everywhere and in every family.  And on top of that, those people whom we trusted by default, also told us not to say anything.  

To call this destructive is putting it mildly, an understatement, because this is the stuff that destroys a human soul. By telling us to be ‘hush hush’ and that we would be doing something wrong, if we ever talked about this, meant that our foundation had cracks long before the house, we call a human life, was even fully built. 

As always, every story is different but a lot of us would forget about the abuse, once we grew up. I encountered some sceptics, who had a hard time believing that I would forget such an awful thing happening to me so early in life.  Forgetting or suppressing can be helpful, when it comes to functioning in society. On the other hand, if we forget, we live with a huge shadow over our heads, we’re unable to truly develop our potential and are robbed of the chance to be our true selves. 

Here are just a few examples on how our lives may be different from other people: 

We can be loners

Like I mentioned above, we don’t always remember the abuse and if we do, we tend to avoid talking about it.  Which in turn makes it much harder for others to understand us.  Just as much as we are feeling this strange and scary shadow hanging over our heads, others notice it too. But whether we have  always remembered the unspeakable, remember later or not at all, we may often seem different to our peers.  Often we would notice that others have a kind of unity, we don’t feel able to participate in. Others seem to be able to accept widespread views of the world or what their families have taught them, while we remain doubtful.  We have a subconscious awareness that there is more to the world than the official narrative, and that you cannot always trust your own family and the people closest to you. However, we often cannot quite point our finger to it, which may make us appear even more like the odd one out, and in a way the people surrounding us may even become suspicious of us.  This then goes full circle, when we cannot really explain ourselves – either we don’t remember where this ominous shadow comes from, or we feel like we mustn’t talk about it – we end up spending a lot of time on our own. We feel safest in our own company.

We lack self-esteem and do not develop our full potential

Abusers often put it in our minds that we are profoundly unworthy, as this enables their abuse – we believe that we don’t deserve any better.  The ramifications of such manipulation tactics are usually disastrous, but if you were brainwashed in this manner when you were really young, they are even worse. 

We live in a society that is success driven and that requires a certain level of self-esteem. With our deep-seeded feelings of unworthiness, our self-esteem is sometimes simply non-existent. I can’t even begin to describe to you, how often people were surprised with my utter lack of self-confidence. Occasionally, they even seemed to be thinking that I was somehow faking this in an attempt to appear less of a threat, if there was some kind of competition involved. I must’ve heard the sentence: “I don’t know anybody else, who is so mean to themselves!” a gazillion times. 

The abuse at a young age takes away our spirit and then as survivors, we don’t really go for the things we want. We tend to give up halfway or completely avoid the risks necessary taking, if you want to advance in life.  Because we don’t feel worthy of achieving our goals, we sabotage ourselves. 

People pleasing is a thing

A ‘fun’ tool child molesters employ is to make children pay for love and attention.  The payment, in this particular case, is letting yourself be raped.  It is in essence, your abuser granting you your right to exist. We had no choice, but to constantly seek their approval, but not only theirs. Because we were so young when being violated in this most disgusting manner, we were conditioned to do everything the abuser(s) or anyone else demanded. Because if we wouldn’t, there’d be hell to pay. Children simply cannot exist thinking they did something wrong and then not try to make it all better.  For a child to survive, they need to feel safe with the adults that care of them and fitting in, being loved and acknowledged by them, means everything. The pattern runs so deep with us, that when we grow up ,we often attract more abusive people in friendships and relationships. And in everyday life, it remains vital to us to be liked by as many as possible – the people pleasing behaviour will persist.  To us it seems like, what we had to offer in the past in exchange for love was so vile, that compared to that people’s expectations now seem manageable, even if we end up only giving and never receiving.

Promiscuity / our adult sex-life 

Unlike what many may think, survivors of childhood sexual abuse often tend to be very promiscuous. People often seem to think that such an experience would leave you being practically asexual and for sure, some survivor’s sex life might be non-existent, due to what happened to them. However, as strange as this may sound, because we were so highly sexualised from such a young age, sex is often the only way we know how to connect at all.  Unfortunately, unless it is with the right person, there is not much connecting going on and we’re often left feeling more empty after having sex. On the outside, we may seem slutty,  but really we just want to be a part of life, of inter-human connection..of something, and we never learned that it is OK to say No. 

Whether we are promiscuous or end up completely inhibited, when it comes to sex and even try to avoid it at all costs, we’re not in the best position to find that lasting relationship, we long for and that can leave us feeling lonely and unfulfilled. 

C-PTSD  / PTSD

With the very first time the sexual abuse happens, we are traumatised for life. Even if it only happened that one time, PTSD will affect you well into adulthood. For many of us though, the abuse happens frequently over a certain period of our life – very often on some kind of unsavoury schedule. Therefore, we can easily develop Complex PTSD/ or C-PTSD.  Our entire focus is always on our survival, because we were never safe as a child.  We are in a constant fight or flight mode, that can make us appear zoned out and overwhelmed. Frankly, sometimes people just assume we’re stupid.  Therefore, things that come relatively easy to others can be a struggle for us.  This shadow I talked about, it can make us paranoid. Even if we don’t remember the abuse itself, we have this innate knowing that there may be danger around us.  That danger can be as simple, as encountering a person who really doesn’t like us.  This would be a normal thing, right? Not a problem for a healthy person, but for us it is.  When we were not loved as a child, our wellbeing and survival was at stake, remember? So, the world remains a strange, at times unbearable,  place to us. If you feel that unworthy, danger practically lurks at every corner. 

We also do not quite understand, why we feel so dirty, like something is so wrong with us and everyone can see it, for sure. They must know there is a dirty little secret in our past, even if we don’t quite remember.  And before, we let them expose us, we need to develop a mechanism to control the situation and never take any risks. 

This is exhausting. For me, a big thing this manifested as, is my OCD. It takes me at least three times as long as anyone else I know, to leave my house. 

You may asked why.  Well, I was made to believe that it was my fault that I was raped, that I always misbehaved and that if the grown-ups ignored me, it was definitely my wrong doing that caused this.  So, imagine how guilty I’d feel now, if I hadn’t made sure my stove was switched off ten times or that the door was really locked 100 times, before I leave. If there was to be a fire or a break in, I’d have to kill myself.  I am often already exhausted, before I’m even out the door to go and attend the actual activity, I was heading to.  And I know, I am not the only survivor dealing with this. 

Need to revive what was lost

This last one might be simpler and seem way less dramatic, but I wanted to mention it anyway. Because survivors were practically robbed of their childhood, we tend to make up for that later in life.  We can be or act very childlike, enjoy playing games way too much, watch children’s programmes and laugh about jokes, designed for ten year olds.  Sometimes I feel judged for being like that. So, I just wanted to say to anyone who hasn’t been through this, we survivors need to be a little childish sometimes. It helps, it makes us feel as though we can have a tiny part of what was lost back.  And at the end of the day, we are capable of adulting. So, please let us have some innocent fun every now and then.

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I could continue this list and probably never come to an end.  At this moment, I still feel I’m not doing my fellow survivors justice with this post and I hope they’ll forgive me for that.  This is, of course, just an excerpt which stems solely from my personal life experience. Other survivors would have different, more profound things and stories to add.

It has been estimated, that one in four adults has experienced sexual abuse in childhood.  That would be a quarter of the world’s population, which is a horrible thing to consider. Personally, I believe those numbers might be higher. Simply because, it is well known, that men are less likely to speak up or seek help, so who really knows, what the dark figures may be.

But this is exactly why I will never stop talking about this. People need to be made aware and society needs to act. I know this is not a pleasant topic and whenever I hear the story of someone else, who has experienced CSA, I am heartbroken. But I am also grateful. So grateful from the bottom of my heart, that they have the courage to share their story, to make those listen who try to deny this and for making the world a little bit better. Thank you! 

My biggest intention here is to make others, who went through something similar, feel less alone. I truly hope to make a little bit of an impact with my tiny blog and if you are a fellow survivor, please just know that you’re not alone. 

Please know what an extraordinarily courageous human being you are for surviving this!