Surviving childhood trauma and sexual abuse

*Trigger warning* If you are affected by the issues raised in this piece please check out the help information at the end of this article.

One of the most frequent questions I am asked when people contact our support group for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse is, “Will you tell me when I am better?” It’s a heartrending plea but one that that is deeply entrenched in our belief that somehow we are broken; that somehow we need fixing; that somehow we brought on the abuse ourselves; that we deserved it.

I was sexually abused when I was nine years old and for the years that followed believed that I was broken, guilty, ashamed, even evil; that this was definitely all my fault. Through my late teens and early twenties I felt a rage burning within me that rarely came out but rather turned inwards in a torrent of self destructive behaviours.

I fastened onto anyone that I felt an attachment to and then explode in a whirlwind of verbal hatred if they couldn’t give me the same depth of energy that I gave them, only to be filled with shame and guilt a few moments later. I drank to excess. I fought myself and on occasion others. There would be days of relative calm where I would sit in confusion about what was happening. Then I would feel myself slip back into that storm again for a few days that would be followed by the confusing calm and waiting for the next storm; and so it would continue for over twenty years. I felt I was mad or continuously on the verge of madness.

Six years ago I came apart at the seams. The turmoil, confusion and self hatred became so great that when I was confronted by a young client who came into an Outreach Project I was working in at the time, and I heard her honesty and strength as she told her story, I felt the stitching burst with each word she spoke. Twenty four hours later I was sat in front of a therapist and for the first time in my life I said “I was sexually abused when I was a kid”.

Although I did not ask the therapist “Will you tell me when I am better?” I felt that desperation as months turned into years and still I was getting nowhere. I had started SHARE, the support group that I launched out of sheer despair at the lack of any resources for adult survivors, without a thought as to whether I was ready to hear others very triggering stories. I was going nowhere with a succession of therapists who I felt did not have a clue as to what I was talking about. I started my own training as a therapist again without any thought about whether I was ready, but was quite happy to absorb the pain of others in order to feed the insatiable appetite of my own pain.

It was during this training that I fell into a particularly dark time in my life. A friend of mine who I worked with, managed to get me to the doctor. Rather than write out a prescription he listened. Four months later having been referred by the doctor to a psychiatrist I was diagnosed with Emotionally Unstable Personality Disorder (also known as Borderline Personality Disorder). The diagnosis was such a relief. I felt I wasn’t evil or going mad or both. I managed to find a very good therapist who rather than dismiss my diagnosis worked with it. She also helped me to see how other factors such as my mother’s breakdown when she lost her twin babies when I was young, impacted on and shaped my behaviours, beliefs and emotional responses not only in my teens but also in my twenties and beyond. It helped to untangle the identity I had weaved around being only a victim of abuse. I became more than a victim.

The first thing my parents said when I told them five years ago that I had been abused was “Why didn’t you tell us at the time?” How could I? How does a child find the language that expresses the horror that has or is happening to them. The school called my mother into discuss their concern about some of the drawings I was doing in art class and in particular the constant use of black, or scribbling over drawings with black crayon. But it went no further. Today there is greater awareness and any such red flags are immediately brought to the attention of an appropriate department or professional.

So I said nothing. I was told that adults were safe, that they protected children. So how could I explain this thing that someone who I believed was safe, was doing to me and yet confusingly made me feel deeply ashamed and embarrassed. All my life I struggled with the thought “how many children could I have saved if I had spoken out?” or more bluntly “why the hell didn’t I stop it?” Whilst this guilt still breaks into my consciousness, it has been diluted by the understanding that I was a child. That I was child and now as an adult I had been looking at my abuse as an adult would and not as a child would. So yes as an adult I would have spoken out, but I was a child and as a child I did not think as the adult me thinks today. This understanding has gone a long way to helping me forgive myself and to embrace the nine year old me.

I cannot answer my clients or even myself when we ask “when will I be better?” It takes time. There is no quick fix. What I do know is that whilst we will never forget the traumas from our childhood we can learn to control it rather than the traumas controlling us. We can learn to forgive ourselves rather than the abuser. As a therapist and as a survivor I now know that another’s pain is not mine to own and that starving my own pain is more healthy than feeding it with another’s. There will be particularly painful and dark times, but with the appropriate support and therapy these times will have less of an impact.

Help information – If you need to talk, contact:

• One In Four Sexual Abuse – From surviving to living
• The Dublin Rape Crises Centre 1800 77 88 88
• CARI 1890 9245 67 or email helpline@cari.ie
• Women’s Aid National Freephone Helpline 1800 341 900
• Samaritans 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.org
• Pieta House 01 601 0000 or email mary@pieta.ie – (suicide, self-harm)
• Teen-Line Ireland 1800 833 634 (for ages 13 to 19)
• Childline 1800 66 66 66 (for under 18s)
• yourmentalhealth.ie
• Aware 1800 80 48 48 (depression, anxiety)
• National Suicide Helpline 1800 247 247 – (suicide prevention, self-harm, bereavement)

If living in Ireland you can find accredited therapists in your area here:

• iacp.ie
• iahip.org
• counsellingdirectory.ie