I read your story, and yes, you will get to the other side, you just have to learn that you are a good person and that you deserve good things. You have to stop dwelling on what happened and realize that you have choices. You choose whether or not you dwell on the past, and sometimes, the past is easier to dwell on because as crazy as it sounds, we have learned that we need that anger/monster to stay in our lives because that is how we keep ourselves from taking control.

I believe that inside every sexual abuse survivor, there remains the small innocent girl that existed when the abuse started. That little girl has never been able to grow up and she is the one who keeps you in such a confused state. She is that part of you that doesn't believe that she deserves anything good, or that she deserves a good man, or that she deserves as good a shot at life as anyone else does.

I know because I've been there. I just waited until I was 42 years old to fall apart, to reach the end of my rope without the safety net at the bottom. On some level, please find comfort in the fact that you freed yourself from the secret 22 years before I did. I was in therapy for 2 years and that was how long it took me to tell my parents!

Part of the problem is that we feel guilty because some of us enjoyed some of what was done to us. Some of us had oral sex and orgasms at the age of 9. Couple that with the fact that we are told that even though this is not bad, you can't tell anyone because they won't understand and then I'll be in trouble and it will be all your fault. So, we grow up feeling guilty because we think if we enjoy sex and have a good time we are a slut. It's a never ending cycle of being at war with yourself. The abuse self and the survivor self.

I''ve been there, I know how you feel and I know that it gets better, but only if you want it to better. You have to be willing to turn around and face the demons and stop running into your future looking back over your shoulder at your past.

Been there, done that and I even have the shirt!


Take care...


After I read this inspiring e-mail, I immediately wrote back to ask if I could put it on my page so other survivor's could share in her wisdom. Here is her reply:

Yes, please put it on the web page. "It's time to speak out and let the truth take it's toll." I welcome any communication with survivors, we may not be able to speak out with our voices, but we can speak out with our memories. Nobody ever told us our memories were bad, just that we were bad! Everytime we miss the opportunity to tell someone what happened, we doom another child to a life with our secret. I don't want to do that any longer. I want this to end. I want people to understand what it does to little girls and little boys. It's a never ending cycle that has to end somewhere. It can only end when we are no longer silent.

Please e-mail Espo10170 at espo10170@aol.com.

Go back to the Surivor's Sanctuary's lobby.