A few years ago I was married to my third abuser, living part time in a women’s shelter, suicidal and filled with despair. Today I’m the happiest person I know. What happened? What did I do? I resolved the problem. Sound simple? It isn’t, but then it wasn’t easy to get to where I was. It took me years of addictions, domestic violence partners, suicide attempts, time spent in psychiatric wards and talking to therapists about my happy Catholic childhood and getting nowhere.<\/p>\n
In my early 40s I\u00a0 hit my bottom. They tell you in 12 step programs that this is where most of us go before we start fixing our life. The first thing I had to do (and I didn’t need a therapist for this) was to admit that what my father had told me in my mid thirties about the incest relationship he had with me when I was a young girl was true. I had to come face to face with the reality that the “nightmare” I thought I had had about someone coming over me in my bottom bunk where I lay sound asleep and doing something so horrible that the pain and shock had me screaming and screaming for help was in fact, child sexual abuse. My mother eventually (she was a heavy sleeper) came into my bedroom and told me I’d had a nightmare. I begged and pleaded with her to believe me but it did no good. So I put that “nightmare” into a closet in my mind and everytime I had another “nightmare” I did the same.\u00a0 My mother eventually found out what was happening, chose to believe that I was the culprit, my father an innocent victim and had him beat me as a regular punishment. I ran away from home when I was 18 after a beating that almost killed me.<\/p>\n
By the time I was in my 40s that closet was so full it burst its seams and forced me to look at the reality of what had happened.\u00a0 That began my recovery. It wasn’t easy. I needed courage and I found I had some, much more that I’d ever dreamed. The battle to overcome my childhood sexual abuse began.<\/p>\n
Is this where you’re at? If you are happy and your life is working well you don’t need any help. If the partner you are with treats you with care and respect and your world is people with those who make healthy choices you don’t need any help. If you have no dark and painful shadows from your childhood lurking in the corners of your mind you don’t need any help. But if the opposite is true then you do need help.\u00a0 I get so many email where the subject line says simply, “PLEASE HELP ME”. I wish I could take my arms and wrap them around everyone that was ever sexually abused. I wish I could take them from where they are to where I am just by snapping my fingers.\u00a0But I can’t. I can tell you that if you follow the advice I have to give you your chance of having a happy life accelerates to a high level.<\/p>\n