In the wake of the Jimmy Saville abuse, with victims/survivors having the courage to come forward and speak, often for the first time in their lives, about something done to them as a child, it re-awakens the demons within me.
Alongside their questions come my own:
- Why did it happen?
- What did I do to deserve it?
- I must be bad!
- The badness will show on the outside and change relationships in life now
- There is still the Child part of me wanting so much to be believed
- There is still the Child in me hurting like crazy, screaming for release
- I need closure
- I 'came out' through my teen years in behaviour: eating disorders, self-harm, panic attacks, just as I 'came out' and tried to put into words years and years before as a child of four, five, six .... that the Specialist at the hospital was 'hurting me'. The response was the same: inertia. Nothing changed. No-one came to support the damaged child. The abuse went on for a further 3 years.
- The nightmares return
- I feel alone
You have to have been there to truly understand. You have to have lived the experience of child sexual abuse to know the pain. It doesn't go away.
When something breaks on the news such as the Jimmy Saville abuse, it re-opens the wound which festers and bleeds, drawing you back down the tunnel of the past.
I shared my secret pain ... first as a book, then in therapy and by telling my parents forty years on, finally by starting LIFELINE to discover I wasn't alone ... and as an Abuse Consultant some time on, by standing on a platform in front of an audience of professionals telling it the way it is, opening myself as a way of helping professionals understand the needs of victims/survivors everywhere.
And yet telling in whatever way that happens doesn't make the pain go away.
There are still everyday things that trigger the same feelings I had way back then - trauma, panic, a sense that I'm still actually living it and will need to see my abuser again; nightmares, flashbacks, lack of confidence, low self esteem, acute depression, and the feeling I'm just not worth anything because somehow I let it happen.
It's like living a fragmented self in two completely different worlds.
What do I need in response?
Compassion. A listener. Someone who is simply going to hold me close, keep me safe, make me feel special in the right kind of way.
The world can seem an awfully dark place when you feel so abandoned, rejected, alone.
The world can feel unsafe when still, you have the feeling that person betrayed your trust and still retains Control. And there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.
'You should do this', 'you should do that' .... doesn't come into it.
With Control comes a mindset that slips so easily into place even without you being aware of it. You jump when he says jump. You do whatever it takes to survive. The longer abuse continues, the deeper you are entrenched in that mindset making it harder and harder to break and be free.
I went to the police. I made a statement. Not as a child ... but as an adult ... and only about ten years ago. The urge to do this was driving me wild. I needed to do this ... for me; to somehow shift the Guilt and Control and take back what was mine. But I couldn't change what happened. They listened. For weeks I had CID coming round to my home taking statements, questioning, asking me what happened, its effects. I even drew the house where it happened and described it as if it were still happening to the Child that was. They visited his home as it had been years ago ... it was just the same as I remembered, a mirror image of my drawing inside and out. They went to the school. But without another person who had been abused by the same person coming forward, it can go no further. They arrested him, yes. But what did I actually want from him, they asked? I wanted him simply to say it happened ... to admit he was guilty. But to do so would mean he would go to jail and never come out. Was I supposed to feel sorry for him? It remains as an open case in a police file ... waiting ... waiting ... waiting. Meanwhile, the abuser might well die. And what then? The questions are the same. As with Jimmy Saville's victims, given my abuser was well known, well respected, a giver to charities, it changes nothing for the Child now Adult and the confusion of feelings she carries moment to moment, from one day to the next.
More and more of Jimmy Saville's victims/survivors are coming forward.
I wish them well. It would be good to see justice prevail, and others involved brought to justice also.
Victims/Survivors are doing so much more than 'coming out'. With immense courage they are connecting with the outside world by telling it the way it is ... creating an awareness of how even someone so well known, so well loved for his work in charities, can do these awful things and create a lifetime of misery, depression, despair.
The first victim/survivor to come forward to break the secret of Jimmy Saville's abuse paved the way, opening the door for others to do the same. The NSPCC say that their calls have doubled since the disclosures, involving a whole range of different abuses done by different perpetrators. There is also the NAPAC (The National Association of People Abused in Childhood) who offer support. The floodgates are open. It is going to take a very long time for this particular news item to die down. And people who never had this experience meanwhile are learning all about it from those experiences shared.
But when all is said and done, there will remain the victims/survivors locked into their private grief and trauma, putting on a public face, suffering still in silence.
I am a survivor of child sexual abuse.
Please ... remember us.
Remember we are still seeking the peace of knowing we have taken back control of our life, needing that special someone to simply hold us close and to break through all our barriers to the very core of the Child to let her/him know they are truly accepted and love ... just the way we are.
