At age 15 I started to attend school parties but it wasn’t for the social side of things as one may presume. I attended parties with the specific intention to drink to get drunk and take drugs to numb the emptiness that I felt inside. Being at parties also meant that I didn’t have to be at home, a place where I lived daily in fear of my sibling who behaved in ways that were both physically and emotionally abusive.

One evening at a party, when I was completely intoxicated, I was raped by a family member of a friend. There is little I remember about the rape except for a couple of moments where I became conscious for a few seconds. I didn’t need to remember it in my head – my body remembered it all. Continue reading “From Self-loathing to Self-love – Rediscovering my Inner Essence after Sexual Assault and Rape” →

When I was 7 years old, my mum’s then boyfriend sexually abused me. I told mum at the time, and her response was… “He was only trying to make you feel good”. I never spoke of the event again until I was 18.

When I brought up my childhood sexual abuse at 18, my mother said she could not remember a thing and also said that it had never happened. I felt deeply hurt and very sad that my mother did not accept that I was speaking the truth. All I ever wanted from her was to acknowledge that the sexual abuse did happen, rather than pretend that it didn’t.

As an adult I know what is true and there is no need for anyone else to get it, but as a child I was either silent and never spoke about it or I wanted my mum to own up and take responsibility for not being there for me as a child, for not listening to me when I was 7 and needing her to support me rather than just try and brush it away. Continue reading “Breaking the Pattern of Abuse by Dealing with Childhood Sexual Abuse” →