As a survivor of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) I find speaking out a double edged sword; in one way I it feels liberating, in another extremely exposing. Either way it comes with a burst of emotion and sometimes a tail spin of dissociation! It’s tricky! So, last week when I co-authored a piece published in “The Conversation”, which is an on-line platform of news articles written by academics, the emotional under-tow was significant.
Firstly pride and a sense of achievement …I hope you will read the piece. It felt like a success to push back against both Government and Labour party both of whom seemed to CSA to undermine the other without a care for victim-survivors. Arghhhh!
But I also felt frustrated – the article had to be less that 900 words, and The Conversation Editor significantly shaped the final version… yet it appears under my name. My priority was to speak to the damage to adult-survivors by the ignoring of the abuse, and that ended up as less than half a sentence.
Lastly, I was hopeful that this article would be syndicated through mainstream newspapers – but no. As usual (sorry if I sound cynical) silence persists around the predominance of CSA happening behind closed doors by family members including siblings. So the emotion is also akin to a sort of repeat of gagging.
Nonetheless, the fight continues to get CSA into the spot light in a positive way.
It was a good article thank you but I feel that I want to stop saying we are silenced and it is a delecate subject. This is how things stay as they are we need to speak out about it and childhood sex abuse is a subject not a delecate subject.
Men do speak we are being told out there they don’t.
Using words like this constantly makes is our culture to move that on I believe we can call out the people who are trying to silence us and telling them who is it a delecate subject for. We are carrying on what people need from us to keep us silence especially the authorities as they are aware of how prevelent child hood sex abuse is which means if we stay silent they don’t have to do anything
Please do not feel too disheartened, I have had a few challenging weeks. We have a lot more support for our cause than we can possibly imagine.
I was reminded today from a supporter that by us raising the awareness of child sex abuse it at the same time raises feelings that many may be trying not to acknowledge as it’s their own pain and experience.
As far as the media and the politicians are concerned that at best are complicit to protect their popularity, retain voters and subscribers, and at the very worst, well we don’t need to say it.
I am two weeks in to declaring I was sexually abused as a child, and although it has been a roller coaster, today, I feel a little more blessed when supporters have been in contact discretely offering their support for all of us and adding their energy.
We are definitly #strongertogether #notmyshame