I just want to warn my readers that this content may be triggering for some as I talk about sexual abuse as a child so please take the self care measures that you need if you decide to continue reading.
In the book I am reading, the author, Dianne Lake, talks about the sexual abuse that she experienced as a young girl. She says that because she didn’t understand it, she resorted to guilt and blamed herself for many many years. It enabled her to spend a lot of her childhood seeking safety in the wrong people and for the wrong reasons. A line that especially resonated with me was: “Sexual abuse creates an emptiness in the darkest places within”.
As a 21 year old, I am just now reflecting on the sexual abuse that I experienced in my own childhood. Up until now, I disregarded my experiences by putting the blame and guilt on myself, or even reframing the situation as normal when it really wasn’t. I thought he was my best friend, I thought he was someone I could trust, I thought this was all normal behavior for a teenager. But the fact is that I was a teenager and he was a legal adult. So what I originally viewed as typical teenage sexual exploration, I have now begun to reframe in my adult life as sexual abuse and predatory and deliberate manipulation.
It is hard for me to remember every instance of sexual abuse as it was a constant issue throughout my childhood life and even as I became a woman at 18 years old. It’s no wonder that I find myself in sticky situations where I know deep down I deserve better, but I feel like I can’t leave. It’s no wonder I find myself seeking safety and trust in people that have their best interests at heart, not mine. It’s no wonder I find myself randomly crying during sexual encounters. And as a 21 year old, I am just beginning to unravel the hurt and the abuse, and in particular, the causes of it.
It feels mortifying and self-pitying to reframe my childhood experiences in this way. I never wanted something as horrible as this to become a part of my identity. And for a long time, I didn’t think it had to. I thought that it would be shameful of me to compare myself to people who had REALLY experienced sexual abuse as a child, whatever that means. If it wasn’t some creepy old neighbor or uncle, was it really sexual abuse? If he was only 25 and not a creepy old man, was it really sexual abuse? These were questions I used to protect myself and him.
Up until now, I have always blamed myself for his behavior. I still struggle with this now. I should have known that he was just using me. I should have known not to trust a stranger. I should have known that he was older and that it was wrong. I should have left when it started to make me feel on edge. And even from my actions, I knew it was wrong in the moment. Even after the fact, my mother hit me with “I told you so’s”. But in the end, I was a vulnerable minor. It felt good to feel as though I was unconditionally loved, listened to, and considered. Because in my real life, I didn’t feel any of these things. But I thought I felt them with him.
As much as I have blamed myself the entirety of my life, I know that that is wrong. My experiences weren’t due to a slip in my judgement. They weren’t due to me being a bad kid on a bad path. They weren’t due to a mistake on my part. My experiences are due to a predator making deliberate efforts to groom me. My experiences are due to a predator preying on a vulnerable girl who was depressed and lacked parental supervision and attention. There was nothing that I did to cause this and there was nothing that I could have done to prevent it.
No fake shit 