Yesterday as I was getting my hair done, I heard a story on the news about sexual child abuse. The reporter said some studies showed that "as many as 25 percent of girls and 17 percent of boys are sexually assaulted by the time they reach 18". This doesn't surprise me in the least bit; as someone who has multiple friends who were assaulted as children, I feel like if anything, this number is misleadingly low. I, too, am a survivor of sexual child abuse. As a survivor, I feel like I am qualified to present my insights on this subject. So without further adieu, I'd like to jump right in to this week's topic: How to be a survivor instead of a victim.
More often than not, child abuse happens in places people think are safe. They let their guard down because they think that nothing like this could ever happen in such a safe environment. It could be under the protection of parents, under the protection a public place can bring, in the sanctity of your own home. For me, it happened when we lived on a military base in Maryland.
I was around seven at the time. Down the cul-de-sac from us lived a woman who was in the military and her son, who was in his mid to late teens or possibly his early twenties. Whatever his age, my parents determined him to be harmless enough. He used to hang around with my friends and I at times. One day, he approached me holding a red ball that he had apparently found in the woods. I asked if I could play with it, to which he responded that I could, if I gave him something in return. When I asked what, he pointed to my shirt, and told me all I had to do was raise my shirt for just a moment.
And I think the next part is what made me so ashamed for years that I didn't tell a soul; I did what he asked. I was so young that I don't think I really had a concept of what sexuality was at all, and therefore no concept of what was wrong or right in that sort of situation. I knew that instinctively it didn't seem right, but after a bit of coercing I decided there would be no harm in it. And to some degree I'm still ashamed of that to this day, even though I don't think I could've known better. Which brings me to my second insight about sexual abuse. The number one reason I think that "25 percent of girls and 17 percent of boys" is actually a lower number than the truth - A lot of sexual abuse victims feel too ashamed to say anything. They're scared of how society will view them. They're scared that somehow, ultimately, this is their fault. Sometimes their abuser will make sure they think this, or sometimes it's just the scared imagination of an abuse victim running rampant.
As time moved on, things became more violent. Looking evolved to touching, to ignoring my more and more frequent cries of "no", to threats and knives held against my thin, trembling throat. There were legitimately times that I thought I was going to die by the hand of this man; he wanted me to know he would do it in a heartbeat. That was the other reason I didn't tell anyone; he drilled it into my head that not only would no one believe me, but that he would kill me if I told a soul. In the fragile psyche of a child, I began to feel like no matter where I hid or who I thought would protect me, he could find me, and he would slit my throat.
The fear in that sort of situation is indescribable; every moment, waking or asleep, was a nightmare for me. I would come home from a session with him and pretend to not feel well; I would change my clothes and bury my bloody undergarments in the woods near the house. I would not tell a soul about anything that would happened. I thought that the rest of my life would be this way.
But one day, I finally told someone. A male friend of mine, about 3 years older than me. I told him about the session with the red ball, still at that moment not realizing that it was anything bad or in any way associated with the other bad stuff that had been done to me. I told someone, but only because I didn't realize I was telling them. I can't imagine what it was like for him to hear me tell that story without any emotion or indication that I thought what had transpired was wrong. It must have been disturbing. I remember he became upset and said he was going to tell his mother. I cried, begged him not to, but he went to do just that. I ran to my house and locked myself in my room and cried, scared I was going to be in so much trouble.
Even as my parents were asking me concerned questions, I was so afraid of being in trouble with both him and them that I tried to minimize the damage that had been done by my slip up. I swore he had never touched me, just looked. And after awhile, they had no choice but to relent their questioning. It was clear they didn't believe me, but they had no proof to the contrary.
Although he was never charged with anything, he moved away almost right after my slip up. I didn't sleep well for months; I spent most of my nights either awake and frightened at every little creak in the house, or dreaming that he had come back to kill me like he had promised. It took me about a year to realize he probably wasn't coming back. After that, I blocked the entire thing out of my memory for years. My parents never spoke of it, I never spoke of it, and soon, it was as if it had never happened.
You can't just block something like this out of your memory for good; no matter how hard you try, the memories start to creep up on you. It might just be a feeling of unease, but it could also manifest as irritability or in the form of dreams. For me, it began with unease and then evolved into nightmares. I began to dream about the man with the red ball. I began to dream about the things he said and did to me. Bit by bit, I began to realize that these weren't just dreams. These things had actually happened to me. I'm not sure what I felt when I first truly realized the weight of this revelation. I think I was numb. In shock. How could I have forgotten this? It just didn't seem possible. Yet, it was.
I was already on a steady descent into teen depression, and this pushed me over the edge. I was a victim of sexual abuse; this was the first time I ever attempted to kill myself. I tried to hang myself from the door knob in my room. I could feel my life slipping away from me right before the rope I was using broke. And as I lay there, neck bruised, gasping for air, I realized that this was the lowest point of my entire life.
The thing is that in your lowest moment, things can only start to look up. Every moment from that point forward is higher than the last. It has to be. Slowly, you can begin to recover. Slowly, you can become a survivor instead of a victim. A victim is who I was in my lowest moment; abused to the point where I wanted nothing more than to die, to not remember anymore. A victim is someone who is still mourning their losses. A victim is someone who cannot move on.
A survivor is who I am now; who I became when I decided that if I couldn't kill myself, I would have to learn to move on. A survivor is someone who won't let their past slow them down or make them less than they could have been otherwise. A survivor is someone who uses their past to motivate them and help them become more than they ever imagined.
It's an incredible struggle to overcome the obstacles of your past. There are some low points along the way; some nights where you wonder what you're trying to accomplish and what all the hardship is worth. But there are also high points where you in no way have to question if it was worth the struggle. I live in those high points almost every single day of my life.
My name is Erin. I was raped at the age of seven. I am a survivor, not a victim.
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