Trigger Warning: this blog post mentions sexual assault and rape.
"Childhood sexual abuse is a kind of trauma that results in lifelong depression that is difficult to recover from. According to Dr. Rosaleen McElvaney, when the trauma was first defined it was a normal reaction to an abnormal event now it is an experience that is emotionally overwhelming. Some children end up engaging in sexual activities to get validation and this makes them think that it is the only way they can be loved. At the other end of the spectrum, some children find it difficult to engage in these sexual activities as a result of fear of the flashbacks from these traumatic behaviors. It was discovered that most of these child sexual abuses are from the people they know and this affects their trust in general, they eventually detach themselves from everyone and lose trust in a lot of people including authorities. A study conducted by Dr. Ali Zirakzedeh, found that sexual abuse was associated with a number of disorders like depression, eating disorders, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, Acute Stress Disorder, anxiety, and many more. As we can not compare human suffering, whether the abuse was during their adulthood or childhood, these findings showed that these sexual abuses were associated with severe diseases. However, Sometimes the telling causes the damage as opposed to the experience of abuse.
“I just wish I had not told anyone, everything was alright before I told anyone.” Shame and self-blame and the thought of “what would I be if I wasn’t abused”, feeling worthless all fracture the relations, they feel the blame of the fall out of the family. There is so much stigma around the experience, many parents do not want to carry around the label of their children being sexually assaulted because they fear that people will question their parenting skills. However, all this can be solved by creating a space that is not judgmental and listening to each other, and understanding that it is not the victim’s fault in any way, I believe this is the world we want to see!"
- Anonymous