Child Abuse Story From C
by C
(Canada)
Child Sexual Abuse:
It's hard to know where to begin...sometimes I feel like this didn't even happen to me, I've been holding it inside for so long - my parents know but we have never ever discussed it...I'm a coward...I feel horror and panic at just the idea of mentioning this to them now....
I am from a great family who I love very much. I have younger siblings...I just feel like I would die if they were to find out about this...I am the oldest in a family of 4 - the summer I was 8 years old, my family was very busy with a newborn, a 3-year-old, a 6-year-old - and myself. Needless to say, I was given quite a bit of free time that summer. I spent most of it at a local spot where many kids would meet up to play games like hide-n-seek, track-down, etc. A boy would come down who was much older to play. He was 14 and took an interest in me...I was always chosen for his team first, had to go to base with him...daily he would take me out of the group...it started out as attention, tickles and touches, then fondling and fingering...but, as I self-loathingly write - I always went back to the play group each day...I cannot express how much pain I've felt over this situation. I feel as if I don't have a right to be upset - I realise in the grand scheme of things - this is very minor - I go back and forth on it - sometimes thinking it was no big deal and I'm over it - nothing happened...then at other times extreme shame and disappointment over what I feel this says about who I am...I objectively know that I was a child...but can't always silence the voice in my head saying I should have known better. On those days I ask myself - What type of signal must I give off that I was chosen out of this large group of kids? Is this a flaw in who I am that I give off to the world?
As the summer went on I gradually became more and more uncomfortable with what was happening - but I didn't say anything and I kept coming back...as things became embarrassing and painful I would look up at the details on the brick of the wall behind my head and tune out. Eventually, a neighbourhood friend 'caught me.' I remember first my denial, then sobbing and pleading with her not to tell on me. She told her mother – I lied to her face that nothing was wrong. But, thank god, this little friend (who had a much harder life than me and probably knew from first-hand experience what she saw happening to me that day) was so persistent. She told people until eventually someone would listen to her. The day she came to tell my mother, I was hiding in the basement, shaking – where I had stayed all week attempting to avoid this. My parents meant well, but I can honestly say that talking to my mother about this was as scarring as the actual abuse. She was hysterical....
I remember the fighting between my parents over what would be done about this. Looking back now, I realise this was all out of fear for my safety, but at the time I felt as if all this anger was just directed at me and the bad, bad things I had done...eventually my parents decided that it would be best to remove me from the situation and leave it at that. I wasn't allowed to play outside alone for some time. My parents and I never discussed this to this day (I'm now in my mid 20s). Once, a few years ago, my mother asked me if I remembered this boy from up the street. I played dumb and we've left it at that....
I'm now an adult and appear pretty-well put together on the outside to those that only know one side of me. I've made it through college and have a good job. However, my relationships have been another story. I need to be drunk to be sexually intimate and have begun disclosing details of my abuse when I've had too much to drink (to strangers). I know I need help. I'm hoping this will be a start. I know I need to quit drinking...I want to have the strength to control myself....
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