Child Abuse Story of Healing and Recovery From Amy

by Amy
(England, United Kingdom)

We are all a work in progress: 
I didn't like who I was throughout my teen years. I had been abused over 3 years from the age of 11, and then I had been sexually promiscuous, compounding the negative effect of the abuse on my self esteem. I did the norm for someone like us: shop-lifting, one-night stands, self-harm; all hid behind the charming mask of an intelligent young girl who came across as being confident.

I had promised myself I would come clean with my parents at 18 and address my issues, but instead I left England to work and travel. A friend of the family found me a job on a private yacht. An exciting job, travelling and earning attractive amounts of money. Naturally I jumped into a relationship with this friend. He was nice, he had got me the job, I felt safest being in relationships, safe from being a "slut".

The combination of leaving home, working full-time and being in a loving relationship catalysed my choice to confront my demons. I had missed my planned deadline to sort myself out, and this troubled me for the year I was with this person. I confessed everything that had happened to me, and I went as far as to admit to this person that I had once abused my younger brother when I was around 13. That was the scariest thing I had ever done in my life, something that had been eating me up for 5 years and I told this person.

He held me, he told me he loved me, and he told me it wasn't my fault.

Finally I knew I was lovable. I knew deep in my heart I was loved. I was with this person for a year, living and working together on the yacht, then he had to leave. It's been very difficult to cope with being away from him and I went a bit OTT with partying, but I didn't go back to my promiscuous ways because I've learnt my lesson.

A few weeks ago on my 20th birthday I had a serious accident and I could have died from my injuries. I'm recovering, and the process is slow and painful. I have to leave my fancy lifestyle of travel and money and go home. I have spent the past few weeks researching the effects of sexual abuse on children. I have found it comforting to have words to explain feelings and behaviours I didn't understand before. It is all becoming very clear.

There is no formulaic approach to healing. It's a personal journey that some people delay or never start. I have always always been a person who wants to do "the right" thing (thanks to my fallible yet wonderful parents) and so I think of my life as "the house that John built". I want to use stone foundations, not sand. I've got plenty of sand, plenty of mistakes to make me crumble later in life, but now I've made the choice to think long-term when I make decisions. I've made the choice to use stone.

To some people this will help, to some it will not be very cohesive. I have left out a huge amount of detail of course. I'm not yet ready to start pouring out the depressing details again. I go through phases. I am trying to be patient and understanding with myself. I know I have the potential to use my past for good, but right now I am coming to terms with my past by taking it slowly and just reading at my own pace. I don't read everyone else's sad stories and relive my pain. I'm just in the process of rationalising what happened to me. A self-defence mechanism I have always used...rationalize and minimize.

I have had to grow up...being an angry little child has not added to my life, so I'm leaving that child behind and becoming the person I want to be. I'm being kind to myself. I'm loving myself.

I went to a funeral a few months ago and the vicar said the line, "Love your neighbour as you love thyself", then he pointed out that in order to love your neighbour you have to first love yourself. This hit me like a ton of bricks. It is the truth. People who hurt others do so because they are hurting themselves. You cannot love another human being until you learn to love yourself. If you don't have the patience and will to learn to love yourself, how will you ever have a healthy and rewarding relationship?

So...my approach: Time and an open mind. Be willing to find answers to your problems rather than just live in denial. Seek the truth. Don't rely on a lover to help fix you. Take some time to get to know yourself without thinking of yourself as a sexual object, a plaything for boys. It helped me immensely that my last boyfriend loved me unconditionally, but he also introduced me to the Christian concept of abstinence. I don't know if I can wait until marriage, but I know that right now whilst I have no bloke to entertain, I have more time for myself, more time to build healthy friendships with guys and realise I have more to offer than just my body.

Note from Darlene: The volume of contributor submissions has now made it impossible for me to comment personally (especially in great detail) on each and every contribution. If I haven't left you a comment or one that is in-depth, please do not take my lack of a personal response as a slight, or as a statement that your story is somehow unworthy of my time. Nothing, and I do mean nothing, could be further from the truth. If there was a way for me to respond to all of you at length, I would.

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