Heart Knowledge

July has been an intense month. I have been working through my childhood abuse for years. I've been told repeatedly (ad nauseum) the abuse was not my fault. No child is ever responsible for sexual abuse. I know this in my head. I forget it and have to remind myself, thus making me feel stupid and selfish.


For the past several weeks, I have been focusing on a rape that took place when I was 5 years old. It's been gut wrenching, and has brought on depression, sadness, lethargy, pain, and questioning my value. Today was the first day in a long while that I've seen some hope at the end of the tunnel.


I realize that he didn't rape me because I reminded him by asking what he wanted to show me. He had a plan from the beginning, and I had no power to change the outcome. She is just as bad. Doing nothing, when she knew full well what the plan was, may make her even more culpable.


One of the worst things people have said to me over the years is, "He/she must have been abused to have done that to you." I don't care what happened to the offenders. This is about me -- the child, the victim, the innocent. While I recognize in the big picture of life, offenders have their own set of traumas to deal with, that is not my concern now, and will most likely never be my focus. All of us have free will and we all have the same choices between good and evil. Circumstances are different -- socio-economic standing; family; support systems -- they are all factors. Ultimately a decision has to be made to continue the abuse; to continue to see people as objects; to continue to put others in harm's way. I chose to stop the pattern of abuse by not harming another.


So now I will continue to focus on healing, and hoping that my healing will help others address their own traumas. I can't make the abuse not have happened. All I can do is try to make something good come out of it.