Sexual Assault Disclosure Of Childhood Sexual Abuse.....or Not?

[rightkindofme]

I am extremely out. I wrote a book about my childhood and put it up for sale on Amazon in the Kindle department. Disclosing resulted in losing my life long best friend. That has been hard. I divorced my biological family because the incest has already gone past my generation. :( I can't let those monsters know my children.

I write on my public blog about everything that has happened to me. It is really intense. A while back I essentially live-blogged my mental breakdown. In eight days I wrote 100,000 words about being assaulted. It was rough. I'm glad I am living this way.

I do not have it available to me to have an "apparently normal and healthy life". That ship past me by. I'm weird. Really freakin weird and socially stunted. I'm out about who and what I am because if I am careful and specific about how I disclose I can do a lot to influence people reacting well to me. If I prepare them in advance for what to expect they get less upset.

I have lost a lot of friends. Many people feel free to shout at me and tell me that I am terrible for speaking about what I have experienced. Lots of people have told me that for me to speak about what happened to me makes me an abuser and I should just shut up.

I try to talk a little louder when they are in the room. Being contrary saved my life. I'm not giving it up to become a people pleaser at this stage.

I have enough friends. Really I have so many friends that I turn down requests for social engagements every week because we simply don't have enough friends. Being out has been very good to and for me. I can ask for the help I need. I can exist as a whole person because people understand how hard it is for me to be "socially appropriate" and they can read about my underlying emotional experience. People don't see it. I hide a lot to have my feelings behind closed doors.

I'm really intense but it works.

 

[timid]

I am extremely out.

It is worth living in the truth. Living a lie just adds unecesssary boundaires. I applaud you for standing up for yourself and not allowing people to walk over you.

 

[Lucycat]

I have lost a lot of friends. Many people feel free to shout at me and tell me that I am terrible for speaking about what I have experienced. Lots of people have told me that for me to speak about what happened to me makes me an abuser and I should just shut up.

I try to talk a little louder when they are in the room. Being contrary saved my life. I'm not giving it up to become a people pleaser at this stage.

I admire your strength. For professional reasons I simply cannot be as open as I would like. It would be professional suicide. However when I retire - which I have the option of doing from next summer - I would like to be more open. Telling people about the abuse also means admitting the effects this has had on me. I could not be in my job with the label of mental health problems over me. My T is well aware of this and keeps my file discrete and hidden from the prying eyes of his colleagues. My boss knows I was abused ( but doesn't care a hoot) but not that I have a diagnosis of Complex PTSD.

Disclosure covers such a wide remit. From choosing ( if there is a choice) to tell when the abuse/assault happens - to friends, police, family colleagues - how wide do you go? To telling many years later that these events earlier in your life still have an impact on how you are and even who you are today.

There are more opportunities to disclose today than ever before, but does having more and easier accessible choices make that decision any easier?

How does a child make that decision? How does the older child make a decision years after the event? How does an adult admit that they have failed to keep themselves safe and been assaulted? How does a male victim admit that he was helpless?

So many people are judged for the decision that they make, by people who have never been in the situation and have absolutely no idea what it is like.

 

[geishgal]

Disclosure has been really important for me. And it has gotten easier over time. I think disclosing to my therapist was the hardest. I didn't see her about the abuse, it just came out in therapy. And she was amazing. I have been lucky in that everyone has been really supportive, though I have taken care in who I choose to tell. I told my partner about 2 weeks into knowing him and he just wrapped his arms around me and gave me the big, protective hug I needed as a child and said he thought that sort of scum should be stabbed in the heart. It was risky telling him because I hardly knew him at that point, but I decided if he couldn't cope then he wasn't right for me anyway. And he came up trumps. He really gets it and has been incredibly supportive. But i can't tell my mum. She had a brief affair with my abuser, a friend of my dad's, and it would kill her to know. So I guess I am still protecting my parents, which is why I never told them in the first place. Twisted really. But that's what abusers do. That saddens me but I can't see any point in hurting her. I guess disclosure is in part about living authentically.

 

[Lucycat]

However when I retire - which I have the option of doing from next summer - I would like to be more open.

I considered disclosing to all at my retirement dinner. But I didn't do it. It would have ruined the meal for everyone and I am sure it would have made them all very uncomfortable. My retirement dinner was fun and I am pleased for it to stay that way.

However now, in other circumstances I could now tell people. My job, that I was so precious about was as a Children's Nurse. I feared that people would not want me to be caring for their child if they knew I had Complex PTSD ( or any mental health condition really). also there was the conflict for me that I was a Children's Nurse who has a father who is a paedophile. I though they would judge me for his wrong doings.