INSIDIOUS EFFECTS

Even though one lives in a country where an individual has freedom they may not be free. There are expanding moments where a feeling of freedom arises yet often it alludes me. Brought up in isolation where horrific trauma was personally experienced yet silenced caused a stunting of growth into what could have been. That cage doesn’t magically find a key and release its prisoner. She lives with a view of herself that was cemented during the personality forming process.

The work to confront the psychological aspects of childhood sexual abuse is an ongoing process that takes a life. Determined not to have it taken continues to present challenges, some so insidious it is intricately difficult to discern so patterns are repeated and the pain is profound. If one cannot put words on it, put it out there, have it listened to and understood, then the aloneness continues and goes deep causing breaks in the soul that cannot come together in peacefulness. 

The eldest son felt bad over his crimes. Instead of confessing his sexual abuse towards his little sister he tore her down but in little ways that no one noticed but her. She had a fight in her and battled him endlessly in quiet ways. But the innuendos became part of her make- up solidifying how she thought about herself.

She becomes other people’s stories about her and that follows her throughout life. She has no freedom to be who she is because she never was. Even if she knows the stories are not true she lives them without speaking up, or without shouting and screaming as others do. She has not been allowed to have her own stories. How does she have her own stories at 10, or 20, 40 or even sixty when so much of her had been subdued and locked away?

No one listened then and no one does now…except one. It only takes one person to know, understand and care. That is enough to free her. And she needs this time and again. Just one to know and care.