Child Sexual Abuse

It's Happening to One In Four

13th August 2016

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In the early stages of my training as a counsellor I worked voluntarily with victims of child sexual abuse (CSA) and I’m writing this to stand beside the very brave young women and men who despite the horror of their childhoods were doing their absolute best to create something very different for their own children. Their voices are rarely heard and this needs to change. It is estimated that 70% of sexual abuse happens within the family unit and yet few of these cases ever come to the attention of the authorities.

Families should be safe, loving and nurturing places to hold a child however with child sexual abuse they become places of secrecy and fear. If parents grew up in an abusive family then it’s likely they will pass those same patterns on to the next generation and I witnessed on several occasions how abuse was ‘the norm’ and had been going on for 2-3 generations in a family. Most survivors remain silent because of the shame and fear surrounding their experiences and then later in life they often develop conditions such as eating disorders, self-harming, addiction to alcohol or drugs, mental illnesses like depression, post-traumatic stress disorder or suicidal thoughts and behaviour. The absolute tragedy when you speak to these individuals is that if they did speak out they were never believed or truly listened to. I heard multiple accounts of parents saying ‘Don’t imagine things or speak about things like that’ and ignoring the bravery of the child trying to break through the lies.

The only way I can describe the impact of CSA is the absolute shattering of the human spirit and there are no words to describe the devastating impact on a life. As I write this I am remembering witnessing in the therapy room that these people were once sweet little children who had been robbed of their innocence and light. They spoke openly at how they showed their distress in childhood through challenging behaviour like being withdrawn, stealing, failing in school and therefore were seen as bad. Sometimes the abused child was scapegoated by the entire family as a convenient target for the family anger and shame.

As they grow up survivors experience symptoms of post-traumatic stress, dissociation, mental health problems, depression, anxiety disorders such as obsessive compulsive disorders, addictions, eating distress, self-harm, suicidal behaviour or challenges with intimate relationships and a damaged or non-existant sense of self. The really shocking thing in every case that I worked with was that these women had made many attempts to get appropriate help and in many cases had not been referred to someone with the right level of experience to really help them.

If you are a parent then I suggest you go to this website to make sure you are fully aware of how to protect and educate your children:

http://www.stopitnow.org/ohc-content/tip-sheet-8

If you are a survivor then please know you are not alone. There is help out there for you and a good starting place would be to go for long term therapeutic support from a counsellor who had specialist training or expertise working with survivors of childhood sexual abuse. There are things that can really help you gradually heal but sadly there are no quick fixes. In addition to counselling, holistic health treatments such as addiction therapy, rehab, the 12-step programme, group therapy, acupuncture, physiotherapy, bodywork, reflexology and shamanic healing may also be very helpful.

My experience was that it’s a huge relief to these clients to talk to someone they can trust and once that initial silence has been broken things do start to feel easier for a person to take back their power as an adult and take the next steps in their recovery. I learnt just how remarkable the survival instincts are in small children and was humbled by how determined these people were to be great parents to their children. We all have friends, colleagues and loved ones who are survivors and many who may never have spoken about it. I found once I started to have more and more conversations with people about it, pretty much everyone had had an experience of sexual abuse or knew of someone. It strikes me that we need to have more of these conversations simply to give permission for people to speak out so that they can be free from the burden of carrying a secret that may be preventing them from living their life on their terms.

The research quoted in this blog was taken from the report ‘One in Four’ written by a charity (One in Four) that is passionately and professionally committed to supporting people who have survived child sexual abuse and to raise awareness of this challenging issue. They are a hands-on organization run by a small group of staff and volunteers with a growing team of dedicated specialist counselors and experts. A number of people working at the charity are survivors themselves.

To find out more about One In Four please visit www.oneinfour.org.uk.

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