08/04/2022
“This man has a powerful story to tell. He is the victim of childhood sexual abuse. Unfortunately, like many others in his case, his abuser was protected. It’s interesting how in our society we protect abusers. I have seen it personally and professionally. It’s disgusting and sick. I am glad to share this Warriors story as those of us who are childhood sexual abuse survivors are scared, often terrified to share what has happened to us.
After all this time, truth is what is being shared and that is what should have been shared from the start! STOP protecting abusive people!! Guess what?!?! That abusive person, once protected gets the greenlight to go off and continue offending on other victims of their choice. Then it becomes a generational problem because that’s all the family knows. Not only do other family members protect the abuser but so do institutions. Imagine being a four-year-old or younger who is terrified to be around a sibling or a parent because that person is chronically CONTROLING AND SEXUALLY ABUSING them. The person is told to shut up or don’t talk because some unimaginable physical harm will come to the person. This is what is expected year after year after year. It never changes and the person is allowed to continue coursive control over its victim for the remainder of that person‘s life, if the victim is unable to access treatment. Because, to the abuser the victim is an object not a human. Something to be used for their sick inner demons , urges, and desires.
You have permission as a victim Of childhood sexual abuse to press charges against the individual that sexually abused you. This is difficult because the evidence is the victims life. Do you know what a trauma response is? These things that happen because a person is indoctrinated to hate themselves. It’s how the victim survives their environment well they continue to be abused and even long after the abuse stops until proper treatment takes place. As they navigate this environment they’re told they’re crazy, they just have a problem with this person, and most of all the victim is expected to live a “ normal life”. The victim often ends up showing signs through things like their skin or their bathroom activities. The same victim is expected to participate in school activities. To learn and retain information when all they’re trying to do is just survive their environment.  Victims of childhood sexual abuse operate off their automatic response system regularly until they are treated properly for the trauma they have been through. Victims of childhood sexual abuse make decisions based on impulse and urges that cause the victim to try and self-soothe through toxic means. For the victim there is no cure or pill that can take the image away of being molested or r***d or sodomized or worse. Childhood sexual abuse victims opporate their live off of their automatic response system. This same system is responsible for your eyes blinking, your heart beating, your hands, and feet moving any sort of movements that is done automatically by the body. This system is the brain’s way of protecting the victim. These things happen automatically for us. Learning Deviant behaviors that are taught as normal every day life things things at such a young age , has the potential to ruin that person‘s life. Just hoping someone sees that there’s something going on because if you say something you’ll be disowned, abused more, threatened with violence, intimidated, stalked, humiliated, and so much more.
Stand up and be strong in who you are. Someone who has survived childhood sexually abused should not be expected to eat a meal with their abuser. In the case of in**st, which is something unfortunately I know WAY too much about, family members become strangers that choose the side of the Perpetrator because, “how could they do something like that.” Some of us spend our whole lives trying to understand ourselves because of actions of a deviant person. If you or someone you know has been the victim of childhood sexual abuse there is hope! Share your story so we can BREAK this sick cycle. “
-Kathryn List, MSW, LICSW-A
