A Victim of Child Molestation

By Angie

Personally, I like to call us Survivors. Victim sounds as though we have no power, but we do. At least after the fact.

We may have been victims at the time of the molestation, but we are survivors now. Surviving child abuse is a feat in itself. It is a very tough emotional roller coaster to go through at any age. Once we reach adulthood we can do something about it. Empower ourselves. How do we do that? By taking back our lives and dealing with what the molestation did to us, deal with all of its issues and put them behind us, find a way to survive and thrive.

To do this we need to face what happened to us and NOT be afraid to tell others about it. What society needs is more people to speak up about it, make it a topic of discussion, not something to be hidden away or swept under the rug as though it's an embarrassing secret we can't share.

How do you become a survivor and not a victim? Talk. The first time will be tough as hell to do, but once you get past that hurdle you are on your way to healing and recovery. The first time I told anyone was when I was about 21. A girlfriend asked me over for coffee. So there we were, with our Orange Cappacinos, when she looked at me and said, can I ask you a personal question? I said sure, go ahead. Were you molested as a child?

I just about dropped my coffee right there. I started to shake, my voice wavered, and I asked how she knew. She said that she remembered little things I had said over the past months, and how I was not close to my family, seemed to get tense when talking about my father. Since that day it has gotten easier and easier, to the point now where I am writing about it.

You are not a victim of child molestation, you are a survivor. You have already suffered the abuse, and once it's over physically you can start to heal emotionally, or help your child, if they have been molested. Sure it's tough, but in the long run it's more than worth it.