Secret No More

I have a secret. It has been a secret for 44 years. Oh, I told a few people. However, when I told them, I brushed it off because I didn’t see it as any big deal. I mentioned it in passing to my parents when I was 16. Throughout the next 30 years, I told people here and there. Each time, brushing it off. Long ago, I packed the memories and feelings that went along with the secret in the deep, dark recesses of my mind. Little did I know the impact the secret would have on my life. In hopes of taking back what is mine, I am telling.

I was a victim of sexual abuse. When I was five, a young man pulled my nightgown up, laid on top of me, and told me, “It’s ok. It’s what people do when they love each other.” While no physical penetration took place, his words penetrated my subconscious. From that moment on, love equated danger. I told no one. There were a couple of other instances of what I now know to be sexual abuse with different perpetrators. The last one was a date rape at the age of 22. I told no one.  I packed it up and hid it away where I wouldn’t have to see it. I denied I was a victim of sexual abuse. Until recently, I denied any of it was abuse. Until that day not long ago I could deny it no longer.

I know I am not alone in my denial. I now know it has affected my relationships throughout my life from running away in tears from the boy in fourth grade who gave me a ring professing his love to my marriage of almost 20 years coming to an end. My work of reclaiming me has only just begun. I will no longer allow any of my abusers to have power over me by keeping it a secret. I am not a victim any more. Nor do I want to be a survivor. I will thrive!!