Kate Silverton Instagram – For all those of you who have reached out to share, many of you for the first time, your experience of childhood sexual abuse, thank you for your courage and your trust.
It takes enormous bravery to reach out for help and to share our story. Because so often, as children ( and now as adults) we have carried such a terrible sense of shame for what was done to us.
The shame is not ours.
Many of you have asked where best to seek support and I have listed some of the charities that work with adults and children who have experienced sexual abuse. Please do reach out because there is help to be found.
I respond to as many messages as I am able to in this forum, but in the interests of trying to reach and support as many people as I can, may I refer you to my recent interview with @juliasamuelmbe for her Therapy Works podcast as i hope it might also prove helpful.
In it I share my own experience of intra-familial childhood sexual abuse. The interview is very contained and my sharing is not specific, so I hope it is not a difficult listen, but rather one of hope.
In the interview I explain how this pernicious and very complex trauma has impacted me throughout my life but, importantly, how I have learned to heal.
It’s so important that we focus on the impact of sexual abuse on children. It leaves a devastating legacy and until, and unless, we are able to bring this evil into the light, it can keep us in the dark for most of our lives, influencing our decisions & behaviour, in ways we may find hard to understand.
Today I am thinking of the children behind the current headlines and shame on any media outlet that does not do the same.
When a child is violated sexually it robs them of their innocence, their sense of self. It fractures their soul.
We must acknowledge this heinous crime for what it is: not ‘child porn’, but child rape.
For all you still suffering, I stand with you and alongside. I hope in sharing some of my own story it may offer some small comfort, that, with support, we can come through. And remember, the shame is, and never was, ours.
@nspcc_official @one_in_four_uk @the.greenhousebristol @beaconhouseteam
#trauma #traumarecovery | Posted on 01/Aug/2024 11:30:00
