What Kept Me from Talking about My Sexual Abuse
By: Shruthi Sundaram
Tags: Advice, This Happened To Me, Life, Self, Sexual Assault

What Kept Me from Talking about My Sexual Abuse

A sincere request to all parents out there

Photo credits: Wikimedia commons

It was sometime in 8th grade the incident had occurred. My parents, with my sister and me, we're supposed to go on a temple trip (I am from India). But because I got my period a day before, they were not able to take me with them — in India, you are not allowed to enter most of the temples during your period.

I was thus sent to a relatives house, to attend a wedding where the incident occurred. I have no idea whether I can term the incident as “abuse” but, it did involve a lot of inappropriate touching when I was sleeping, which scarred me for life. He always stopped when I woke up with a start, and used to act like nothing happened, and act as though it was my imagination. The whole thing made me feel so wrong and dirty.

I never had the guts to tell anyone about the incident then. It took me a whole of three years to tell my mom, whom I was super close to (still am), about it. It was not that I could not tell everything to her. She even knew about my crushes in school then — which was a “taboo” for any teenager to tell her mom. She knew everything about me.

Then why did I not talk to her about this? Some action could have been taken then, right?

I did not know it was sexual abuse at that time

You might ask, you were 13 then. How can you not know it was sexual abuse? What I mean is, I, of course, felt something was wrong. But I could not attach a term to it. Nor was I taught about, good touch and bad touch in school or otherwise.

I did not know whether it was important enough to make a big deal out of it. I did not know the repercussions the incident would have on me, or how it would fundamentally change me as a person. I just did not know.

The incident did not affect me much then, since I did not know the seriousness of it. But, I experienced the full impact of the incident one year later. After I realized what had happened to me.

In 9th grade, the Reproduction chapter was taken in Biology. My teacher at school went on to explain all the ins and outs of the “process”, and also explained the importance of good touch and bad touch. She touched on a lot of important topics, which I was supposed to know earlier but did not know. Like why do we get periods, or what is sexual abuse.

That was when I realized what was done to me was wrong. That was when the nightmares started.

I felt like it was my fault

When you do go anywhere outside what is the first thing your parents tell you? Especially if you are a girl? “Be careful when you go outside”, right? We are held responsible for our own well being and, somewhere down the line, when we grow up, we are instilled with this thought that we can and should take care of ourselves.

That the world revolves around give and take. Other people would treat us the way we treat them. We are responsible for anything that happens to us. We need to be careful about the dangers of the outside world.

But why does nobody talk about, or teach kids about the situations where you cannot do anything? That some situations are out of your hand?

When I realized what happened to me, I thought it was my fault. I thought I was somehow responsible for it, and I should have done something to allow the said person to take such an action. Because you get treated based on how you treat people, is it not?

So how could I go to my mother and talk about the incident, complain, when it was my fault? When the mistake was on me?

What I regret the most

Probably if I had told my mother earlier, I could have saved myself from a lot of self-guilt and nightmares. But that is not something I regret the most about. I regretted that I never got a chance to get him in front of society. And I have no idea if he has done similar actions with other girls.

By not exposing him immediately, I saved him. From his wrongdoing, from making him feel guilty, and from the punishment he deserved. What if he had acted similarly with others too? Would they be suffering as I did earlier? I am very lucky that my family has always been so supportive. What if the other girls were not so lucky?

These were the thoughts that were circling my brain for years. And the same situation had occurred with most of the girls I spoke to about sexual abuse

A sincere request to all the parents out there

1. Teach your kids about good and bad touch from a very early age, probably as soon as they can communicate properly with you (3 to 4 year)

There is no age limit for girls and boys alike to face sexual abuse. In recent times, I have read so many cases where children of less than 1 year have got raped and abused sexually. According to an article by the Huffington Post, 20% of girls (1 in 5) and 8% of boys (1 in 12.5) are sexually abused before 18 years of age.

Therefore it is extremely important to teach your children about good touch and bad touch.

Without that, there might be cases like me, where the kids would not even know or understand what happened to them. Talking about the situations immediately to the family especially mother/father would incredibly help the child

2. Make your kids trust that you would believe whatever they say

This is one of the main reasons that kids who have survived sexual abuse do not open up. According to a study by NAPCAN, 95% of sexual abuse is done is people whom we know and trust. I also faced the same situation.

The kid should never think that there is a probability of you trusting the abuser more than them. They should know that you would be with them no matter what and support them in even the worst of situations.

3. Make your kids understand about the situations they cannot handle

While the experiences you face depend on your actions and decisions, that might not be always true. It is extremely important to make the child understand such situations too.

That he/she cannot be responsible for everything that happens to them. That the world does not consist of only black or white, there are so many grey areas too. That you cannot expect a person to treat you the same way you treat them most of the time.

I sincerely request you to stop putting the burden of others' actions on your children’s shoulders.