I held off on writing this series of articles for a full year for many reasons. Because I wanted to be sure I would stick with my blog. Because I wanted to mature a little as a writer so I could do this subject justice. But mostly because I wasn’t ready yet. Well I am now.
I was abused as a child. Sexually by senior figures in the Irish Scouting community. Emotionally by my father. And physically in school.
There, that’s the admission made. But some of you have to be asking yourselves “Why is she writing this? It’s not like she has to.”
Actually I do. I feel there is a duty on those who succeeded in being survivors, not just victims, to pass on their stories, and what they’ve learned in becoming a survivor to those around them. A duty to pass on anything which might allow someone else to feel more peace with their own experiences. A duty to share information which might help a parent, a sibling, a teacher, a friend or anyone else to save a child from a youth spent in locked in a living hell.
But as with anything of this nature the first step is the admission.
This happened.
I am this.
I survived this.
I am a survivor.
Over the course of this series of articles I hope to share a little of what happened to me. How I didn’t cope with it back then. How I learned to cope with it over time. How I live with it now. I also intend to pop a few of the myths surrounding a history of abuse when it’s taken next to the future gender and sexuality of the victim. I hope to be able to give a sense of what to look for in young people, so that perhaps, just perhaps even one will be helped by my experiences. I have no idea how long this series will run. But I intend to put one up every 2nd Saturday from now until I’m finished.
