My stepdad sexually abused me when I was 12 – 13 years old. I tried to tell my mum a couple of years later and she thought I was lying and told me not to repeat it to anyone incase social services took my little brother away, all because of my lie. I’m 32 now and she finally realised the truth after I repeatedly refused to let my daughter have contact with him. Turns out she was sexually abused by her father for years and is now struggling to live with the fact that she didn’t help me when I needed it. My reaction to my abuse was so different from hers she thought it wasn’t real. Because people didn’t talk about stuff like that. It took her until her 50’s before she began to speak about her experiences to anyone. Thankyou for helping to bring these subjects out into the open and show women across the world how they might begin to come to terms with their experiences, understand eachother’s and, I hope, change the culture in which they can go unnoticed and unchallenged. We stand together.
