“Guilt”

What’s the difference between the Convict and you? Perhaps the conviction.

Would you say more people get caught or don’t get caught for crimes they commit?

It’s “don’t.”

Of those that get caught, do more convictions result, or not?

“Not.”

People are getting away with a lot of crime.

When it comes to Child Sexual Abuse, the generally accepted figure is that nine out of ten incidents go UNREPORTED. We need to flip that figure and make NOT reporting sexual abuse a rare thing.

We can start by talking about it. If you don’t have a story to tell, it would do a survivor a world of good to be listened to. There are survivor blogs right here on wordpress, “my Story” videos on youtube, and many twitter accounts that exist for the sole purpose of talking about it. Listen. Comment. The ones who do come forward are often invalidated, contradicted, dismissed, attacked. The rest suffer in silence. And guilt.

They can’t shake the conviction that they did something wrong.

Maybe they have since done some things wrong- victimized others, become addicted to sex, lived outside the mainstream as a throw-away… claiming to have rejected society first, rather than having been rejected by it. Perhaps the wrongdoing  by now is legion. Someone hurt them and that wasn’t right, but now they’ve hurt others. They suspect they are not worthy of happiness. The original abuser’s work is almost done.

Depression, despair, hopelessness are constant companions. And crushing guilt. There doesn’t seem to be any way out. People say, “Get over it.” People say, “You’re too old to still be blaming others for your problems.” They said that when you were a child, too. You’ve never been able to publicly name the abuser, name the acts, and give the problems back.

People tell you to cheer up, that it can’t be all that bad. You just want to say, “I didn’t do anything wrong! I DIDN’T DO ANYTHING WRONG!” But by now you don’t really believe that yourself. What was it the abuser said, “This will be our little secret?” Ours. How did it become “ours?”

Time to give the secret back. You couldn’t agree to that contract to stay silent any more than you were capable of consenting to sexual activity at that age. It was imposed on you, forced on you. You signed under duress; it is null and void.

All the things you have done to hurt yourself since, it is time to forgive yourself.

All the things you have done to hurt others because of the ways you were hurt, it is time to accept forgiveness for them, too.

You were not designed to live under the burden of chronic, crushing guilt. You are not a bad person. You are no less deserving of happiness than anyone else. No matter what was done to you or what you’ve done to others, it is time to set about making things right.

 

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