Replies to 'Childhood Sexual Abuse Support'

Some days are worse than others for me but I too feel scarred for life.

You are going to be ok now. I tell myself I'm not going to let it happen to me again I try to love myself thru the bad days ...it can be hard but you are worth it!

Our past may have damaged us but it is our drive to survive that keeps us going. My past  definitely has shaped who I am only because I have allowed HOW it will shaped me. I chose to be who I am. Not the perpetrator that abused me. We all have choices, when we are able to start controlling those choices, only then can we begin to survive. For some of us, this is the past and we have healed. For others it is the beginning. And to those of you that are just starting this venture out, know that we here care for all of you and will help as much as we can. We lean on each other, and that is good. We know where each of us is coming from. We know how each other feels. We know each others pain. What some of us know, others will learn........there is a day that you will feel whole again and better than ever. You will look at this as a scar but a scar that has made you the person that you choose to be. I am a good person. A good wife, mother and grandmother. I am one of Gods children and he loves me no matter what. So hang in there everyone. I promise, it does get better.......

The past shapes us, yes, and scars us too, but we shape our future.  The abuse is over and now WE are the ones in control of our destiny.  We can choose to continue to cower and let our abusers have control for the rest of our lives or we can choose to do what we can to heal and then go on from there, shaping ourselves into the image we choose.

Our abusers hurt us.  They took a lot away from us.  They cannot take who we are if we don't let them.  As long as we still fight to heal and still face each day with some kind of hope, they lose.  What they took can never be regained but we can build a life without it, a good life, a productive life.  Where they pass on a legacy of pain, we can choose to pass on a legacy of love with each moment we live.  Each smile we give to a stranger, each helping hand we give, each child we raise and each one we teach to love, indeed every breath we take builds that legacy.

I admit that it is hard to do.  I know more than it seems about that.  I still have days when I will sit and cry for hours.  But those same days, I also smile, if only for a brief moment.  I smile because I am alive and can feel the pain.  My abuser didn't kill me, he didn't kill my soul.  He only took my innocence.  I am still here and I still can fight.  On days when it is hardest, I still revel in the fact that I am indeed a SURVIVOR. 
Keep Fighting.  Keep winning.  Keep smiling.
Dreamweaver