child-abuse-survivor

In order to survive our youth, many of us became sensitized to which conditions we had to play to, to receive attention. No wonder we mistook this attention for love. We thought love came in finite quantities__t had to be competed for among siblings, or it had to be paid for with exacting dues.

When I felt as though I had reached land, it was like I was on a deserted sandy beach, feeling isolated and afraid to share with anyone the memories that haunted me.

As I faced each tragedy in my life, I learned to reach into the depth of my soul for strength and determination. Through this healing process, I discovered perseverance and resilience. I could not go into the past and use White-Out to erase any events; instead, I had to find a way to use my pain to help me heal and grow. I had to stare darkness in the face and accept that I could not change the past, but I could build a better future.

I was used, fucked, broken, toyed with and violated from the age of six.

With regards pedophilia I have always looked on it as that _ pedophilia. I thought that one religion is no different to the other and I am now truthfully beginning to think that.

All these do-gooders make it sound like you just have to repent and off you go to heaven, but what about all the atrocities the Catholic religion did to us? Who pays for that! They just took over our lives!!

No matter what tight corner I was in, I was capable of getting myself out of it _ not God!

From spending ten years in hell and coming to this regime of kindness was a shock. It was so much of a shock, it was unbelievable. I was like an untamed animal, I couldn__ accept it and I just wouldn__ accept it.

I dived out of the office and I was gone _ hitting these fields like a mad March hare. This wasn__ Born Free, it was RUN FREE!

From a young boy__ viewpoint this could not get any worse, especially when you were told that you belonged to the devil, and this bullying of me went on for a long time.

I have beaten people into the ground and the more they cry the more of a beating I gave them. If they don__ cry, I come off, if they cry then I will beat them and beat them and beat them.

Just as much as the media portray child sexual exploitation as being a 'hidden' crime, then that is no less of a case with child physical abuse.

Religion to me was only something to be used and abused, as it had done nothing for me other than give me pain. Religion for me was a method used to gain an extra bottle of wine or a nice meal.

You might think the Bangkok Hilton (the nickname of a fictional prison in Bangkok) was tough, well that was paradise compared to this place!

You may experience waves of disbelief after each memory you retrieve. Whether as a phase or waves, the disbelief is usually accompanied by massive self-hate and guilt. __ow can I even think such a thing? I must really be warped,_ you tell yourself.

A lot of attention has been given over to the Catholic Churches sexual abuse of children in their care, but this attention seems to have been hijacked by the media and has overshadowed the many thousands of victims that endured physical abuse.

I was becoming a product of society, a hardened juvenile! Now I was becoming rebellious and hateful.

The fear of abandonment forced me to comply as a child, but I__ not forced to comply anymore. The key people in my life did reject me for telling the truth about my abuse, but I__ not alone. Even if the consequence for telling the truth is rejection from everyone I know, that__ not the same death threat that it was when I was a child. I__ a self-sufficient adult and abandonment no longer means the end of my life.