Some who have suffered CSA/SRA don’t feel themselves to be a survivor, sometimes because they are barely surviving, because their life is a mess, because they want to self delete, because they can’t bear to go on, or feel overwhelmed with self disgust and shame and so on…
The reality is that despite suffering the worst evil you are still HERE! No matter how much you are struggling you are still here, by definition you are a survivor, and a survivor of evil. And while you are here there is hope for life to get better as you begin to heal.
Just like the post nuclear survival specialist navigating the holocaust, you must employ strategies and wisdom and your intuitions to make it through, in fact you already have, as that poor child that chose the BEST way that was open to them to make it through with the least amount of damage… DEEP intelligences guide our actions and reactions during those impossible years of being abused… some of these survival choices can be difficult to live with.
But you must live, none of this was your choice nor your fault.
My abusers tried to say it was, that I chose it, that I was a dirty little boy who wanted it because I’d go to my core abuser in order to distract him from my younger siblings…. “what a good boy Daniel is” he would say…
Your decisions were made from incredible intelligence, even if they are unfathomable right now…
You have survived even if you feel as a ghost in a shell…. and as you heal so you can begin to thrive, so you can find some measure of happiness, so you can find freedom from the addictions that help you deal with the pain.
I am in awe of you, in awe of all who survive the ultimate betrayal, that of a parent or caregiver whilst a child…. the scale of the betrayal is mindstaggering!
You’re a wonder, a hero, a survivor…. now DON’T let them win, survive and then thrive your way out of this.
So much respect, from me to you