Two Part Series on Healing the Shame of Child Sexual Abuse
I came across these posts by Beverly Engel L.M.F.T. on the Psychology Today website:
There are some good ideas and explanations, but for me, it all starts with understanding that it wasn’t your fault. She lists facing the truth and stopping blaming yourself as the first two parts of healing, and it’s true. You have to see what happened for what it is. That includes seeing that it was a decision made by someone else and not something you deserved or attracted to yourself in any way. You were a child. Your abuser made a decision to abuse you sexually. That’s the truth of it.
That is the start of healing.
I hope you can find your way to this clarity in your mind. The hardest part of healing is the shame, which comes from thinking that we somehow deserved what happened to us or that the abuse says something about us.
