Aryana says she is able ‘to feel free enough to live my own life now’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
For Aryana, taking part in the Truth Project marks a big step in her healing process.
She was sexually abused by members of her family, and has had extensive therapy to come to terms with her experiences.
Aryana grew up in a chaotic environment where the children often seemed to be looking after the adults. She explains that her parents had both left the countries of their birth and struggled to cope in the UK.
She describes a household where there was a lot of conflict and the children were emotionally neglected and ‘hungry for love’. They were mostly left to their own devices and had to try and make sense of things themselves.
In addition, her parents did not apply appropriate boundaries to their behaviour, and had sex when their children were in the room.
Aryana and her sister were bullied and sexually abused by their older brothers when their parents weren’t there. They were made to play a ‘game’ in which the boys punished their sisters with sexual acts. As a result, she says, she and her sister became hypersexualised from a very young age.
She says there was an implicit agreement that the abuse had to be kept secret, and this made her feel very confused.
This sexual abuse stopped when her brothers left home.
Aryana was a very good student at secondary school but says it was obvious she spent most of her time alone. Nobody asked her if there was anything wrong.
When she was a teenager, a male member of staff who was in his 30s groomed her and sexually abused her. This went as far as sexual intercourse. She says that at that time, she thought very little of herself, and this man offered her attention. But, she adds, she knew ‘this came at a price’.
Social services were involved with her family and offered them therapy, but she says that this was not helpful, partly because of cultural barriers. She feels that professionals were nervous to intervene for fear of being seen as racist.
She began self-harming, saw a psychiatrist and disclosed the sexual abuse, but feels she was labelled as a problem and the abuse was minimised.
She went to university, but she suffered with panic attacks and became suicidal. At this point she embarked on many years of therapy, which she says has been healing.
Aryana describes the lasting impact of the abuse she suffered. She has experienced anxiety and depression and has abused drugs.
She feels guilty for what she sees as her failure to protect her sister. She finds it hard to trust adults and has difficult family relationships.
She maintains contact with her family, but she thinks this sometimes makes her ill. She is aware of the risk of the family relationships breaking down if she tries to talk about the abuse.
She has experienced confusion over her sexual identity and associated sexual feelings with ‘badness’ and danger.
For a long time, she felt afraid to be a mother as she felt ‘rotten inside’.
Aryana feels that having had nowhere to talk about the abuse was as bad as the abuse itself. She says ‘You end up in a knot as there’s nowhere to air it’.
She thinks that it is important to be aware of reasons why people abuse. She believes in her case the abuse was passed down in her family – her mother was hurt by men, then took it out on her sons. She believes that they exacted revenge by punishing their sisters.
She thinks it is essential to educate people about how to stay safe. She suggests this could take place in community groups and clubs where young people can have conversations with adults.
Aryana has found it helpful to talk with other victims and survivors of child sexual abuse within families. Because her family is precious to her, it is especially important for her to explore ways of managing relationships with the people who abused her.
She is now a qualified counsellor.