Jessie says that she still struggles with feelings of shame, but with support, she is moving forward
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Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
After Jessie’s parents got divorced, her paternal grandfather looked after her after school and sometimes at weekends.
He sexually abused Jessie when she was between the ages of 10 and 12.
Jessie’s grandfather lived on his own. She isn’t sure exactly how often the abuse happened but she thinks it was up to 10 times. She says the nature of the abuse varied, describing it as ‘very severe’ on a few occasions.
She adds that at the time, she didn’t know it was wrong because he was someone she and her parents trusted to look after her.
Memories of the sexual abuse, and the realisation of what it was, came back to Jessie when she was about 17. She thinks she had blocked it out during the years in between, but it resurfaced when she got her first serious boyfriend. She describes this as a ‘dark and heavy time’ when she struggled mentally but didn’t want to say why.
More than a year later, she spoke about the abuse to a close friend and then went to see her GP who referred her for specialist support. She says this was not very helpful and she found herself being ‘pushed around’ between different people.
At her school, the safeguarding lead became involved, but she says ‘it got very messy’ with her parents being informed. She understands that safeguarding procedures had to be followed, but it left her with mixed feelings about reporting the abuse.
After a long wait, Jessie did have a limited amount of counselling and she says it was helpful before she went to university. After that she found a sexual abuse support charity and had a very positive experience with their volunteer helpline. She says the staff were very well trained and put the focus on helping her to cope and move forward.
More recently, the charity acted as an intermediary to help her report the abuse to the police, although she decided not to give them her grandfather’s name, worried that she might regret it.
Jessie says that being sexually abused has made her very wary of people and she is guarded about her friendships. She has not told many of the people she is close to about the abuse. She adds that she struggles with feelings of shame and that it was somehow her fault.
Jessie says she understands there are victims who never talk about sexual abuse and others who live with it for many years. Because she spoke about it while she was still quite young and received some good support, she feels she has ‘managed to put it into a box’ and can get on with her life. She adds that she believes more therapy would be helpful.
She explains that the reason she came forward to speak to the Truth Project is that she feels if victims and survivors are in a position to speak out about child sexual abuse, they should.