Sharon said ‘I am still alive, I came to the Truth Project because I could have been dead’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Sharon describes her childhood as lonely, growing up in a family where her father sexually abused her, and her mother was frequently under the influence of alcohol and prescription medication.
She describes the humiliation of experiencing bowel difficulties in the school classroom as a result of the sexual abuse. She remembers realising that other girls at school did not have to do to their fathers what she had to, and that their fathers did not do the things to them that her father did to her.
Sharon reflects that she was a lonely child and speaks tearfully of memories of a birthday party, and how excited she was about it. There was a magician, a cake and lots of food. She says ‘I thought if I invite every single child in my class to my party, I would have to get a friend’.
Then to her horror, her father announced there would be one party game, describing the game with the same name that she knew he called his penis.
Sharon describes the panic and fear as the other children queued to go into the room with her father, while blindfolded. Sharon remembers how she shook and cried at the thought that her friends might see her father’s penis.
Sharon was unable to engage in education as a young child and was placed in the remedial class, where she helped other children. It was only later that she and others realised she was very capable as she sought solace in reading. She later went on to higher education achieving a degree and subsequently lived and worked abroad.
Reflecting on the impact of the sexual abuse, Sharon says she lived an itinerant lifestyle, she found relationships difficult and she drank heavily until she was 30.
She attempted suicide as a child and again as a young adult and has had intermittent periods when her mental health has deteriorated, and she has been admitted to hospital.
She identifies that these serious deteriorations have occurred at times when she has made significant achievements, such as being offered a sought-after job and wonders if this is a type of self-sabotage. Sharon says ‘I want to become my potential’.
Sharon reported her abuse to the police as an adult, as she feared her father posed a risk to other members of her family. However, she does not believe this was investigated as well as it should have been. Her father was arrested but never charged.
Following this, Sharon recognised that she needed counselling, but describes how hard she found the first two years of counselling as she came to accept that what her father had done to her was abuse.
Sharon says she wanted to share her experience with the Truth Project, after wishing for her own death for much of her life. But she says ‘I am still alive, I came because I could have been dead.’
She adds, ‘Victims of child sexual abuse lose so much, estrangement from family if the abuser is a parent or family member. Could the Truth Project help victims and survivors put together their family tree, as there are so many missing links? Estrangement from family also means that we may never know if a family member dies.’
Sharon would like to see additional funding for ‘safe havens’ to promote the mental health of victims and survivors of child sexual abuse, and greater recognition of the physical impact of trauma, stress and hypervigilance on victims and survivors.