Disclosure as an adult

Home: Survivors: Incest & Child Abuse: It happened to me

Most of the survivors did not tell anyone about the sexual abuse until they reached adulthood. In some instances memories of childhood were very limited and the women had to go through a process of remembering that abuse had taken place. Sometimes this process started as the result of flashbacks with vivid memories of the original abuse. It is very common for survivors to repress some or all of the abuse as a way of coping with the abuse. This is known as protective denial, as it is a protection from the intense emotional pain which would otherwise be experienced when the abuse was taking place. Sometimes the gaps in memory protect the survivor from recalling the details of the abuse, and in other situations from remembering that any type of abuse occurred at all. It is important that survivors are met with belief and compassion when they tell of their experiences and that they receive assistance and support.

'I had no memory of my childhood. Things come to me but I can only remember a few things.'

'I had practice runs. I told a friend ages ago and she told me that she had also been sexually abused. I dropped hints to my family over the years. But I didn't actually disclose to people until I had an anxiety attack. Then I went to a counsellor and spoke to him. I could just tell that we had a trusting relationship.'

'I blocked it out for fourteen years and then when I first started talking about it, it all came back. It was traumatic and scary to experience it again.'

'The hardest thing was to admit that this was a problem. It had been shoved away for so long. It was the result of a freak meeting that I had with someone I had empathy with.'

'I disclosed when I was a teenager. I was in a psychiatric hospital because I had tried to commit suicide. I tried to tell a male nurse and he laughed at me. I then decided I wouldn't tell anyone ever again and I didn't actually talk about it for over twenty years. That just held me back so much. I felt like I grew physically but not mentally. I feel as though I have only just started growing now. After twenty years I somehow found out about Centres Against Sexual Assault and I remember getting on the phone and just crying and wanting help.'

'I disclosed to my mother and the verbal confrontation I had with her and the guilt that was thrown on me ... I think that I just blocked it out for some time, and it was only when I went to see a psychiatrist to give up smoking that I thought this is my opportunity, if I don't say anything now I've blown it.'

'I experienced a lot of fear. Once I was twenty-five and I started to talk about it, well, my first marriage broke up. I was scared people wouldn't believe me because they didn't originally. '

'The friends I've told as an adult tend to react with horror but they don't really understand. I could never go into details with them.'

'My experience was that my family blamed me and isolated me rather than blaming the perpetrator.'

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