Overcoming Childhood Sexual Abuse: My Experiences and Advice to Others

I am an African-American woman, and I am a childhood sexual abuse survivor. It happened continuously to me when I was between the ages of five and eight. There were three people who sexually abused me, but the one who stands out the most and the one I was around the majority of my life was a member of the family.

The effects of sexual abuse in my life as an adult were myriad and deeply rooted. They were so deeply rooted that for a long time I had suppressed the memories of the abuse until 2002 when I turned 30 years old.

On my 30th birthday, I wished for clarity about my life. As I blew out the candle, I realized it was the right thing to wish for because for such a long time I knew something wasn't right within me. I felt lost. I felt angry. I was depressed. I was distant. I was afraid of sexual activity with emotional attachment. I hated my body. I hated myself...completely. And the truly sad part of all this was that I didn't understand why I felt this way. Therefore, I wished for clarity.

Less than two months later, I was reading a wonderful, riveting novel by an author named Zane called Addicted. The contents of the book were nothing like my life at all, however, memories of abuse that the main character recalled started to help my memory come about my childhood. The acts of sexual abuse were nothing like the novel's content, but the scenes were powerful enough emotionally that it started to bring back all these memories for me.

Over the last several years since my thirtieth birthday, I've tried to education myself as much as possible along with taking bold steps on my healing journey. I have realized during this time that childhood sexual abuse happens all too often in a lot of African-American families.

Although, there's no universal definition for child sexual abuse, the American Psychological Association states that child sexual abuse can be defined as "a central characteristic of any abuse is the dominant position of an adult that allows him or her to force or coerce a child into sexual activity."