Introduction

I won’t always be talking about pleasant things. In fact, much of what I have to say is related to something horrible that happened to me when I was eleven. I was sexually abused.

For a long time the abuse shaped my life, my world, everything. But now I’m finally starting take the power back. Power I thought I’d lost but was within me the whole time, waiting to be rediscovered.

What happened to me has changed me, in some ways for the better and in others for worse (and I’m sure there are yet more ways it has changed me that I have yet to uncover). However, I have begun to understand that the abuse doesn’t define me. It’s a part of me now – it can’t be undone – and it always will be. But it’s only one piece of a much larger and complex puzzle.

Slowly but surely I have been moving forward in my healing journey. Every day I get closer to mending the cracked mirror that reflects my image back at me within my mind. Every day the distorting fog lifts a little more. Light is coming back into my life, and though some darkness lingers, it is no longer a giant hulking monster looming over. I’m continuing to work through the shadows of my past.

I want to share this because I want anyone who has gone through anything similar to know that you’re not alone, that you are never alone. That you can make it. And that if you have the courage to try, anything is possible.