Being Seen

APRIL 17, 2024

Recently I was asked what I would give to survivors if I could grant them one wish. My answer came quickly. My wish for all survivors would be that they would know a life free from the shame that results from being sexually abused.

There is no logic to explain how it is that individuals, whether child or adult, victimized by the acts of their abuser, bear the shame of what was done to them. For a child, the confusion and disorientation that comes from being sexually abused only serves to intensify the shame. Children do not have the ability to distinguish between the bad thing that happened to them and the feeling that they are bad because of the abuse. The shame that abused children experience is indistinguishable from their growing sense of who they are, and they most often carry this belief of their “badness” into adulthood.

This shame is easily solidified by a culture that fails to recognize the prevalence and harm of sexual abuse, whether in childhood or adulthood. While I am happy to say that in the past few decades, our cultural understanding and acknowledgement of the occurrence and harm of sexual abuse has increased, we have a long way to go. It is still too easy to look away. It’s still too easy to believe that once the sexual abuse is in the past, the harm fades away.

Each April we join with others in recognizing Sexual Assault Awareness Month (SAAM). This month gives us the opportunity to bring the reality of Sexual Assault out into the open and to recognize that we harm survivors and the broader culture by allowing this great human injury to remain in the shadows. So much human vitality and potential is unrealized when sexual assault is allowed to remain hidden. Every community benefits from acknowledging that sexual abuse affects our families, our neighbors, our co-workers and those we come in contact with every day.

As long as sexual abuse remains hidden, outside of our awareness the shame continues. Shame begins to lift as it becomes okay to be seen, to share the secret of abuse, and to believe that there is a community that cares. We all have a part in bringing light to the pain of sexual abuse that so many of our neighbors carry. Become informed, speak up, dare to care about survivors. I know how deeply meaningful and empowering it is for survivors to be seen and believed by a community that cares.

I invite you to join with us this month and every month throughout the year to support survivors. And most importantly, spread the word to every survivor, I see you, I believe you and I support you!

Janice Palm LMHC, Executive Director