Child Abuse: My Story

I have spoken a few times now about my child abuse story but I wanted to do an update on here as I feel like I have changed so much in the last few months. Firstly I have decided that although it is ‘pc’ to call yourself a survivor, I am a victim on child abuse. The reason behind this is, you wouldn’t say you were the ‘survivor’ of a mugging, theft or assault you would say victim, because something happened to you that was out of your control. Well thats exactly what happened to me, I had no control over it and in all honest I haven’t actually ‘survived’ it, I have now accepted it as part of my life, but I will never truly heal from it because some things just can’t be fixed or forgotten.

Wow that went a bit dark didn’t it?! I swear I don’t just sit around crying and feeling sorry for myself! I recently made the decision to start lowering my anti-depressant dosage, I am on quite a high dosage for severe depression and ptsd but I am hoping I can start to gradually come off of them, I am so so thankful for the space they’ve given me to be able to sleep and just live without constantly thinking about it but I am also aware that pills don’t fix things, I know I will have to go through the added trauma of counselling to help me deal with the underlying issues and I also want to be able to go for a few drinks with my friends without worrying about side effects!

Life-wise, well I have started to take some control back, I can now go out completely alone for (very) short periods of time. This is the biggest development to date and I am well aware that sounds pretty sad for a grown woman to say but for me it’s like I’ve learnt to walk for the first time! I still have panic attacks but they are slightly less frequent and I am now not just seeing light at the end of the tunnel I am seeing a whole bloomin world there! I have started to feel anxious in a good way, anxious to do something with my life, anxious to meet people, to see things and tentatively maybe even to meet someone one day and start a family.

My sudden zest for life is partly due to my blog, I have fallen back in love with makeup, the actual art of applying it and trying out different looks, so much so that I am hopefully going to be starting a makeup artist course in the new year! I haven’t picked one out yet, I want to do a properly regulated one and actually work towards being a professional mua. Compared to a year ago when I could barely get out of bed I am feeling pretty good about life.

I wont lie though, when it’s bad it’s bloody awful, I still have this absolute rage inside me that this horrible thing has happened, I feel totally tainted- like a blank page of paper with a big spot on it. I don’t think that feeling will ever go away, but I hope it will start to get easier. I realise now that this isn’t my fault and I don’t have to survive it or do anything really, this is something that happened because of someone else and that’s something I can’t change or control, all I can do is learn a new way to live, to accept that life will be different (but that doesn’t have to mean worse) and to maybe start smiling again.

(I never spell check or re-read this as I like to just sort of let the feelings come out naturally!)