Beyond sexual assault

This post is the continuation of a series of posts following on from a paragraph that I read in  'Rid of my Disgrace'   by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb.  The opening paragraph of the first chapter was so helpful to me that I decided to break it down, sentence by sentence, and devote a post to each part. The previous posts in this series can be found  here ,  here ,  here ,  here  and here . Nobody had the right to violate you.  You are a valuable person made in the image of God. You have dignity and you matter. What happened to you was a violation because the act done against you was against the very core of who you are: someone who has the right to be treated with respect and love because you were made with value and dignity. What happened to you was broke these rights and also broke the law. This was wrong. And NOBODY had the RIGHT to do this to you. This is an important message that I need to hear so often. In my confusion over what happened to me, I focused on wron

This post is the continuation of a series of posts following on from a paragraph that I read in  'Rid of my Disgrace'  by Justin and Lindsey Holcomb.  The opening paragraph of the first chapter was so helpful to me that I decided to break it down, sentence by sentence, and devote a post to each part. The previous posts in this series can be found  here ,  here , here and here . The next sentence:  You do not have to pretend like nothing happened. Pretence. Denial. Living in fantasy. These are all ways that survivors can cope with sexual violence. I did. When I was first abused, at about the age of 8, I remember lying in bed considering my options: Do I tell someone? If so, who? How can I describe what happened to me when I don't understand it? As the minutes turned into hours, I came to a clear decision. I had only one choice, to pretend that nothing happened. To wake up and act as though everything was normal. That everything was fine. But it wasn't fine. This