I read your words.

“I was sexually abused. How I hate typing those words. But they have been in my mind forever, swirling around, hiding at times, but it?¢‚Ǩ‚Ñ¢s always there.”

The words surrounding your experience and your life continued. They overlapped your initial words, until those words were almost forgotten under the layers of your current fears and challenges. You talked of how you coped, how you resisted touch, avoided nakedness, slept partially on guard and ready to flee. I focused on the *now* and it blurred your initial words. I believe these words to be true. I believe these words to be the truest words you ever wrote.

“I was sexually abused. How I hate typing those words. But they have been in my mind forever, swirling around, hiding at times . . .”

I do not believe that you shower in a bathing suit (have seen a photo of you standing outside in a towel, labeled “just got out of the shower”). I do not believe you sleep in sneakers (have never seen you in sneakers, period). I don’t believe you helped pull people from a burning car (there are no reports of a car fire and airlift in the news of the small town near where the event “happened”).

“I was sexually abused. How I hate typing those words. But they have been in my mind forever, swirling around . . .”

I believe you when you wrote

“I was sexually abused. How I hate typing those words. But they have been in my mind forever . . .”

I am angry that the next time I hear a survivor of abuse share his or her story, that I will have a seed of doubt when they share of their fear, of how that experience may continue to break them. I am angry at you, that because of embellishing your own story, you have cast doubt on every. single. fellow abuse survivor.

“I was sexually abused. How I hate typing those words.”

These words are your truth. Clear away all the other stories, all the other lies, all the other embellishments. The truth is ENOUGH. The truth is too much, it is plenty, it is bad enough, it is enough to merit you asking for help. You never needed to add all the other STUFF.

“I was sexually abused.”

Focus on those words. The true words. The four words that say everything. The four words that are so huge, that I understand you throwing other words in front of them to hide them from view. Face them. Deal with them. Move forward. You were always enough. Your truth was always enough. You never needed the rest of the words.

“I was sexually abused.”

Stop hiding from those words.