If just putting it behind me and being happy were a possibility I would have done it the night I left home. How does one dismantle a lifetime of learning all negative messages about ones self and simply wake up smiling and positive. I tried. I failed. It seemed clear to me I was too stupid, too weak, and had no willpower.

It was clear my husband felt it was possible. “Whatever it is,” he’d try to comfort me, “just let it go and be happy.” I’m sure he meant well. But the woman-child my childhood raised up to unleash on the world was created with pain and fear and sexual abuse. I was constructed with a million little tapes that informed me daily that I was nothing, or I was evil, or I was stupid. I imagined people were after me, the same repetitious nightmares that began in early childhood played sometimes 3 times a night. Always it began at the barn basement door. When I opened it the daylight stretched across partially clad bodies. I let go of the door and turned and ran like the wind feeling my feet land on solid clumps of grass and earth and propelling me up the little hill to safety. In the dream I reached the top of the hill, flapped my little arms and soared to the top of the Catalpa Tree. Looking behind I would see the darkness behind me fade away. I would awake only to fall asleep and start again.

I could no more leave childhood behind than I could swim the Pacific. It was me. I was it. Together we trod through the days faking “normal.” and trying to figure out what was wrong with me that there was no “normal.”

At this time in my life I often long to “let it go” as it were, just be happy. I am 66 and have invested as many years in surviving and getting to know and change me. I still battle the negative tapes in my head and the bits of paranoid thinking. For that reason burying and forgetting the trauma, even if possible, could mean losing so much progress I have made and continue to make in DBT.

A further reason to keep it alive and in process is because I will not abandon my quest to shed light on the effects of early childhood sexualization and abuse. Had there not been a solid rule of silence in my generation, I might have been spared many of the lasting effects of my childhood. It is possible I could have engaged with my children better, settled down to a job and home and “normalcy.” and by now be a regular grandma with scads of family in my life.

I find joy with what is, yes, but I must go further. Some 57,000+ children are sexually abused, many for years, every year IN THE UNITED STATES! Will I lend my experience strength and hope to those children or turn and walk away? And keep in mind these 57,000 children are ADDED to the long, long lists from previous years. Indeed there are millions of people residing in the USA who were victims.

I have already been put out of the family for talking. My enemies need none of my compassion and concern. But victims do. They have no choice.

I spent much of my life running from me; I am not running now.