You are not alone!

Article written by Kaz

It wasn't your fault.

Abusers rely on their victims' feelings of guilt and shame to keep their secret safe.

By speaking out, we can help to overcome our own memories and perhaps stop rape and abuse happening so frequently.

I refuse to be silent.

It's okay to be angry. It's okay to be depressed. It's okay to feel worthless. It's okay to feel it will take forever to get over this. It's okay to hate your attacker. You feel this way because of what was done to you. Those feelings have to come out. They're a part of your healing.

Accept that there are some things that are too hard to face at certain times. Everyone has days when they feel they are still a victim, not a survivor. Sometimes we can cope with things, at other times those things will trigger us and leave us very shaken. This happens.

Healing is not a test that can be failed. Progress is always difficult. So think of it as any difficult thing: sometimes you can only do 10 minutes on the treadmill, sometimes you can do an hour. Some days you can stick to a diet all day, some days you need chocolate. Sometimes you can park your car perfectly, other times you bump the kerb.

No-one has the right to judge you except yourself. But for survivors, we can be the hardest judges of ourselves.

Because I denied my abuse for so long, and because I was not believed, this made me doubt my own memories of the abuse.

Even when I felt I was believed, I was told that I had not suffered anything serious, and that I should be grateful I was alive and had not been beaten physically.

This attitude towards survivors is damaging and hurtful. How dare anyone say what I have suffered?

This made me doubt my own sanity. I scorned myself for being weak and childish, for making a fuss, for breaking up my family. At one and the same time I believed both that I had suffered terribly and was still suffering, but also that I should be able to walk away from the past and just forget it, that I hadn't suffered anything worth talking about.

It was only when my abuser finally admitted what he had done that I found relief from the confusion in my mind. Even though he hedged it about with reasons, and excuses, and more lies, at least I had the knowledge that I was sane, that I hadn't (as he had maintained) made it all up out of spite.

But it was a long time before I began to understand that the voice inside my head saying, "Give it up, Kaz! This suffering act is just a put-on to get sympathy!" was the voice of my abuser. If I listen to what it says, if I put my head down and sweep my suffering under the carpet, then I am being abused again. I'm betraying myself.

All forms of abuse are terrifying and damaging. No matter whether you have survived rape, sexual abuse, emotional abuse, incest, verbal abuse, sexual harassment - no matter how old you were - no matter if it happened once or many times - you have suffered and survived, and your story is no less "worthy" than anyone else's.

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