I am so numb today. Last night I was so hard. I already felt so numb from all this stress and all these feelings and  thenI learned that someelse I know is also a survior and  really couldn't react I had no clue. It felt like its just more wieght on my sholders. Today I am still numb. Numb. Being a survior is so hard as it is and then I fell like such a bitch for not really caring that someone else was too. I could not handle it. I'm sober and I am safe but I feel so numb and tired. Don't really want to speak to anyone I just want to write. Being a survior sucks. I am glad we aren't alone in this that we have each other.

Ria

Tonight, I went and saw this speaker with a group of my friends and we ended up being late after driving 45 minutes to get there and we didn't get to sit all together we split up in to pairs. I ended up getting a seat in the front row in this small auditorium, awesome right. No not really. I sat there for like half the speach thinking to my self everyone in the room is stairing at me. I can feel them all looking at me judging me cause I am not dressed nice and my hair is messy. I was totally just picking my self apart, a common struggle for me and the I got fed up with myself and was like, I am going to focus on the speaker and not on being freaked out about everyone watching me. and it worked. It took like fifteenminutes but it worked. I am so happy with myself  I  just had to share my little victory with all of you.

Ria

Hey all,

I know its been forever since I posted a message of my own but this topic has come up for me a lot lately, in the news and other places. Lately I have been struggling with reporting my abuse and with that come all the baggage about other people and the fears about being believed. Which I feel ties in with false accusations. I know that us survivors know a lot about what false accusations do for us in our journeys.

Although, false accusations are rare they are what gets the press. Sexual abuse really isn't talked about really at all in my world publicly unless its on Law and Order SVU. But every once and a while a case comes along that finally gets people talking (Kobe Bryant, MJ, that one Rugby team, etc.), and almost always those that really stick are about people falsely accused of Rape, abuse, etc. I mean their are others that are false but the false ones really hurt the survivors out there.

False Accusations cause Survivors harm but we are once again swept under the rug. Yes the accused was wrong but you know every false accusation hurts every single survivor on earth, every time. Because of FA's survivors are forced to worry about being believed (when they shouldn't because it happened). They have to deal with a legal system that benefits the perpetrator not the victim. They have to worry about their character being anayised because some other person lied about it. Survivors shouldn’t have to deal with this but FA's make this worse for us. A person abused by some one of the faintest ounces of celebrity has to worry about their horror being talked about by the entire populous. NONE of this should have to happen to us.

I want to be believed but I am so sacred I won't because I can't remember the name of my abuser because it happened over 11 years ago and frankly I wanted to forget it all but I didn't. And I want my day in court because I was wronged and I want the whole world to know who he is. But I wonder if they will believe me. FA's make it harder for me to report it because once again it brings back the fear and I want to just keep silent.

Ria

Last night I remembered something new and it shook me up real bad. It wasn't any detals of about my abuse or my abuser but of afterwards. I've always thought that I knew nothing of my abuse for the first five years after but last night I remembered a memory from when I was forteen. I spoke about it, not in detail or about being abused or anything but I mentioned a specific moment of my abuse invovling a kiss. At forteen I remembered this kiss and then blocked it out until a couple years ago. It shook me up because it changes my perspective. I thought one way and now its just another detail. And as I heal there will be more and more and more.  

I am really proud of how far I have come, I have along ways to go, but I am starting to make real progress. It not easy, thats why being a survior can suck so much. It takes so much longer than the abuse ever took. A hundred times over thats what it will take to heal. But tonight I want to agknowlege how far I have come. I still have issues and some days it is hard. I still cry, I still have days where I feel awful but I have made big steps on my journey. I wish that some of the people I cared about before and left 'cause they weren't supporters and they couldn't handle it, could see me now. I'm different, I am me and I am better. I have come very far. I am grateful for my supporters who have helped me and my family of fellow surviors who helped me see I am not alone. Tonight is a night for celebration. I can get back to the healing process tomarrow. Tonight I'll celebrate me.

Ria

I feel like I am hiding who I really am. I am such a strong person. If people really knew what I have been dealing with, since I stoped denying what happened, the last couple of years and how much I go through, they would see how strong I am. I keep so well composed its like you can't even tell that I'm sad most of the time and that I am in counsuling and that I cant sleep at night and I have nightmares that make me sick and that I struggle so hard to be 'normal' and socialible. And that I am not prefect and that I am not a rock and that I get angry and sad and tired of having to deal with this all.

No all they see is this wierd quite chick who is kind of anti-social. I hide my struggles from my classmates, my new friends. my old friends who got tired of it and left, my teachers and my family. I am strong and spirtual and smart and thats who I am.  I am this way because I've lived through hell and trama after trama and loss after loss. I am still here. I struggle but I am a SURVIOR and I am healing. I keep at it hoping some day whats going on will be less raw. That He won't have power over me anymore. I hear people talk about trama and how hard it is and I want to scream "Do you really know" "Do you know what trama is., what loss is." "Does it haunt you" "Do you live with what happened to you everyday" Its not that I don't want to lessen what someone been through but I question it if they can use that word so loosly cause for me Trama is so much and so indescribale. Its encompassing and its a theif in the night that impacts, victimizes and steals from people and leaves them to pick up the pieces.    

I've been having the feeling that I was taking numerous steps back in my healing process. some days its gets so hard and I feel like I have taken steps back from where I was a few months ago. Then I realised that with being a survior you have to heal yourself from every direction and every asspect in your life because abuse tarnishes every asspect of your life. It leaves nothing clean and untouched. So these past few months I am healing another aspect of me. From every angle the view is new. I'm not failing at this, I am healing.  

I was sexually abused at the age of 11 or 12 for a period of 6 to 9 months.

It was in a public place just out of sight of adults that could have saved me. 

My perpetrator was a boy just 3 years(I think) older than myself. He made it into a game that excelated everytime we met(on an almost weekly basis).  

Sometimes there was the sweet reprive of not seeing him or no abuse. I got away from the sitiation eventually and I never saw him again.

I lived for 5 years in complete denial. Then for two in not telling anyone else. Then I told a few special people, whom I can count on my hands. They are all gone. The effects of my abuse lingered throughout pushed friends away, etc. Then I had a tramatic experience again of a differnt kind, tryed to push it away like I did my abuse. It didn't work. Four months latter, I finally, got into therapy. The first two months of therapy were tough and I was struggling outside of it, and push more people away. I'm still in therapy and feel like I'm healing. I'm a survior. and this new year is a fresh start for me. At the end of 2008 I found some good places for support. I'm ready to be survior, it  is who I am. This is my year.

Ria