Reclaim the Night march
Last year, I had the pleasure of being part of the audience assembled after the Reclaim the Night march. The final speaker, was Lynn Simpson, who was just about to retire from 28 years working with KASP and was kind enough to share her reflections on this journey and her career. I was captivated by this engaging woman on the stage in front of me, particularly when she shared a story about a train trip that she had taken with a group of women down to London, to take part in a protest march. They were shouting for more recognition for victims of childhood sexual abuse. My friend, sitting next to me, squeezed my hand as she saw the tears in my eyes.
These women were fighting for me. And thousands of people like me, all across the world. These women were passionate and loud and desperate to be heard. They wanted to make a difference. They knew that people who had experienced childhood sexual abuse needed support and they knew that the way it was spoken about and dealt with needed to be taken much more seriously.
As Lynn continued, she told us that they came home from London and continued to do that. Putting pressure on the newly formed Scottish Government to discuss Childhood Sexual Abuse and make funding available for support projects. It was a stark reminder that projects like KASP only exist because of people who believe, really believe, that something needs to be done, and won’t stop until they have got what they know is needed.
Listening to Lynn made me want to hug my younger self. I wanted to tell her that no matter how lonely, how sad and scared that child me and teenager me, and even younger adult me felt, there were a group of amazing women out there, fighting for me and making changes happen. They were creating spaces where victims would be believed, given space to talk and find a way to process their experiences. They were challenging the stigma and encouraging people to speak out and seek out support.
It struck me that at the time these women were assembling and travelling down to London, fighting for this cause, I would have been around about 16 or 17. This was probably around the time I told my first serious boyfriend about what had happened to me. He was my biggest supporter at the time. And he treated me with such kindness that I never felt any shame with him. But something stopped me from talking about it with others, there remained a stigma. Even writing this, I feel uneasy – will this embarrass my family? What will my kids say about this if they read it when they’re older? What will my husband and his family think of me writing this? But Lynn showed me on that day in the Old Kirk, I have nothing to be ashamed of. I was a child, he was an adult. He should have known right from wrong, but he made a choice to abuse me.
I’m not ashamed now but that stigma is strong. Seeking support is a very individual decision – it’s about the right place and the right time. It know all too well that it can take years for victims to be ready to talk about what happened to them and start to understand how to move forward. Many times across my life I’ve looked up support organisations and promised myself I would make contact but I never have. Not until now.
After listening to Lynn, I know now that if I choose to ask for support from KASP I will be met with a kind, compassionate team who would treat me with the utmost care, who would hold space for me and let me go at my own pace.
As I’ve written this, I’ve used the word victim because that’s what resonates with me. The word victim and survivor are often used interchangeably to refer to the same group of people, but in my opinion, the choice of word ultimately sits with the person who experienced the abuse.
For me, I choose the word victim. Yes, I am surviving, I am here and breathing and by that definition I am a survivor, but I want more than that, I want to thrive, I want to flourish. Right now I am still affected by what he did, even though many years have passed. The abuse has stopped but what happened to me impacts on my ability to trust, my ability to feel safe, to trust that my children are safe and is at the core of my never ending pattern of people pleasing. When I adopt the term survivor it’s going to be when I am no longer mentally tied to the person who violated me, who took my innocence, left me damaged and in self-destruct mode, struggling to maintain relationships and my family ties. It’s a lot of damage from one man’s despicable choices.
But I know I will do it because I want to be strong like Lynn, and all the other women out there like Lynn. I want to shout loudly, calling out behaviour I know to be wrong on the highest level. Yes, I am surviving right now, but when I’m thriving I can’t wait to see what I can do!