Episode Transcript
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Hi, this is Rachel, and
recovery got a special guest with US named
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Kimberly. She's here to tell us
about her surviving sexual abuse as a child.
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Right now she's going to tell us
a little bit about herself. Hi,
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my name is Kimberly. I'm a
thirty eight year old mom of two
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and I am excited to be here
and share my experience. Here's some of
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the questions we're going to ask Kimberly. What things have you done for recovery
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of being sexually abused? I have
mostly just done counseling. I had a
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group that I join not long after
my experience, the first time that my
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mom put me into as a little
girl, and then I went to a
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counselor probably in my early S,
and then I have started seeing a new
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counselor now and other support groups that
I've done. What have you done that's
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been the most helpful? Honestly,
the counseling has been the most helpful,
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just being able to talk to somebody
and mostly you work through the issues yourself
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and they're just there to listen.
I find that to have been really helpful.
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How did your family respond? My
family responded. That's pretty complicated,
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as I'm sure most people who have
experienced that knows that most of the time
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the family is not very supportive.
I my immediate family, my mom and
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Dad. They were very believing and
supported me and got me into a support
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group whenever I was six and and
that was great. The biggest problem was
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the extended family generally. They seem
to have leaned more towards supporting my abuser
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then me, and that kind of
set me up for my later the later
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issues that I had with abuse from
other people. So how did your community
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respond? For the most part,
I would think the only community that would
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have been the issue. I know
the church that we went to the first
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time I experienced abuse kind of treated
me like a lever and we eventually just
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start stopped going because people just kind
of viewed me different, like I was
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going to accuse them of something or
it was a very strange experience. WAS
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THERE A re victimization? Are Victim
Blaming you? Yes, so the first
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time that it happened to me I
was around six years old and for the
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most part I healed pretty well from
that. I don't know if it was
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being so young or if it was
a support group that my mom put me
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in. But as time went on
I would experience my family basically still letting
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their kids play with my abuser and
they would be very egg shelly around me.
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And so the second time that it
happened to me, my aunt's husband,
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I did not tell anybody and I
just kind of went through it on
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my own from the time that I
was about twelve until I was eighteen,
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and then I I was groomed so
well during that process that I didn't it
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didn't occur to me whenever I entered
into an American into a marriage with a
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sexual abuser as well. How has
this impacted your career? For the most
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part it hasn't really affected my career
necessarily. I've been very lucky that I
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have a good job and everything,
but I do I do wonder sometimes about
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who I might have been if it
weren't for the sexual abuse. Perhaps it
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I don't know, perhaps I might
have been somebody different, but for the
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most part, career wise, I've
been pretty lucky. How is this impacted
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your dating life? My dating life, I am pretty skeptical of most people.
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I am very guarded. I'm not
necessarily afraid to date, but it
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is hard for me to form a
real secure attachment to people. How has
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just impacted your your previous marriage?
Well, as I said before, I
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did enter into a marriage with somebody
who sexually abused me. For the most
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part, I stayed in the marriage
for about sixteen years, but it left
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me with a lot of a lot
of stuff that I had to recover from
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afterwards because for the most part I
didn't even realize that I was being sexually
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abused through my marriage. I just
kind of what experience things with my body,
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like pain during any sort of intercourse
with my ex, and those things
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kind of just started adding up towards
the end and I realized that there was
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just something fundamentally wrong with what was
going on, and it wasn't until a
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couple of years after the divorce that
I really started realizing how bad it was.
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How is this affected your parenting?
My parenting, I am I would
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not say I'm overly protective, but
because I don't want them to be scared
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of people, but I do I
watch the people around my children like a
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hawk whenever I can. I look
for any sort of personality changes with people
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that they're around and because that was
one of the biggest things. That was
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confusing to me when I was experiencing
stuff. I always I was like,
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well, how did people not know? And then so now I'm like extra
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vigilant to just try to pay attention
to anything that might change in their demeanor
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around certain people. How has this
impacted your finances? Not Too much,
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other than the the thinking that maybe
something could have been different without that.
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But as far as I feel,
my finances haven't really suffered necessarily from it.
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I mean, I do have moments
where I feel a little down or
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something, but it doesn't really affect
anything long term. Okay, I mean,
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I'm have you taken in account the
cost account on saying ours that been
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covered by your job? Pretty well, fortunately that is covered by my insurance.
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So how has this impacted your overhall
long term health? I don't know.
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I do definitely have issues with going
up and down in my weight and
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that obviously is not real great for
my health, but I would not say
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I my mental health. I mean
it's not too bad. I do have
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moments of anxiety and such, but
overall I don't think my physical health is
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too too affected by it. Okay, how has this impacted your impacted your
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social life. My social life,
I I don't make a lot of friendships,
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so I probably spend most of my
time alone or with a very good
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friend of mine or with Rachel.
But yeah, I wouldn't say I make
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very, very many connections with people
unless I can I feel like I can
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really trust them. So okay.
How has this impacted your overall long term
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mental health? I would say Daytoday
I do pretty good, but long term
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there's definitely some things that I'm never
going to fully heal from. I'm always
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going to have just a little bit
of anxiety that's going to pop up here
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and there. I mean, I'm
really doing the work to to heal and
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feel, I don't know, some
semblance of normalcy, but it's really the
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abuse is all I've ever known.
So I don't know. I don't know
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what the medium is between people who
haven't been like that and people who have.
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So overall I feel like I'm I'm
pretty good most days. To other
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victims out there, what advice would
you want to give them? Definitely get
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into counseling, even if you feel
like you're totally fine, because the entire
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time through my marriage I thought I
was great. I didn't I didn't know
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anything was wrong. So if you
have experienced that at all, definitely do
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counseling, because there is stuff that's
that's still affecting what you do and how
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you think about things. My biggest
my biggest bit of advice is to the
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people around the people who have suffered
from that, the families, like,
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don't pretend like it didn't happen.
Be there, because the people who are
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affected by sexual abuse, they need
to know that they're supported more than anything
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really. What was your grooming process? The grooming process, it's really complicated.
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I mean, you feel they make
you feel really good, they make
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you feel special. I it's a
very strange feeling to still have like positive
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thoughts towards the person, knowing that
they took something from you that you're never
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going to get back. I I
still lean toward protecting that person or or
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trying to keep their anonimity safe and
everything, and it's it's a very weird
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experience because the grooming process, it
just kind of sticks with you your entire
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life and it affects the way that
you respond to other people. I'm very
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much so the type of person that
just gives people the benefit of the doubt.
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No matter what, and sometimes it's
at the expense of myself. I'm
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really working on not necessarily being that
way. I don't want to lose my
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kindness and everything, but I do
know that I have let people take advantage
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of me because I don't want to
hurt their feelings or and I know that
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that was from the grooming process that
my from the abuse that I experienced during
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my adolescence. How has this impacted
your faith? I did, I had
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the questions, like everybody, on
whether how God could let this happen to
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me or or if there was a
god, why, why did this happen
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have to happen to me? But
I would not say that it really affected
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my faith necessarily. There's a lot
of other reasons on my standing with faith,
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but I don't know that the sexual
abuse played a hand necessarily in how
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I view the world of religion and
everything. Okay, anything else you would
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like to add? Just mostly the
that it's really important to support your family
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members that have experienced sexual abuse and
and for the people who have experienced that
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abuse. I mean it's okay to
to never talk to those people again.
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You don't owe them anything. You
can just completely cut them out of your
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life and the people who support them. I mean it's okay to cut them
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out of your life too. You
need to have people around you that make
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you feel better and you should never
feel guilty for being around somebody or talking
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about whatever has happened to you and
however you want to talk to people about
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it, because the number one thing
is that you need to have people around
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you that lift you up and keep
you supported. All right, I think
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that's it. Thank you, Kimberally, for coming on our show and tune
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in next week on Thursday, and
we'll have another special guest on our show.
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And thanks for listening. As always, you can always follow us on
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facebook or twitter or Instagram, and
then always reach out on ww reach on
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recovery if you have any questions or
if you want to be on the show.
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Thanks.
