The ones who abused me taught me that I was very bad and only deserved to have bad things happen to me. At 8 years of age I used to harm myself because of my strong need to re-enact their abuse and cruelty.

Do you think a scrawny 8 year old child deserves to be hurt and punished over and over even when she can't remember what she did wrong, if she did wrong? I don't think so and I don't think anyone deserves to be mistreated like that.

Part of healing comes when we can look at the lies we were taught and begin to reject them as lies. It was not my fault and I was not a bad person. The abusers were the bad people, not the children - even the children who obeyed the abusers or who responded to the messages of pleasure and pain mixed together. That was not my wrong either. It is human to respond to things that feel good - even things not appropriate for a small child. I used to be so mean to myself inside of our mind and it was horrible and it made things worse for us all. Now we are getting more protective of our littles and fiercer about the truth. The truth is they were the BAD ones, NOT US.

Leslie and Pixies - there are no bad children and no bad pixies!!!!!!!