I've recently been talking a lot lately about my history involving sexual abuse. (For the record I was molested/raped for 4 years consistently in my teens by a live-in-boyfriend of my mom's). In the past.. 72 hours or so, I've told three people, all of whom had different reactions. One was completely shocked and appalled and fell all over herself apologizing and feeling sorry for me. One asked poigant questions and tried to get me to talk about it in detail. And the third told me she was a survivor as well, and launched into her own story graphically.

But none of these reactions was helpful to me; they all served the person they came from. How do you tell a person that their reactions are inappropriate without offending them? I feel badly, because these are my friends and I want to trust them with this information. But none of them realize that their actions did more harm than good, and now I'm just avoiding them and the subject entirely.

I know the most obvious solution is to tell them what I need, but quite honestly, I don't know what the right thing to say is. I don't know how I want someone to react to my story or what I want them to do with it.

She fights just like a woman, but she breaks like a little girl.