[Jenn1fer82]

I don't understand how can one childhood incident take so much of me away. I've always read of stories, watched films, listened to personal testimony of people having to endure years of sexual abuse.

At the age of 7 my parent's worker molested me. A one time incident that I have a very vivid memory of and it has torn down every part of my women-hood, any self worth and confidence in myself. Shame is always in the background ready to tear any hope down for a new life.

Why? How?
1 time incident and I will never know who I should have been and life that I could have had.

[Sannah]

You can work through this and go on to fulfill who you really are. Have you tried working through it in therapy?

Do you feel shame from it?

[skeksi]

Being abused, even just one time, is traumatizing. The definition of trauma is something that completely shatters your worldview--i.e., your sense of safety and well-being. At age 7, you had a basic expectation of trust in adults and safety in the world--and the abuse took all that away from you.

Some of trauma's effects can also relate to how people in our lives respond to the trauma--so that's an added factor.

I share your anger and regret about being forever changed by trauma. I am sometimes quite bitter about how my entire being has been shaped by what happened to me. A lot of my therapy has focused on learning to accept that the trauma is over, done, it's happened--I can't unring that bell. But I can decide how to respond to the challenges it has left in my life. That makes me feel more in control. Talking about what happened has helped me cast off a lot of the shame, too.

It can get better. Trauma can change our lives irrevocably, but that doesn't mean ruined.

[carrie_ann]

((((((Jenn1fer82)))))) ... as a child ... whether one time or a million times ... it was a violation of your body, mind, heart and soul. skeksi gives some wise words above. wishing you safe love and much healing.

[xrecoveringsoulx]

I was ritually physically, emotionally, and verbally abused for years but what really still chains me to this day was the one incident that became a sexual assault.

When we've been violated in such an awful way it's humanely impossible not to become overwhelmed and stricken with trauma even years after. Never blame yourself, and it's not because you are weak or can't handle stressful situations. What happened to you is beyond normality, and thus your reaction would logically be beyond "normality" as well.