Well into my teens I wore a t-shirt whenever I swam. You lose your childhood really, your innocence is snatched away, and what little is left of that once pure child is now transformed into a sexual being, a child with a knowledge of things way before her time.įrom that moment on things were very different for me. I don’t think as a five-year-old you really understand that you have lost something when you are abused, but you have – something does change. The molestation could not have lasted more than a couple of minutes, but the incident affected my life in ways that are difficult to articulate.
I cannot begin to imagine the weight my disclosure must have had on them – the grief and the rage furious at themselves for failing to protect me, enraged at the man for doing this to me, and infuriated at the world for allowing this to happen to their young daughter. Shortly after the incident, I told my parents about it. But, somehow, I knew it was wrong and I felt to blame for letting the man touch me. I don’t think at that age I really understood what it was that had happened to me.
When I was about five years old, I was sexually abused by a stranger. “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” The Teddy Bear Clinic for Abused Children, Johannesburg, March 2003 A nine-year-old relative who admitted to playing “sexual games” with her was later discovered to have been abused himself. A young girl attempts to flee from the examining room before a medical forensic examination.