Repeated Behaviours & Childhood Sexual Abuse

For many who were sexually abused by other children, it can be common to ‘repeat’ the behaviours that wronged them, oftentimes without even realising. How do we start to address and prevent this reality in a way that manages shame safely? In this very intimate and raw episode, Sophia discusses the notion of being ‘an imperfect survivor’ with Soniah. 

Transcript

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My parents never had a sex conversation with us.

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Never had a conversation around consent.

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All it was, is once I was like 14 and I had a boyfriend that was being very

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fresh, was like, don't bring a baby to this house.

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I'm an overachiever at work because for so long I thought that

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I was a bad person because I repeated behaviors that happened to me.

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I came to this conclusion the other day that I'm a really good liar.

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Like, and don't take from that

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that you-

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You're a storyteller.

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Hi! Welcome to Secrets Worth Sharing,  a series

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all about having practical conversations on childhood sexual abuse

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but with serious joy.

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I'm Sophia, a designer and a survivor.

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And this very special and very requested episode is all about child on child abuse.

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And for that, I am joined by the wonderful, wonderful Soniah. Hi.

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Hi! Hey everyone. It’s Soniah.

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My pronouns are she/they

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I am a survivor, certified goofball and feeler.

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Looking forward

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to joining and talking about my experience with child on child abuse today.

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Soniah. Is it alright

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Before we launch into the conversation, you share quite a lot about the fact

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that you experienced child on child abuse yourself,

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but also that you’ve repeated some behaviors

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So we just wanted to give people a bit of space and notice

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about that, that that's what you're going to be talking about.

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I definitely want to say that I, for one, really endorse this conversation.

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I think it's extremely needed, and I think it's extremely positive

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to experience everyone in the wholeness of their  abuse

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and what's happened to them and talk about those really realistic effects of that.

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But yeah,

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just wanted to give that I mentioned to people who are listening or watching.

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And also, if you wouldn't mind just giving a little bit of a overview

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about some of your experiences on child on child abuse.

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Yeah.

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My journey kind of walks through quite a few things.

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First starting off with my original abuse,

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which was from pre-teens and teenagers in my local community,

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which then turned into my family moving to the States from Saint Lucia.

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And now all the things I had learned and experienced

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suddenly stopped because I was no longer with those people.

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But now I was repeating those same behaviours that I learned

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or experienced when I was around the original,

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group of people who caused my, sexual abuse.

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From there, that continued for a while

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until I learned differently and how to navigate.

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Where do I go with all this new information?

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And that's a lot of what we're going to be talking about today.

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I'm excited to share about to hopefully be able to be your mirror for someone else

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who might have experienced something similar.

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I'm so, so grateful that you chose.

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To come on as well.

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Also, we should definitely highlight that.

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Soniah, you're you're joining from the States.

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I am yeah, this is Secrets Worth Sharing

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is going international.

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Literally as we like to say.

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What is it? Across the pond?

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Across the pond. Yeah. That's it.

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That's exactly that's exactly it.

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The experience is universal and just super excited

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for the work that you're already doing

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and how that's going to be able to reach the masses everywhere.

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So this episode is very close to my heart because for a number of reasons,

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but I really try to focus a lot on things

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that are ignored when we talk about childhood sexual abuse and.

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The topic itself is completely ignored.

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But then within that, when we do think about childhood

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sexual abuse, we tend to think about a very stereotypical situation, right?

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We think about a young cis girl

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kind of like me,

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who's abused by a cis man who's older and an adult.

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That only encapsulates

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a tiny amount of the sorts of experiences that people experience and, you know.

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I put out an open call saying.

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I wanted to speak to people from this range

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of intersections of childhood sexual abuse.

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I was looking at like, autism.

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I wanted to speak to sex workers.

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I want to speak to people with experience, child on child abuse.

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And of the 30 people who got back to me, which.

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In itself was a bit overwhelming.

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Was 15 people who said that they had had that experience.

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And I think it just goes to show how a majority of the time, we're not

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used to thinking about that as being child sexual abuse when it absolutely is.

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So I'm really grateful to you.

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Soniah because I think you have

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particular experiences that encapsulate a lot of why that is.

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So I wanted to kind of start,

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and put a lens on this conversation around

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almost comparing our experiences.

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And I'm not saying that in terms of like comparative trauma.

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Because that's a whole other kettle of fish No. Yeah.

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But when I say comparing our experiences, I mean,

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what do people think about in childhood sexual abuse and how is that different

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when the person doing the abusing is an adult versus when they're a child?

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And what does that impact play on the person who's the child themselves?

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Yeah, I think that's such a major key.

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When we think about what are the levels around the child

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on child assault and when does the when is the line of innocence?

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And I think that's really where you can you really determine what's a child

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is the line for a child once you're past the age of ten.

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Is it 12.

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Where do we draw the line in the sand on this was child on child abuse.

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And how do we view that compared to abuse that might have been with an adult

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or someone who should have known better?

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And how do we determine someone knowing better?

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In my case, my my introduction to any of my sexual experiences

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were with pre-teens and teenagers.

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They're not necessarily children.

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But when I think about the experience and what they would have been exposed to

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and the knowledge that they had, I view it from a space of innocence from them,

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where they may have not known better so you have an idea that something's wrong,

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but you don't know exactly to the extent and why it's wrong,

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and what's the downstream impact of what you're what you're doing.

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Compared to an adult who you should have had exposure

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to information around,

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sex and consent from a, just from a socialized perspective.

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And how does that play into how you're responding

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and what they're doing with children or others?

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And that's just a very big part.

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While I am in the States,

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I think something that's important to note is that I was born in Saint Lucia.

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So a lot of this experience started.

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We Saint Lucia, 

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All the Pitons, everything. Yeah,

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the whole the whole vibe.

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But I think it plays a part into how I, how I view

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the people who introduce me to any part or who created my views.

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I still get very wary about what to call it.

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The language around it is very dicey. Yeah.

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Because I do hold space for their innocence and the experience,

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for context.

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So we're born on this very tiny island with parents

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who are doing the best that they can, but they aren't always present.

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Conversations around sex and body autonomy

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are not very common conversations that that are happening.

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Yeah.

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So you leave a bunch of kids to their own devices.

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At the time in the 90s, it was very much free community.

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You can go wherever.

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If you were doing something that was not acceptable,

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someone that you may not even know, but may know your parents,

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they were allowed to discipline you. Yeah.

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So the idea that you would just be at someone's house was not uncommon.

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And that leaves room for space around you.

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You don't know where your kids are all the time and who they're with.

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So my parents

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were traveling a lot, and I spent time in one small,

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like, smaller part of the community north of where my family was,

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and there were just a bunch of teenagers

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and pre-teens running while taking care of each other.

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And in that space, that's the context of where I was introduced to

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this behavior around sexual intimacy between children.

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Like a very common thing.

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And, you know, like something's not quite

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like it's still in secret, but no one's like, this is wrong.

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Yeah. There was never the big scary conversation.

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If you tell anyone, I'm going to harm you like that wasn’t even really discussed?

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It was just always in the air of this is a secret, private thing that's happening.

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But it wasn't what I see in the media of like, well,

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I didn't say anything because someone told me that they were going to

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harm me or no one's going to believe you.

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Like that was not my experience.

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And I guess,

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was there ever a moment when you realized that what you experienced was a abuse?

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Yeah, that happened years later, and at that point,

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I had already been repeating behaviors with children who were younger than me.

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So now you've taken this long

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period of time where this has been going on for a while.

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I have now been repeating behaviors with children who are younger than me,

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and I'm the older one in the space of authority.

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And, you know, you move to America

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and you start going to school and there's sex education classes

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and you start having these conversations about how these things are wrong.

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And these aren't conversations I'm having at home.

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So now I'm getting messaging that, like, the things that I'm doing are bad

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and not okay,

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and I can't go talk to my parents about any of these things

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because I don't have that relationship with them.

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And now I'm

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internalizing this message, like, all these things are bad, where do we go?

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And ever since that and just you hold on to this things that like I am wrong.

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So it wasn't until I was around 10 or 11 that I realized like, oh,

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these things are bad, they can't happen.

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And from 10/11 ish all the way until 17,

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I never was able to articulate what happened to me.

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I had just internalize it as I was a bad person who did bad things.

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Yeah.

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And when you were- Basically there's

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so many things you've said that

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really, really differ from my experience,

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but also that further add to the barriers

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of not just recognizing that what you experience the sexual abuse,

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but then knowing how to talk about it and get support.

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And I think one of the biggest ones is what you said about the differentiation

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between when is a child like, because, for example,

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you know, well, speaking to someone the other day, who was processing

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their abuse that they experienced when they were like eight years old,

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then went to therapy or was talking about a sexual experience

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that they had when they were at 14. And then the therapist goes.

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It was always like the therapist was being like, I hate to break this to you hun

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But the 14 year old experience is also child sexual abuse.

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So then this person is like, what the fuck?

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Like, just let me have one sexual experience that is not.

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child sexual abuse -not tainted already by something else.

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Yeah, exactly.

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And I think especially with this conversation on children, like,

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yes, the way you have conversations about sex, sexual safety, relationships

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and also consent are going to be so different to somebody

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who's 14 than with someone who's eight, oh 5 or 3.

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But it doesn't mean that the abuse still didn't happen.

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It just happened

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in a different vicinity.

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And obviously, like, you know, when you're younger,

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like at least when I was a teenager,

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it was exciting

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to be the one talking about sex and having all of these thoughts and.

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Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

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So again.

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Did you find that you were one of the few people in your friend group?

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Like when I became a teenager, I was like super well researched on sex

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because I was

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trying to make sense of my experience when I was a child being abused.

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But back then on the internet, all the context around sex was really

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from a consenting like adult perspective and not from you've been abused.

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How do you make sense of it now?

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So all of the information I was consuming online was like,

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how to give the best blowjob or all of these other things.

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So like, I feel like in my friend group in high school, I was always like

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way further ahead of everyone when it came to conversations around sex.

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And like, I have these conversations with my friends now who've known me back then.

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Like, they were warning signs y'all.

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Come on! I mean, like,

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that was like the fact that I was like, always having a conversation about sex

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and I always knew so much was like,

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that was a little warning sign that was not that.

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Thats... No I didn’t in short

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That's very interesting

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Because when, how old are you if you don't mind me asking

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I just turned 30. Oh, congrats. Oh, yeah!

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Because we- Happy birthday!

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Like little...

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I'm 27 and.

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I remember googling around specifically child sexual abuse.

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And I think this is a very key distinction

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to make because by that point in society, I'd had enough messaging

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to sort of know if an adult touched you in a certain way.

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You need to be wary of this, that and the other. And actually,

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it was the first person who told me, you have experienced abuse

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They didn't use that word, but was a child themselves.

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So their parent had had a conversation with them.

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And then I was.

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So yeah, you have. The language going into it

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Exactly.

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So like when.

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I'm on Google, like kissing, is kissing bad.

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Exactly!

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because I don't have the language that says, because when a conversation

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around sex happened, it it was never from from school.

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It was never from the context of here's,

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you know, here's the body and here's what happens and here's consent.

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It was never there was never disclosure for if you're being

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if these things are happening then that's a different conversation.

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That's where it was.

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And I didn’t have the language to go on Google and say

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is this you know is kissing bad is touching. bad?

00:13:37:21 - 00:13:40:26
Is  x, y and z, is kissing your brother bad?

00:13:40:26 - 00:13:41:13
What does that send you?

00:13:41:13 - 00:13:42:52
Pornhub. Brother.

00:13:42:52 - 00:13:45:16
Step brother, video kissing.

00:13:45:16 - 00:13:48:03
Right. Like those are. Exactly.

00:13:48:03 - 00:13:52:21
And that that is such a good point because on top of all of that. So.

00:13:52:22 - 00:13:54:52
So the friend I mentioned fly off the fly.

00:13:54:52 - 00:13:56:25
Oh. Do you ever have it when

00:13:56:25 - 00:13:58:10
I dunno, an adult touches you here.

00:13:58:10 - 00:13:59:22
And the friend stopped gaming.

00:13:59:22 - 00:14:01:46
It was like you need to tell somebody.

00:14:01:46 - 00:14:04:12
Otherwise that's going to happen straight away. And I didn't.

00:14:04:12 - 00:14:06:10
But that reaction from that friend

00:14:06:10 - 00:14:10:06
from that other child made me think, oh my God, maybe this is wrong.

00:14:10:15 - 00:14:11:45
And that's when I sort of in the,

00:14:11:45 - 00:14:12:41
in the back of my head,

00:14:12:41 - 00:14:15:43
just started looking around for anything around childhood sexual abuse

00:14:15:57 - 00:14:18:09
or like sexual assault when you're young

00:14:18:09 - 00:14:20:38
and then when again, when I looked on the charity website.

00:14:20:38 - 00:14:23:33
That one never mentioned about other children doing the abuse,

00:14:23:33 - 00:14:26:34
it was just like, if someone touches you wrong, or if it's an adult who touches you wrong

00:14:26:34 - 00:14:27:32
Like it could be a parent

00:14:27:32 - 00:14:30:32
 it could be an uncle or whatever.

00:14:30:45 - 00:14:32:20
And then you're like, oh, okay, cool.

00:14:32:20 - 00:14:35:40
I'm still I was reading through this information being like.

00:14:35:51 - 00:14:37:49
Oh, I'm not sure if this applies me.

00:14:37:49 - 00:14:38:43
Does this apply?

00:14:38:43 - 00:14:40:01
We never know. Yeah.

00:14:40:01 - 00:14:43:31
Because we're always I think it's it's our like way of defending ourselves.

00:14:43:31 - 00:14:47:49
We want to make sure that like this is not this is a this is what happened here.

00:14:47:49 - 00:14:48:52
It's something else.

00:14:48:52 - 00:14:52:10
Because if it is what's happening here, all of the defenses

00:14:52:10 - 00:14:55:10
that should be happening in our lives would be.

00:14:55:19 - 00:14:57:01
So since it's not happening. Right?

00:14:57:01 - 00:15:00:01
Like I'm being abused then my mom should know

00:15:00:09 - 00:15:02:36
and she doesn't really know that that might not be the case

00:15:02:36 - 00:15:05:25
because it's still happening. So it must be something else.

00:15:05:25 - 00:15:07:47
Maybe I'm misunderstanding it. That's. Yeah.

00:15:07:47 - 00:15:11:25
And there's such little representation at least in the UK,

00:15:11:42 - 00:15:14:42
that when a scandal does come out, it will be from like

00:15:15:12 - 00:15:19:57
a huge public public celebrity who's like, abused many people.

00:15:19:57 - 00:15:23:06
And there's been lots of I don't like to use the word extreme,

00:15:23:06 - 00:15:27:36
but there's been multiple situations of the person being abused in

00:15:27:36 - 00:15:30:57
lots of different ways and levels, and that creates the picture in your head

00:15:30:57 - 00:15:33:41
that there's a certain type of person who's an abuser,

00:15:33:41 - 00:15:37:06
which is this type of person, and there's a certain type of experience

00:15:37:06 - 00:15:40:13
which equates to you being a victim, which is this type of experience.

00:15:40:13 - 00:15:43:13
And to undo that thinking takes decades.

00:15:43:24 - 00:15:44:27
And I still to this day,

00:15:44:27 - 00:15:47:24
I don't know where there is an actual concrete resource

00:15:47:24 - 00:15:49:12
where you can actually get that affirmation.

00:15:49:12 - 00:15:53:09
And even if there was, you're still going to be at the back of your head.

00:15:53:09 - 00:15:57:57
Trying to find examples to be like, no, it's not me, because it's not nice.

00:15:57:57 - 00:16:00:06
It's not a nice conclusion about your life.

00:16:00:06 - 00:16:01:15
It's not, you know, it.

00:16:01:15 - 00:16:05:20
It touches coming to the realization that you,

00:16:05:22 - 00:16:08:47
your, your sexual experience has been violated.

00:16:08:47 - 00:16:10:46
It touches every facet of your life.

00:16:10:46 - 00:16:11:47
There's nothing.

00:16:11:47 - 00:16:14:56
And I explain this to people like, there is no part of me

00:16:15:23 - 00:16:18:23
that's untouched by this experience.

00:16:18:37 - 00:16:22:46
The way that I navigate my dating, the way that I navigate how I show up at work.

00:16:23:15 - 00:16:26:29
I'm an overachiever at work because for so long I've thought that

00:16:26:29 - 00:16:30:28
I was a bad person because I repeated behaviors that happened to me.

00:16:30:28 - 00:16:33:41
So I am always trying to compensate for that.

00:16:34:33 - 00:16:37:31
I keep people away from me because I feel like I'm dangerous.

00:16:37:31 - 00:16:41:43
I still have the view that I work through in therapy, that I'm a predator.

00:16:42:05 - 00:16:44:49
Because once you do the research, it's

00:16:44:49 - 00:16:47:49
either yes or no when it comes to child on child abuse, right?

00:16:47:54 - 00:16:51:54
Someone when we talk about sexual, childhood, sexual assault or abuse,

00:16:52:15 - 00:16:55:06
it's always someone's a victim.

00:16:55:06 - 00:16:57:07
Someone's a perpetrator. Yeah.

00:16:57:07 - 00:17:00:54
And when you get into a conversation around multiple children,

00:17:01:28 - 00:17:03:00
that's very complicated.

00:17:03:00 - 00:17:04:37
And someone has to,

00:17:04:37 - 00:17:08:00
from the representation that exists, fall into one of those roles.

00:17:08:25 - 00:17:10:53
And I had a really difficult time.

00:17:10:53 - 00:17:12:34
I still do come to terms with this.

00:17:12:34 - 00:17:16:13
And it's I've been in therapy for years, and we still end up having to circle

00:17:16:13 - 00:17:19:13
back to the conversation that it was not your fault.

00:17:19:15 - 00:17:20:42
It was not your fault.

00:17:20:42 - 00:17:23:11
You didn't know any better. You couldn't have known any better.

00:17:23:11 - 00:17:25:12
It was not your fault. You're not a predator.

00:17:25:12 - 00:17:28:13
And I have to repeat that to myself often,

00:17:28:42 - 00:17:31:17
because it's still always embedded in my head.

00:17:31:17 - 00:17:35:47
Because when we go out into the world and we look for others, the experiences

00:17:35:47 - 00:17:37:17
someone was a little

00:17:37:17 - 00:17:40:33
cute, innocent, cis girl, like you said, that's the representation, right?

00:17:40:48 - 00:17:44:02
There's this cute little innocent cis girl and this aggressive predator

00:17:44:20 - 00:17:45:28
who took advantage of them

00:17:45:28 - 00:17:48:28
and all of these other things, and what we leave out of that

00:17:48:28 - 00:17:52:04
story are the children who are left to their own devices.

00:17:52:04 - 00:17:55:46
And maybe one child, child A was abused by an adult,

00:17:55:46 - 00:17:58:46
and now they're spreading that from child to child.

00:17:58:48 - 00:18:00:14
Maybe it was teenagers.

00:18:00:14 - 00:18:01:30
Wherever it is

00:18:01:30 - 00:18:05:49
that's created it, we still end up holding that shame of now I'm also a predator.

00:18:06:01 - 00:18:08:47
Yeah. I'm so glad you brought this up.

00:18:08:47 - 00:18:12:18
In terms of there's an abuser, there's a victim, because

00:18:12:57 - 00:18:15:30
there's this movement called the abolition movement.

00:18:15:30 - 00:18:20:52
And basically, for people who don't know, the abolition movement is about a world

00:18:20:52 - 00:18:26:24
without prisons and a world for reviewing the way justice works.

00:18:26:24 - 00:18:28:04
And there's loads of different ways

00:18:28:04 - 00:18:31:04
that that works and loads of different approaches to that.

00:18:31:12 - 00:18:35:13
One that I really like is by Cradle Community, who is a group of people

00:18:35:20 - 00:18:39:48
with lived experience in prisons or know people who have gone through that system.

00:18:40:15 - 00:18:43:53
And there's a lot of things that they say that I really agree with.

00:18:43:55 - 00:18:46:10
There's a lot of things when it comes to child sexual abuse

00:18:46:10 - 00:18:48:14
that I'm still trying to iron out and understand

00:18:49:30 - 00:18:50:45
how that works.

00:18:50:45 - 00:18:54:10
But one thing that they say that I think is very powerful is that we

00:18:54:10 - 00:18:58:19
as a society, are so obsessed with the concept of there's good

00:18:58:19 - 00:19:01:19
and bad actions that equate to good and bad people.

00:19:01:30 - 00:19:06:00
And when you when you create a whole society around that premise,

00:19:07:04 - 00:19:08:54
it's completely flawed.

00:19:08:54 - 00:19:12:55
And you don't allow for learning, you don't allow for a chance for people

00:19:12:55 - 00:19:16:49
to actually get the justice that they need, which doesn't necessarily

00:19:16:49 - 00:19:19:42
equate to the court and justice system that we know of in the States

00:19:19:42 - 00:19:21:25
and in the UK.

00:19:21:25 - 00:19:23:42
I think it's really tricky

00:19:23:42 - 00:19:29:04
when it comes to adult perpetrators of sexual assault because, yeah,

00:19:29:36 - 00:19:31:06
particularly when they're multiple offenders.

00:19:31:06 - 00:19:33:23
And I truly don't know the answer. I like nobody at me.

00:19:33:23 - 00:19:34:10
Like I don't know what.

00:19:34:10 - 00:19:38:25
To do when there's someone like that and how to how to stop them

00:19:38:25 - 00:19:42:19
from re-offending and where to put them and what, you know, anything like that.

00:19:43:15 - 00:19:45:23
But when it comes to children and people

00:19:45:23 - 00:19:48:27
who are still learning, I think we often forget that,

00:19:49:35 - 00:19:51:39
as you said, we repeat behaviors.

00:19:51:39 - 00:19:52:10
And I really

00:19:52:10 - 00:19:55:44
I would really like to, as well as take the time to give the grace to you,

00:19:55:57 - 00:19:59:27
because the amount of vulnerability that you've shown just to even come

00:19:59:27 - 00:20:03:21
on the platform and just say, yes, I went through this experience as a child,

00:20:03:52 - 00:20:08:36
but yes, I also repeated the behaviors takes a huge amount of strength,

00:20:08:51 - 00:20:11:47
and I really like the way you're phrasing it as repeating behaviors,

00:20:11:47 - 00:20:13:33
because that's what you're doing as a child,

00:20:13:33 - 00:20:15:30
especially when you don't know any better,

00:20:15:30 - 00:20:17:52
and especially when you've gone through that experience yourself.

00:20:17:52 - 00:20:20:40
And I think as you've said, it's taken

00:20:20:40 - 00:20:23:49
years of learning that that was what happened to you,

00:20:23:49 - 00:20:27:46
first of all, understanding that you then did that.

00:20:27:46 - 00:20:30:37
And I don't know what accountability looks like for you or whatever,

00:20:30:37 - 00:20:33:37
but then going through the process of trying to undo that

00:20:33:37 - 00:20:37:30
and then come on a platform I think is extremely bold

00:20:37:30 - 00:20:40:41
and powerful, and I think more people need to be hearing about this.

00:20:40:41 - 00:20:42:48
So I'm just so happy that you came on honestly.

00:20:42:48 - 00:20:43:05
Yeah.

00:20:43:05 - 00:20:47:31
So thank you for one, putting the feeler out for it in like in particular.

00:20:47:31 - 00:20:49:15
Right. Because you knew that this is important.

00:20:49:15 - 00:20:53:29
I think there's so many of us who are halfway healed on our journey,

00:20:53:29 - 00:20:57:36
because we can only deal with half of our experience,

00:20:58:01 - 00:21:02:15
and we can never be free until we can live our full truth.

00:21:02:20 - 00:21:03:07
Right.

00:21:03:07 - 00:21:06:46
And, you know, if you curse in front of a child, chances are

00:21:06:46 - 00:21:11:15
they're going to curse again if you walk a particular way, that's going to happen.

00:21:11:15 - 00:21:14:43
My best friends in the military and his sons, they love

00:21:14:43 - 00:21:18:43
putting on his helmet and putting his and playing military and playing army.

00:21:18:59 - 00:21:21:09
If he was a doctor, his children would probably do

00:21:21:09 - 00:21:24:03
the same thing they want to wear, you know, the scrubs.

00:21:24:03 - 00:21:25:13
And here's the full nine.

00:21:25:13 - 00:21:28:24
So when we think about how children are in this way,

00:21:28:46 - 00:21:33:34
and I look out into the landscape of people talking about childhood abuse,

00:21:33:54 - 00:21:36:45
and I don't hear this part, I think it hurts me

00:21:36:45 - 00:21:39:34
because I think about how many people are still sitting in pain

00:21:39:34 - 00:21:43:06
with the other side of their experience, the and then what?

00:21:43:30 - 00:21:47:27
That they can't say because it feels so hard to admit,

00:21:47:54 - 00:21:50:09
because we're internalizing this part of the predator

00:21:50:09 - 00:21:51:43
where we just want to be validated first

00:21:53:31 - 00:21:56:04
I really wanted to ask you how you feel about this.

00:21:56:04 - 00:22:01:37
So I imagine there's going to be people listening who are parents who will think,

00:22:01:53 - 00:22:05:24
this is never going to happen to me because I've had that chat with my child.

00:22:05:54 - 00:22:11:11
And I think, first of all, having that chat does not necessarily mean that abuse

00:22:11:11 - 00:22:14:16
isn't going to happen, and especially if you're framing it as one chat,

00:22:14:29 - 00:22:18:34
because we know that true learning about this is gradual.

00:22:18:34 - 00:22:20:40
It's over a long period of time.

00:22:20:40 - 00:22:22:37
It changes as the child gets older.

00:22:22:37 - 00:22:25:12
And it's also about protecting your own body,

00:22:25:12 - 00:22:28:12
but also understanding and recognizing your own behaviors.

00:22:28:13 - 00:22:31:33
And so often, you know, I get parents who are quite perplexed

00:22:31:33 - 00:22:34:10
coming to me saying, but I spoke to my child,

00:22:34:10 - 00:22:36:41
so I don't understand why they then got abused.

00:22:36:41 - 00:22:39:18
And I think it's just really giving space to understand

00:22:39:18 - 00:22:43:22
that it's not a it's not just one conversation, it's a movement.

00:22:43:22 - 00:22:45:48
And it's a very conscious checking in with a child

00:22:45:48 - 00:22:47:36
that happens over a long period of time.

00:22:47:36 - 00:22:50:47
I think there are a lot of folks in in the work

00:22:50:47 - 00:22:54:36
of healing that talks about how trauma is not what happened to you.

00:22:54:36 - 00:22:55:22
It was what

00:22:56:27 - 00:22:58:57
didn't happen in response to the trauma.

00:22:58:57 - 00:23:02:15
And when I think about parents who are like, well, I did

00:23:02:15 - 00:23:07:15
have that conversation with my child to say, this should not happen to you.

00:23:07:15 - 00:23:11:27
And if it does, tell me these are your no-no zones

00:23:11:27 - 00:23:13:26
so no one should touch them.

00:23:13:51 - 00:23:18:12
That gives them the framework to know what is right or wrong.

00:23:18:30 - 00:23:21:30
The second part of that is have you created the space

00:23:21:30 - 00:23:25:17
where your child would be comfortable coming to share with you?

00:23:26:18 - 00:23:28:30
Something going wrong?

00:23:28:30 - 00:23:32:42
Because we're going to internalize it when something they call you like,

00:23:32:42 - 00:23:35:19
children are very self-centred because we haven't understood,

00:23:35:19 - 00:23:36:50
like a world view yet.

00:23:36:50 - 00:23:40:15
So if I'm being harmed, it doesn’t really matter if I have that space,

00:23:40:31 - 00:23:42:55
you're automatically going to think it's something wrong with you.

00:23:42:55 - 00:23:45:19
We do it as adults, not even just children. Right?

00:23:46:27 - 00:23:49:04
When you're out in the world and you're leaving from the bar

00:23:49:04 - 00:23:51:41
or from a date and you're assaulted, and the first thing we do

00:23:51:41 - 00:23:53:47
is we internalize it like, I did something wrong.

00:23:53:47 - 00:23:55:21
Did I send the wrong message?

00:23:55:21 - 00:23:55:58
Did I do?

00:23:55:58 - 00:23:59:43
This is what adults with fully developed brains do.

00:23:59:43 - 00:24:03:50
So imagine a child right, who hasn't had a fully developed brain.

00:24:04:04 - 00:24:07:33
We're going to internalize the experience as something that we did wrong

00:24:07:42 - 00:24:08:51
from parents.

00:24:08:51 - 00:24:14:04
The conversation really should be how well am I creating space for my children

00:24:14:04 - 00:24:17:43
to tell me when something, when they've done something wrong?

00:24:18:30 - 00:24:20:56
Because that's the ultimate marker, if we're going to internalize

00:24:20:56 - 00:24:22:10
it, is something that I've done wrong.

00:24:22:10 - 00:24:25:33
I need to be able to come to you and tell you that I made a mistake.

00:24:25:44 - 00:24:27:00
I made a mess in my room.

00:24:27:00 - 00:24:28:01
And how do you respond in

00:24:28:01 - 00:24:31:46
those moments is going to inform how I think you're going to respond

00:24:31:46 - 00:24:36:12
when I tell you this truth about myself or this truth about what I experienced.

00:24:36:34 - 00:24:40:17
And that's really where parents have an opportunity to take it a step further.

00:24:40:40 - 00:24:43:48
And also, if the child does still come to you,

00:24:44:20 - 00:24:47:18
you're most likely not the first person that they've come to you.

00:24:47:18 - 00:24:50:18
They've probably gone to their friend, to other children first.

00:24:50:40 - 00:24:55:28
So if anyone then comes to me and is like, well, I have that chat with my child,

00:24:55:40 - 00:24:58:40
then I kind of flip it on its head and I'm like, okay, regardless

00:24:58:40 - 00:25:00:45
of whether or not your child is going through a negative

00:25:00:45 - 00:25:04:33
abuse experience sexually, they are definitely going to be hearing

00:25:04:33 - 00:25:09:00
negative experiences of others who might not be able to talk about it.

00:25:09:09 - 00:25:13:08
So how are you going to make sure that your child is able to talk to you

00:25:13:08 - 00:25:16:48
about someone else so that you can help support, get them the support they need?

00:25:16:48 - 00:25:20:40
And I think that leverages into something quite powerful that you told me

00:25:20:40 - 00:25:22:28
last time that we spoke when you were

00:25:24:18 - 00:25:24:39
I can't

00:25:24:39 - 00:25:27:54
remember exactly, but you'd moved from Saint Lucia to the States,

00:25:28:24 - 00:25:32:15
and then it was actually your friend's mother that kind of talked to you about.

00:25:32:25 - 00:25:33:39
Yeah. Could you do that?

00:25:33:39 - 00:25:36:39
Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

00:25:36:43 - 00:25:39:55
A lot of the time where a lot of where I've spent my time of being like.

00:25:39:55 - 00:25:41:11
And I think you asked me this a little bit

00:25:41:11 - 00:25:44:11
earlier, like, when did I know that this was wrong?

00:25:44:18 - 00:25:46:17
And how do I pull it all together?

00:25:46:17 - 00:25:50:22
And there isn't one particular moment I can pinpoint, like, I was here

00:25:50:22 - 00:25:51:07
and this was this.

00:25:51:07 - 00:25:54:55
But there are there are certain things that I know that stick out the most.

00:25:54:55 - 00:25:57:50
One being exposed to a certain part in sexual education

00:25:57:50 - 00:26:01:06
and to my mom's best friend who like, you know,

00:26:01:49 - 00:26:05:49
any like most ethnic people, you just call everyone Auntie.

00:26:05:49 - 00:26:07:33
You know, you're not related to them.

00:26:10:42 - 00:26:11:36
My mom's friend, who

00:26:11:36 - 00:26:13:42
was like an auntie at this point, and she had a daughter

00:26:13:42 - 00:26:15:10
and we spent a lot of time together,

00:26:15:10 - 00:26:18:34
and she was having those conversations with her daughter around me.

00:26:18:34 - 00:26:20:04
And I'm listening like,

00:26:20:04 - 00:26:23:31
her daughter is like three years, 3 or 5 years younger than me.

00:26:23:31 - 00:26:28:39
But I'm listening to these conversations like, oh, this is this is okay.

00:26:29:34 - 00:26:32:33
We go from like being in class and learning about sex

00:26:32:33 - 00:26:36:28
to now hearing a conversation about what shouldn't happen.

00:26:36:28 - 00:26:38:42
And you're like, no, no zones.

00:26:38:42 - 00:26:41:34
Which I think this is something that you advocate for by speaking

00:26:41:34 - 00:26:46:19
very directly to children about it and not putting nicknames and fluff around

00:26:46:35 - 00:26:49:35
what you're what the topic is so they can really get to the heart of it.

00:26:49:39 - 00:26:52:46
But yeah, she's having this conversation that I would have never had.

00:26:52:46 - 00:26:55:01
My parents never had

00:26:55:01 - 00:26:58:24
a sex conversation with us, never had a conversation around consent.

00:26:58:42 - 00:27:02:37
All it was, is once I was like 14 and I had a boyfriend that was being very fresh.

00:27:02:37 - 00:27:04:17
She was like, don't bring a baby to this house.

00:27:05:33 - 00:27:06:16
And that was it.

00:27:06:16 - 00:27:08:51
Don't bring a baby to this house, period.

00:27:08:51 - 00:27:10:03
Don't bring the baby to the house.

00:27:10:03 - 00:27:11:38
Do not come with the conversation around.

00:27:11:38 - 00:27:14:42
Condoms did not come with a conversation around birth control.

00:27:14:42 - 00:27:17:42
It was don't bring babies to this house.

00:27:17:43 - 00:27:19:53
And that was the end of the sentence.

00:27:19:53 - 00:27:23:02
And to be in a space with someone like her who's like, having this conversation

00:27:23:02 - 00:27:25:51
with her daughter, and I'm like, oh, that's not...

00:27:25:51 - 00:27:28:12
You don't do that?

00:27:28:12 - 00:27:31:12
These things aren't supposed to happen?

00:27:31:21 - 00:27:33:57
And I'm trying to make sense of it because she's also not my parent.

00:27:33:57 - 00:27:35:38
Right? Yeah.

00:27:35:38 - 00:27:38:07
So you're getting information from an authority figure

00:27:38:07 - 00:27:42:18
that's not your your parents, and that's where we get our moral standing.

00:27:42:18 - 00:27:45:30
So it's very like, trying to get the information from the outside.

00:27:45:46 - 00:27:49:03
And that tied to the secrecy of, like, how do I balance, like, what does this mean?

00:27:49:44 - 00:27:51:59
This is my turn to Ask Jeeves at the time

00:27:52:57 - 00:27:55:04
before- Ask Jeeves!

00:27:55:04 - 00:27:57:21
What a throw back that was!

00:27:57:21 - 00:27:59:35
Before Google.

00:28:01:08 - 00:28:03:46
We would go to Ask Jeeves

00:28:03:46 - 00:28:07:10
And it was this character who was this guy?

00:28:07:10 - 00:28:10:58
And you type your question, and Jeeves would give you the information you needed.

00:28:10:58 - 00:28:14:56
So I would get on Ask Jeeves to figure out, trying to piece together

00:28:14:56 - 00:28:18:01
all of these stories and experiences and like the material

00:28:18:01 - 00:28:21:45
and the information that was available was not always very clear.

00:28:22:28 - 00:28:25:57
And I that most of it usually ended up directing me back to porn

00:28:25:58 - 00:28:28:08
because of what I was searching.

00:28:28:08 - 00:28:33:03
I didn't have the language to search for the specific like where to be.

00:28:33:05 - 00:28:34:53
I don't think I ever searched specifically ‘abuse’

00:28:34:53 - 00:28:39:00
until I was like a little bit older and I can get a little bit more information,

00:28:39:14 - 00:28:42:36
but initially it was just like, I think I’m like at nine at this point

00:28:42:36 - 00:28:46:19
on the internet, like looking at four, because this is what's coming up.

00:28:46:19 - 00:28:49:36
And I'm like more confusing messaging around this thing

00:28:49:37 - 00:28:52:49
And that's where when we have these conversations, we're talking to adults.

00:28:52:49 - 00:28:55:30
But there is a space to be protective of children

00:28:55:30 - 00:28:58:40
who are experiencing it in the moment, who may not know where to go

00:28:59:04 - 00:29:01:01
and what are they searching and what are they finding.

00:29:01:01 - 00:29:04:09
And hopefully they're finding Secrets Worth Sharing.

00:29:04:24 - 00:29:06:00
I love how you're just plugging me.

00:29:06:00 - 00:29:06:48
Without me being-

00:29:06:48 - 00:29:08:31
No I’m being so serious.

00:29:08:31 - 00:29:11:07
Like I kid you not, there is.

00:29:11:07 - 00:29:14:36
What you're doing is I would have killed for something like this.

00:29:14:58 - 00:29:19:10
To be able to have found a platform where I can go listen to other people

00:29:19:10 - 00:29:23:43
talk about their experience, and not just the pretty version of it,

00:29:24:10 - 00:29:27:52
because you can you can go on Google and you can search for childhood

00:29:27:52 - 00:29:30:57
sexual assault, and you're going to find that perfect version, right?

00:29:31:03 - 00:29:34:48
The young child, the older adult, the uncle.

00:29:34:48 - 00:29:40:40
And I mean, I did have an adult later once we moved to America who did abuse me.

00:29:40:40 - 00:29:42:07
But he wasn't the start of my abuse.

00:29:42:07 - 00:29:44:49
He was just on that journey where I was abused by multiple people.

00:29:44:49 - 00:29:47:36
He just happened to be one of them. But that's not what I was looking for.

00:29:47:36 - 00:29:51:39
Everyone doesn't fit into the mold of what's put on TV, where it's easy

00:29:51:39 - 00:29:52:57
to have empathy.

00:29:52:57 - 00:29:57:16
It's easy to have empathy for the victim, who comes from a family

00:29:57:16 - 00:30:00:16
who has it together, and it shouldn't have happened to her.

00:30:00:16 - 00:30:03:50
She goes to Catholic school and she's gorgeous and she's smart,

00:30:03:50 - 00:30:06:23
and she does sports and she's well-rounded.

00:30:06:23 - 00:30:09:10
And how could this abuse happen to her?

00:30:09:10 - 00:30:10:33
Oh my gosh.

00:30:10:33 - 00:30:13:24
And she deserves empathy, of course, in her experience.

00:30:13:24 - 00:30:15:03
And not to take away from that,

00:30:15:03 - 00:30:19:17
but there are a slew of other people who don't feel worthy of their experience

00:30:20:27 - 00:30:23:27
because it's not reflected as the same.

00:30:23:36 - 00:30:26:13
This comes up on Twitter, right? Like pretty privilege.

00:30:26:13 - 00:30:29:00
Like there's threads are like, oh, people talk.

00:30:29:00 - 00:30:30:54
People don't talk about the downside of being pretty.

00:30:30:54 - 00:30:33:54
We're more likely like, we're going to be we get assaulted all the time.

00:30:33:59 - 00:30:36:32
And it's comments like that that people don't realize

00:30:36:32 - 00:30:40:44
completely negates the fact that, like, unattractive people are assaulted too.

00:30:40:57 - 00:30:42:12
Absolutely.

00:30:42:12 - 00:30:43:06
And the reason why I was.

00:30:43:06 - 00:30:44:58
Giggling a little bit when you were describing

00:30:44:58 - 00:30:48:01
that kind of picture perfect victim was that is me.

00:30:48:01 - 00:30:52:01
Other than the being good at sports bit, I wouldn’t say I'm gorgeous.

00:30:52:01 - 00:30:54:59
But you know. An athlete

00:30:54:59 - 00:30:56:09
because you're not an athlete.

00:30:56:09 - 00:30:58:24
Our empathy score for you went down like 2%.

00:30:58:24 - 00:31:00:54
Literally. Yeah. Oh God, I can't be perfect.

00:31:00:54 - 00:31:01:39
But this is the thing.

00:31:01:39 - 00:31:05:09
Like and I was extremely aware of that when I set up this platform,

00:31:05:09 - 00:31:06:14
which is why I was like,

00:31:06:14 - 00:31:10:01
I don't want it to just be me speaking to other people who look like me.

00:31:10:01 - 00:31:15:46
And I think other than being blond and looking more white and maybe

00:31:15:46 - 00:31:20:52
being grown up around more money, I think in so many ways I am that person.

00:31:20:52 - 00:31:21:32
And I think

00:31:21:32 - 00:31:25:42
that's why I hope that it can be a lens to kind of allow people to see, okay,

00:31:25:46 - 00:31:26:49
not everyone who goes through

00:31:26:49 - 00:31:29:58
childhood sexual abuse experiences things in that exact same way.

00:31:30:05 - 00:31:33:39
And also, yeah, when you add like for example, for me, like the Vietnamese

00:31:33:39 - 00:31:37:03
cultural lens on top of that, you know, there's so many additional barriers.

00:31:37:03 - 00:31:41:09
And so all the stats we have on child sexual abuse are wrong in the first place,

00:31:41:09 - 00:31:43:17
because they're not accounting for so many experiences.

00:31:43:17 - 00:31:46:15
And, you know, there's probably people who might be listening to this now

00:31:46:15 - 00:31:49:42
and be thinking, oh God, I didn't even know child on child abuse was a thing.

00:31:49:42 - 00:31:51:30
Like I was following this platform for so long

00:31:51:30 - 00:31:54:01
and I just thought it was a very certain type of abuse.

00:31:54:01 - 00:31:57:28
So yeah, just really, really wanting to give space to that.

00:31:57:28 - 00:32:01:49
And also as you were talking, I wrote some, I wrote some notes because

00:32:02:47 - 00:32:05:06
you talk so much about innocence,

00:32:05:06 - 00:32:08:11
and I think it's something we really need to highlight here because

00:32:10:08 - 00:32:12:07
we've both grown up with ethnic parenting.

00:32:12:07 - 00:32:14:25
I'm going to call it ethnic for ease

00:32:14:25 - 00:32:19:10
And I think in a, in a very like stereotypical ethnic household,

00:32:19:31 - 00:32:22:37
if you don't talk about the thing, the thing does not exist.

00:32:22:44 - 00:32:25:22
Exist. Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean.

00:32:25:22 - 00:32:28:51
Therefore, if we don't talk about sex, they're not fucking.

00:32:28:57 - 00:32:30:12
It's all good

00:32:30:12 - 00:32:33:45
if we don't talk to them about privacy and, like, having to protect themselves,

00:32:33:45 - 00:32:36:41
they're not going to need to protect themselves it’s simple logic

00:32:36:41 - 00:32:37:35
Yeah, exactly.

00:32:37:35 - 00:32:40:35
You know, what's while this part about that, especially with

00:32:41:27 - 00:32:43:24
I can only speak from my experience and all I know is

00:32:43:24 - 00:32:47:21
my ethnic background is that they have experience.

00:32:47:21 - 00:32:51:27
So our our families have experienced some of the most fucked up shit like

00:32:52:12 - 00:32:55:12
and it never it's like in this attempt to protect

00:32:55:37 - 00:32:58:10
they never think to expose us to the truth.

00:32:58:10 - 00:32:59:18
And that's this thing of

00:33:00:30 - 00:33:01:15
like wanting to it.

00:33:01:15 - 00:33:02:24
Like, I want to protect your innocence.

00:33:02:24 - 00:33:05:25
I don't want exposure to this part of life in this reality,

00:33:05:49 - 00:33:08:52
but it's going to it's going to happen, like you said, right?

00:33:08:52 - 00:33:10:53
It's it's either going to happen because it's happening to me

00:33:10:53 - 00:33:12:14
or maybe someone they're going to find out

00:33:12:14 - 00:33:15:09
from someone in school, and that's their exposure to it.

00:33:15:09 - 00:33:17:56
And it's just this weird, weird dynamic that happens.

00:33:17:56 - 00:33:19:42
Like we’re not going to talk about it.

00:33:19:42 - 00:33:22:51
But then they I don't understand the cognitive dissonance that happens

00:33:22:51 - 00:33:23:09
where it's like,

00:33:23:09 - 00:33:27:21
you have you yourself have experienced some of the most fucked up shit in the world.

00:33:28:12 - 00:33:30:39
So often there is that generational trauma,

00:33:30:39 - 00:33:33:12
which is where it's like, I've gone through this thing.

00:33:33:12 - 00:33:35:54
Therefore I don't want my child to have to experience that.

00:33:35:54 - 00:33:39:32
And out of love, that's where they create this environment of safety,

00:33:39:32 - 00:33:43:19
which often equates to, you know, not talking about it.

00:33:43:30 - 00:33:45:36
And, you know, I'm sure there's lots of white families

00:33:45:36 - 00:33:48:59
that have this as well, like, I'm sure especially back in the day, you know,

00:33:49:55 - 00:33:53:15
but what I find very interesting is that

00:33:53:54 - 00:33:56:43
there doesn't seem to be that kind of jump to think, oh,

00:33:56:43 - 00:33:56:58
they're

00:33:56:58 - 00:34:00:46
still going to be brought up in a world where I can protect them all I want,

00:34:00:46 - 00:34:03:37
but for them to survive in society, they're going to have to go out

00:34:03:37 - 00:34:05:49
and they're going to learn all of these things.

00:34:05:49 - 00:34:08:18
And I think we forget that, you know.

00:34:08:18 - 00:34:09:41
I remember being taught how to.

00:34:09:41 - 00:34:13:28
dutty wind on the playground to collect boys in year four.

00:34:13:37 - 00:34:14:52
In year four.

00:34:14:52 - 00:34:17:20
So I must have been about, what, like 7 or 8?

00:34:17:20 - 00:34:20:31
And my friends with that, like, yeah, you've got to like push, push.

00:34:20:31 - 00:34:24:16
Your ass upwards and then like, imagine you're rowing a boat with your hips.

00:34:24:16 - 00:34:24:48
And I was like, okay.

00:34:24:48 - 00:34:27:03
And I was. Trying really hard. No, but I was like I can’t do this

00:34:27:03 - 00:34:30:37
Here's, you know, because all this is the thing, like, once you're in school,

00:34:31:03 - 00:34:35:02
you have everything else that's happening outside that's being brought in.

00:34:35:02 - 00:34:37:44
So you can't you don't. Yeah. Yeah.

00:34:37:44 - 00:34:40:44
I want to protect I won't we're not going to address it

00:34:40:55 - 00:34:43:58
because I'm going to make sure that I'm not going to let them get.

00:34:44:33 - 00:34:46:37
They're not going to go to any other babysitter.

00:34:46:37 - 00:34:48:50
I'm always going to watch them. My parents are.

00:34:48:50 - 00:34:52:22
And even that's very flawed when we look at the numbers.

00:34:52:22 - 00:34:52:42
Right.

00:34:52:42 - 00:34:53:20
Oh yeah.

00:34:53:20 - 00:34:55:49
I'm only going to have them go to trusted family members.

00:34:55:49 - 00:34:58:49
And most of the harm happens.

00:34:58:53 - 00:35:00:26
In trusted environments.

00:35:00:26 - 00:35:01:51
Trusted environments.

00:35:01:51 - 00:35:04:33
And again, like it's because this thing is so and I'm not I'm

00:35:04:33 - 00:35:07:10
not I'm not out there to blame any particular person.

00:35:07:10 - 00:35:09:54
Like it is a societal problem like worldwide.

00:35:09:54 - 00:35:14:04
And I'm not out here to shame and blame any other parents, but it really is

00:35:14:25 - 00:35:18:52
the reality of like, okay, fine, you don't allow your child to go to sleepovers.

00:35:18:52 - 00:35:22:01
That's not therefore a solution to child sexual abuse

00:35:22:22 - 00:35:26:16
and also to the very realistic possibility that, as you said, your child

00:35:26:16 - 00:35:30:23
could be exploring or repeating behaviors or exploring with siblings.

00:35:30:23 - 00:35:31:51
And there's so many other ways

00:35:31:51 - 00:35:34:51
that this manifests that isn't just, oh, I'm just going to send them.

00:35:35:11 - 00:35:37:28
Yeah, I'm not sending them anywhere because there's an adult.

00:35:37:28 - 00:35:40:46
Well, like, is there a cousin coming over that

00:35:40:46 - 00:35:42:23
maybe they're not playing with adults

00:35:42:23 - 00:35:44:38
and you make sure that your children aren't around adults,

00:35:44:38 - 00:35:48:25
but they're playing with a cousin who's their age, who's repeating behaviors.

00:35:48:25 - 00:35:50:51
Yeah. And now here is the experience that they're going through.

00:35:50:51 - 00:35:55:19
And you don't know because you have kept them away from all the adults who are bad.

00:35:55:42 - 00:35:57:00
And we're not thinking of

00:35:58:11 - 00:36:01:03
there might be other children who are experiencing something.

00:36:01:03 - 00:36:03:00
And this is not to say keep your child in a bubble

00:36:03:00 - 00:36:05:07
and away from all other kids because you don't know.

00:36:05:07 - 00:36:08:07
And this is why it's just important to have that conversation

00:36:08:13 - 00:36:10:01
so it can be identified, because you don't know

00:36:10:01 - 00:36:13:03
what could happen in a school bathroom, like with another child.

00:36:13:49 - 00:36:17:34
And there is also layers to what's considered abuse, anything that's not

00:36:17:52 - 00:36:19:48
something that you're consenting to and that you're ready for.

00:36:19:48 - 00:36:20:40
It can be abused.

00:36:20:40 - 00:36:23:29
So someone doesn't necessarily necessarily need to touch you.

00:36:23:29 - 00:36:27:18
But little Billy pulls his penis out in front of your child on the playground.

00:36:27:18 - 00:36:28:37
That can be traumatizing.

00:36:28:37 - 00:36:31:39
Of course, that is enough to know.

00:36:31:40 - 00:36:35:57
Yeah, and this is where I think one of the key distinctions between child on child abuse

00:36:35:57 - 00:36:40:40
and people who abuse adults is, is that I feel as though people

00:36:40:40 - 00:36:45:00
who experience abuse from other children so quickly have that brushed off as.

00:36:45:10 - 00:36:47:31
But they're experimenting. They were curious.

00:36:47:31 - 00:36:48:52
They're just playing.

00:36:48:52 - 00:36:51:10
They're just playing. Them just playing

00:36:51:10 - 00:36:53:27
It doesn't make you. Remember it, right?

00:36:53:27 - 00:36:55:40
doesn’t negate Like does it feel, like yeah

00:36:55:40 - 00:36:58:46
Like them just playing doesn't negate the fact that I've had

00:36:58:46 - 00:37:02:07
a traumatic experience just in the same way as a racist comedian.

00:37:02:07 - 00:37:05:27
Just having a joke doesn't mean that you've just at-ed me in my race.

00:37:05:27 - 00:37:06:48
You know what I mean?

00:37:06:48 - 00:37:08:56
I think part of that, this is where it ties

00:37:08:56 - 00:37:11:22
into what we were talking about around abolition, right?

00:37:11:22 - 00:37:15:43
Part of why we are quick to brush off child on child abuse is just playing

00:37:15:43 - 00:37:19:58
is because we still sit in a binary of, now this child is a predator

00:37:19:58 - 00:37:24:09
because my child's a victim, which means the way we view predators

00:37:24:28 - 00:37:27:36
and perpetrators of sexual assault is to the worst extent.

00:37:27:36 - 00:37:32:13
So we have a hard time navigating the grace for other children

00:37:32:13 - 00:37:33:19
in trauma on child abuse.

00:37:33:19 - 00:37:35:09
So what are your options?

00:37:35:09 - 00:37:39:10
You go, this child is a predator and this is bad, or you move

00:37:39:10 - 00:37:41:09
right to just playing.

00:37:41:09 - 00:37:43:06
And there is space in between them.

00:37:43:06 - 00:37:45:12
There needs to be curiosity.

00:37:45:12 - 00:37:46:48
What's happening here.

00:37:46:48 - 00:37:48:03
Why is that happening.

00:37:48:03 - 00:37:50:36
Like yes your child is harm and you need to protect them

00:37:50:36 - 00:37:51:30
and you need to make sure

00:37:51:30 - 00:37:55:19
that they're validated in their harm and they are getting the help that they need.

00:37:55:35 - 00:37:57:03
And there's also this other child

00:37:57:03 - 00:38:00:23
on the other side of this that needs to get support.

00:38:00:25 - 00:38:03:45
Whenever I think about where I hear it, I'm like, something is happening.

00:38:04:06 - 00:38:08:33
If someone that I might have harmed when I was a kid, when I was like 10 or 9

00:38:08:33 - 00:38:11:11
and like, look at me finding I when I saw the age and they're so bad

00:38:11:11 - 00:38:14:45
because I don't want anyone to hear this and think I was like 13 or 14.

00:38:14:45 - 00:38:17:46
Because that's where I feel like the innocence line might be drawn

00:38:17:56 - 00:38:20:31
and like the age. Isn’t relevant at this point. Because, anyway...

00:38:21:50 - 00:38:22:44
It's just like, this is where

00:38:22:44 - 00:38:26:40
your defenses go up of like, what's the line of innocence?

00:38:26:40 - 00:38:30:34
But if someone were to find out, like, I think about this, like, had

00:38:32:02 - 00:38:34:03
someone told their parent

00:38:34:03 - 00:38:38:13
who came to my parents and said, hey, this thing happened, what's going on?

00:38:38:51 - 00:38:41:15
Maybe they would have discovered that at that point.

00:38:41:15 - 00:38:44:56
By the time I was repeating behaviors, there was an adult violating me.

00:38:45:01 - 00:38:46:35
Yeah.

00:38:46:35 - 00:38:49:10
And if that would have been, that conversation

00:38:49:10 - 00:38:52:12
would have happened where kid was like, ring, ring, ring.

00:38:52:12 - 00:38:55:48
Something's going on with Soniah, she's doing these things.

00:38:57:09 - 00:39:00:00
Maybe my parents could have intervened because at that point

00:39:00:00 - 00:39:04:04
there was an adult who was 20 years older than me in the picture

00:39:04:57 - 00:39:08:16
who was abusing me, and there was no space for that.

00:39:08:16 - 00:39:10:12
Now, at this point, and that's where it's

00:39:11:52 - 00:39:13:26
all very

00:39:13:26 - 00:39:17:01
convoluted and you know what's the right answer, right.

00:39:17:02 - 00:39:18:00
How do we

00:39:18:00 - 00:39:24:10
how do we think about our responses to children experiencing abuse

00:39:24:10 - 00:39:27:43
and how do we address it as we're still very much like this person

00:39:27:43 - 00:39:29:11
is bad, and this person is good

00:39:29:11 - 00:39:30:19
And now it's like

00:39:30:19 - 00:39:33:28
this little kid is so horrible, and now we've got to keep them away

00:39:33:28 - 00:39:36:27
versus, you know, like the urge to protect that child.

00:39:36:27 - 00:39:39:32
And if we had that mindset, I feel like so many other children

00:39:39:32 - 00:39:43:12
who might have had the similar experience with me where they're repeating behaviours

00:39:43:37 - 00:39:48:12
could breathe like, that's all I want is for anyone else who repeated behaviours

00:39:48:12 - 00:39:52:21
to just be able to breathe and know that it was not their fault.

00:39:52:57 - 00:39:56:13
I also have lots of thoughts and opinions on how,

00:39:57:00 - 00:39:59:11
if you're unable to deal with the guilt, what do we do?

00:39:59:11 - 00:40:00:39
You lean into the character.

00:40:00:39 - 00:40:02:07
Yeah, I think I'm a predator.

00:40:02:07 - 00:40:04:01
I'm going to lean into that character,

00:40:04:01 - 00:40:06:46
and I don't know what percentage of adult predators

00:40:07:51 - 00:40:10:33
continue because they internalize the message.

00:40:10:33 - 00:40:11:56
Like, this happened to me.

00:40:11:56 - 00:40:14:27
I did it as a child, so now I think I'm a bad person.

00:40:14:27 - 00:40:17:40
So now I'm going to continue because I think this is my personality.

00:40:18:25 - 00:40:21:21
I'm destined to be a child abuser.

00:40:21:21 - 00:40:24:21
So now I just continue to do it as an adult.

00:40:24:39 - 00:40:28:48
And I think if I never got

00:40:28:48 - 00:40:31:48
an understanding that it wasn’t who I was,

00:40:32:29 - 00:40:34:44
maybe there's a chance, like, I think about this sometimes

00:40:34:44 - 00:40:37:44
and it gets very scary, like there's a chance and like

00:40:38:11 - 00:40:41:11
this path could have continued.

00:40:41:34 - 00:40:45:09
And if we're not stopping it from this particular age, like,

00:40:45:09 - 00:40:48:32
what's the difference between this started when I was a child

00:40:48:34 - 00:40:51:18
and I started repeating behaviors and I kept doing it,

00:40:52:57 - 00:40:54:57
and then it's fine when I'm ten

00:40:54:57 - 00:40:59:15
because it was cute and it was not cute, but it was...

00:40:59:15 - 00:41:00:41
Yeah please don’t endorse it

00:41:00:41 - 00:41:03:00
But like when you're ten, you're like you're innocent.

00:41:03:00 - 00:41:05:18
You didn't know any better or like you didn't have it.

00:41:05:18 - 00:41:09:27
And then once I'm 12, okay, you're getting a little older.

00:41:09:27 - 00:41:11:09
You should be a little bit better.

00:41:11:09 - 00:41:15:07
And now I'm 15 and 16, and now I find that like 15 or 16,

00:41:15:07 - 00:41:18:07
where people are like, that was you were bad.

00:41:18:25 - 00:41:20:40
So now I get to 15 and 16 and now it's a problem.

00:41:20:40 - 00:41:24:12
But maybe I got to 15 or 16 and I never had that conversation

00:41:24:36 - 00:41:27:59
or I never internalized the material around it because no one's

00:41:27:59 - 00:41:33:41
talking about childhood sexual abuse in a very candid and direct way.

00:41:34:03 - 00:41:37:51
So I can apply whatever context to it at 15 and 16.

00:41:38:13 - 00:41:41:29
And now I'm 21, and now there's no hope for me.

00:41:41:29 - 00:41:43:35
I'm done. Right?

00:41:43:35 - 00:41:44:56
And if we're not, we're here.

00:41:44:56 - 00:41:45:46
Peel back.

00:41:45:46 - 00:41:47:02
And you know, that's complicated.

00:41:47:02 - 00:41:49:24
I don't I don't even know how I feel about that.

00:41:49:24 - 00:41:53:45
Of course, because there's no dialog for you to start to process

00:41:53:52 - 00:41:54:34
And that's the thing.

00:41:54:34 - 00:41:56:47
It's it's such an internalized thing, which is, again,

00:41:56:47 - 00:41:59:24
why I'm so grateful that you're sharing all the layers.

00:41:59:24 - 00:42:02:42
And we talked a lot about how we wanted to do this episode.

00:42:03:07 - 00:42:07:06
And you were very adamant about talking about being the imperfect victim

00:42:07:42 - 00:42:10:44
and everything that you've just shared and how that relates to that.

00:42:10:44 - 00:42:13:53
And I think so often we don't get to see the gritty, real ness

00:42:13:53 - 00:42:18:43
of the other realities of experiences, of one unwanted sexual experiences.

00:42:18:43 - 00:42:19:28
Right? And like

00:42:20:38 - 00:42:23:38
there was so much there that you said

00:42:24:01 - 00:42:28:35
and it touches a lot to me on like boiling down simple language.

00:42:28:35 - 00:42:31:35
We talked about innocence, right?

00:42:32:15 - 00:42:35:11
When you give children

00:42:35:11 - 00:42:37:57
other nicknames or names to talk about

00:42:37:57 - 00:42:41:00
their private areas or their no no zones or whatever it is

00:42:41:58 - 00:42:45:34
you don't allow them to disclose with as much freedom

00:42:45:34 - 00:42:47:34
as if they were equipped with the language.

00:42:47:34 - 00:42:52:03
So, for example, yeah, I've started this partnership recently with the CSA center.

00:42:52:15 - 00:42:55:58
Basically, they train me up as certified in different types of abuse.

00:42:56:22 - 00:42:57:52
And then I review how the training was.

00:42:57:52 - 00:42:59:29
It's a very sweet deal actually.

00:42:59:29 - 00:43:00:10
It's awesome.

00:43:00:10 - 00:43:04:06
And a one of the, one of the ones that I was doing

00:43:04:06 - 00:43:07:33
was on child on child abuse and sibling sexual abuse.

00:43:07:33 - 00:43:09:23
There were two separate courses,

00:43:09:23 - 00:43:11:29
and we had someone there who worked at a school,

00:43:11:29 - 00:43:13:48
like at the Wellbeing Observer School,

00:43:13:48 - 00:43:17:02
and she was saying, because there are always women who come to our trainings.

00:43:17:31 - 00:43:20:53
She was saying that I feel...

00:43:20:53 - 00:43:22:51
She was saying that a child had come to her

00:43:22:51 - 00:43:27:00
multiple times saying, oh, we play with each other's flowers.

00:43:27:57 - 00:43:30:45
And you're thinking, oh, that's so cute.

00:43:30:45 - 00:43:34:24
You play with daisies, you're making daisy chains together, like flowers.

00:43:34:24 - 00:43:35:33
Together from your garden.

00:43:35:33 - 00:43:36:41
Yeah.

00:43:36:41 - 00:43:39:41
I know I know, it's actually so poetic.

00:43:39:57 - 00:43:41:07
And then it turned out

00:43:41:07 - 00:43:44:47
that actually both of the children were exploring sexual acts together.

00:43:45:16 - 00:43:46:44
One was,

00:43:46:44 - 00:43:50:13
instigate into the acts, and the other one was kind of just going along with it.

00:43:50:13 - 00:43:53:34
And when this all came out, one of the children said, but I did

00:43:53:36 - 00:43:56:42
tell you, I was telling you that they touched my flower.

00:43:56:42 - 00:43:59:51
And she didn't have the knowledge to be able to accurately describe

00:43:59:51 - 00:44:01:35
those body parts. So fine.

00:44:01:35 - 00:44:02:52
You kept them innocent.

00:44:02:52 - 00:44:05:33
You gave cute names to their private parts.

00:44:05:33 - 00:44:09:41
But now if those private parts get touched, they literally don't

00:44:09:41 - 00:44:13:24
have the sphere of language or association to be able to tell you what's happened.

00:44:14:40 - 00:44:16:55
And every, every family has a different name for it.

00:44:16:55 - 00:44:18:37
Your coconut, your flower it’s your...

00:44:18:37 - 00:44:20:29
You know, there's always something else.

00:44:20:29 - 00:44:22:37
So if they go to the school nurse, it's

00:44:22:37 - 00:44:25:01
we're going with the assumption that they're going to come to you first

00:44:25:01 - 00:44:28:03
and you're going to know what flowers are versus them

00:44:28:03 - 00:44:30:32
going to a school nurse and a teacher and say, like,

00:44:30:32 - 00:44:34:31
my coconuts are being touched and know, like, oh, you're coconuts.

00:44:34:31 - 00:44:37:39
Like kids could say things sometime that you're not going

00:44:37:39 - 00:44:40:12
to always think to be like, are you telling me you're being harmed?

00:44:40:12 - 00:44:40:58
Yeah.

00:44:40:58 - 00:44:44:11
And and also how we navigate that conversation because like, okay, fine.

00:44:44:11 - 00:44:46:49
You think the kids are playing with each other's flowers or coconuts or what?

00:44:46:49 - 00:44:49:22
I've never heard coconut. That’s very cute

00:44:49:22 - 00:44:50:34
Carribiean people

00:44:53:43 - 00:44:54:45
But yeah.

00:44:54:45 - 00:44:55:40
You know, if someone's coming up

00:44:55:40 - 00:44:57:21
and saying my coconuts being touched, my flowers

00:44:57:21 - 00:45:00:21
being touched, whatever, and you respond with, oh, that's cute.

00:45:00:25 - 00:45:04:08
Without realizing, just like that, you've condoned the experience.

00:45:04:08 - 00:45:06:10
You've endorsed it, you've endorsed

00:45:06:10 - 00:45:09:19
the abuse because you've said, I think that's fine.

00:45:09:37 - 00:45:12:28
And therefore you without even realizing

00:45:12:28 - 00:45:15:28
silence the potential disclosure.

00:45:15:39 - 00:45:19:03
It's it's so what do you think about it?

00:45:19:21 - 00:45:20:51
It's such a big thing about why

00:45:20:51 - 00:45:23:51
language is important, while language is everything that we have.

00:45:23:54 - 00:45:24:18
Yeah.

00:45:24:18 - 00:45:29:42
In in our journey to reduce the impact of childhood

00:45:29:42 - 00:45:33:41
sexual assault, like language is our it's the biggest it's

00:45:33:41 - 00:45:35:33
the biggest weapon that we have in our arsenal

00:45:35:33 - 00:45:36:50
Like yeah.

00:45:36:50 - 00:45:41:13
And it is in exactly the same way you talked about as well

00:45:41:29 - 00:45:42:50
the line of innocence.

00:45:42:50 - 00:45:45:10
Like is it 13, is it 14, is it 9 or 10?

00:45:45:10 - 00:45:46:40
Is it whatever?

00:45:46:40 - 00:45:51:03
That line of innocence legally is different in every single country.

00:45:51:03 - 00:45:54:18
You know, you can go to juvenile, you can skip juvenile

00:45:54:18 - 00:45:59:36
prison for severely, assaulting someone sexually if you're under 12

00:45:59:36 - 00:46:03:23
in the UK, in other countries, it's 16 in other countries,

00:46:03:23 - 00:46:06:23
you know, and I know that in Scandinavia it's even younger.

00:46:06:27 - 00:46:10:10
And there's so many cultural definitions between what age is.

00:46:10:10 - 00:46:14:11
And I think in exactly the same way that there's such a broad way

00:46:14:11 - 00:46:17:00
for how we think about and talk about all private areas.

00:46:17:00 - 00:46:19:37
It's exactly the same way for when we speak about age.

00:46:19:37 - 00:46:23:29
But at the end of the day, if you are feeling harmed by the way

00:46:23:29 - 00:46:27:01
you experience sexual experiences by someone else, then you've been harmed.

00:46:27:01 - 00:46:32:22
And I think no layer of cultural boundary legal definition name

00:46:32:22 - 00:46:36:36
for your penis or vagina or other body part is going to affect that.

00:46:36:36 - 00:46:39:54
You know, I it's, we're recording this at the time of,

00:46:40:30 - 00:46:44:29
International Women's Week and the UN, all of the UN like status of

00:46:44:56 - 00:46:46:10
what is it called,

00:46:46:10 - 00:46:50:16
[correction: UN Commission’s Status of women] is currently out at the moment.

00:46:50:51 - 00:46:54:21
And I remember seeing a quote somewhere from one of the ambassadors saying, like,

00:46:55:04 - 00:46:57:32
it is not up to you to decide

00:46:57:32 - 00:47:00:32
whether or not you're sexual actions harm somebody.

00:47:01:10 - 00:47:03:43
And I think that should just be the bottom line of it.

00:47:03:43 - 00:47:05:06
Like regardless of what

00:47:05:06 - 00:47:09:10
your age is, you know, and with motivation is a very different thing.

00:47:09:21 - 00:47:12:27
Motivation, regardless on your age, that's another story.

00:47:12:27 - 00:47:13:48
But at the end of the day,

00:47:13:48 - 00:47:17:15
if the person has done something and you feel sexually uncomfortable,

00:47:18:12 - 00:47:21:30
regardless of whether you've been touched, whether it's been penetrative,

00:47:21:30 - 00:47:22:57
whether it's something you've seen,

00:47:22:57 - 00:47:27:01
whatever it is validated as an experience of sexual abuse

00:47:27:01 - 00:47:31:15
and so often I see in cases of child on child abuse, it would be like,

00:47:31:33 - 00:47:35:33
oh, Zeke's been flashing his bum and willies when the kids in the class.

00:47:35:33 - 00:47:36:36
Isn't that so funny?

00:47:36:36 - 00:47:39:28
Obviously with some of Slappy's rage, but isn't that so funny?

00:47:39:28 - 00:47:42:00
Okay, now imagine Zeke's 25.

00:47:42:00 - 00:47:43:55
It's a whole different conversation, isn't it?

00:47:43:55 - 00:47:45:54
A whole different conversation. Yeah.

00:47:45:54 - 00:47:48:59
And so we and of course we need age appropriate ways

00:47:48:59 - 00:47:50:15
to talk about these discussions,

00:47:50:15 - 00:47:54:16
but they still need to be treated with severity and integrity.

00:47:54:34 - 00:47:57:34
Or they're just going to be repeated as, as in your case.

00:47:57:34 - 00:47:58:33
Absolutely.

00:47:58:33 - 00:48:02:20
And it's where can we as like adults now.

00:48:02:20 - 00:48:04:13
Right. We're no longer children.

00:48:04:13 - 00:48:08:22
Where can we as adults continue to create space for the nuance.

00:48:08:22 - 00:48:10:21
So these conversations can happen?

00:48:10:21 - 00:48:15:14
Because I think that the very black and white thinking and polarity that exist

00:48:15:15 - 00:48:20:09
when we talk about childhood sexual abuse is a big driver

00:48:20:09 - 00:48:23:38
in why people are afraid to broach the conversation.

00:48:23:56 - 00:48:26:22
Yeah, because the nuance doesn't exist.

00:48:26:22 - 00:48:30:18
And I think as humans we know that there is some barrier, some

00:48:30:19 - 00:48:34:10
there is all of this gray that exist when we talk about these things,

00:48:34:44 - 00:48:38:29
and that makes it really difficult, I think sometimes for people

00:48:38:29 - 00:48:40:49
to know where to go, because you're either going to choose black or white,

00:48:40:49 - 00:48:44:52
but I think in our gut, as humans, we know that that's not the right answer

00:48:45:12 - 00:48:49:26
for managing child on child abuse or any of those,

00:48:50:18 - 00:48:52:46
other categories really involving children.

00:48:52:46 - 00:48:57:12
I think as well, forgetfulness is very handy

00:48:57:14 - 00:49:00:14
when people are avoiding conversations on child on child abuse.

00:49:00:43 - 00:49:01:42
Yeah.

00:49:01:42 - 00:49:04:42
You might catch your child

00:49:04:44 - 00:49:07:13
displaying an inappropriate behavior

00:49:07:13 - 00:49:10:06
with another child and they're like three or under.

00:49:10:06 - 00:49:13:06
And so you might think, okay, if we don't mention this again,

00:49:13:49 - 00:49:16:17
maybe it's never going to come up.

00:49:16:17 - 00:49:19:25
My one jokey answer to that is Nightmare on Elm street

00:49:19:25 - 00:49:21:27
didn't serve those kids very well, did it?

00:49:21:27 - 00:49:24:14
When their parents locked it all away -Nope

00:49:24:14 - 00:49:25:53
It's a film, by the way, for anyone.

00:49:25:53 - 00:49:28:04
It's a horror film for anyone who doesn't know.

00:49:28:04 - 00:49:31:26
But like, it's back to that ignoring conversation.

00:49:31:26 - 00:49:34:26
I think forgetfulness, particularly when it's with children

00:49:34:35 - 00:49:38:45
and managing their memories, is so damaging

00:49:38:45 - 00:49:40:53
because you don't know what a child remembers.

00:49:40:53 - 00:49:42:27
I have really early memories

00:49:42:27 - 00:49:46:30
of like my childhood house that I grew up in, that my mum was like, that's crazy.

00:49:46:30 - 00:49:47:45
Like, it's mad that you.

00:49:47:45 - 00:49:49:17
Remember that the wallpaper was blue

00:49:49:17 - 00:49:51:32
because like, at the time, you couldn't even speak,

00:49:51:32 - 00:49:53:42
you know, I mean, maybe I remember thinking.

00:49:53:42 - 00:49:56:47
Yeah, and certain things get imprinted and we don't know.

00:49:56:47 - 00:49:56:56
Yeah.

00:49:56:56 - 00:50:01:37
When we make the decision for what a child needs to know and

00:50:01:37 - 00:50:06:28
we make the assumption, right, that we, we assume positive intent too much

00:50:06:50 - 00:50:10:01
that we end up creating that space of, like you said, like a three year old.

00:50:10:21 - 00:50:12:39
Yeah. They're like, oh, they're they're just playing, they're free.

00:50:12:39 - 00:50:14:42
And you know, like boys will be boys.

00:50:14:42 - 00:50:16:17
Like they're just figuring out their bodies.

00:50:16:17 - 00:50:20:56
And like, the answer to it isn't so harsh and go all the way.

00:50:20:56 - 00:50:22:40
And I think that's what sometimes people hear.

00:50:22:40 - 00:50:25:21
You want me to tell my three year old child that they should not

00:50:25:21 - 00:50:27:39
explore X, Y, and Z and they shouldn't do these things.

00:50:27:39 - 00:50:29:29
No, there's there's nuance.

00:50:29:29 - 00:50:30:55
They should happen in that conversation.

00:50:30:55 - 00:50:31:42
But you have to start

00:50:31:42 - 00:50:34:35
building the blocks for it because you can't go from

00:50:34:35 - 00:50:38:49
never addressing it to now they're they're 16 and you're like,

00:50:38:58 - 00:50:42:00
you get a phone call because your kid did something at school,

00:50:42:00 - 00:50:44:49
and you have to have this conversation now,

00:50:44:49 - 00:50:48:10
and you have none of the building blocks that have happened before to say

00:50:48:55 - 00:50:49:33
you're playing.

00:50:49:33 - 00:50:52:39
But when you're playing, these are some things that you should be mindful of.

00:50:53:18 - 00:50:54:16
This is happening.

00:50:54:16 - 00:50:56:58
No, you don't touch your sister that way.

00:50:56:58 - 00:50:59:25
You don't do this with your cousin.

00:50:59:25 - 00:51:03:46
Like these are things that you can start having those conversations before

00:51:04:10 - 00:51:05:12
someone's a lot older.

00:51:05:12 - 00:51:08:07
Now you have to go figure out, oh, I told my kid.

00:51:08:07 - 00:51:10:51
Yeah. And at that point you're in reactive mode, right?

00:51:10:51 - 00:51:13:44
So you're either angry or in shock or in denial

00:51:13:44 - 00:51:15:45
or any of those natural reactions that come

00:51:15:45 - 00:51:17:49
when you're getting such negative news like that

00:51:17:49 - 00:51:20:34
of course, but then that is going to go into your child.

00:51:20:34 - 00:51:21:41
So it's like, right.

00:51:21:41 - 00:51:23:11
So we've had no conversation

00:51:23:11 - 00:51:26:11
about sexual health, safety, relationships, none of it.

00:51:26:13 - 00:51:28:28
Now you're bashing me down.

00:51:28:28 - 00:51:32:55
That conversation of communication, that line has been closed. Forget it.

00:51:33:09 - 00:51:36:23
And instead of being, it's of course, it's a difficult conversation

00:51:36:23 - 00:51:37:40
to have nobody in this.

00:51:37:40 - 00:51:40:46
World, me included, with the children in my life,

00:51:41:04 - 00:51:43:46
wake up and go, wow.

00:51:43:46 - 00:51:48:03
Another day, another fresh chat with a child about keeping their bodies safe.

00:51:48:27 - 00:51:51:16
Who’s waking up thinking that! -You’re like, I can’t

00:51:51:16 - 00:51:54:16
wait for my morning coffee and to talk about.

00:51:54:19 - 00:51:55:30
Yeah, no. Nobody!

00:51:55:30 - 00:51:57:34
Like even me. Like I get.

00:51:57:34 - 00:52:00:25
So I chat about this shit all the time.

00:52:00:25 - 00:52:01:37
And when I have to get, like,

00:52:01:37 - 00:52:03:32
I get sweaty when I have to talk to a child about it,

00:52:03:32 - 00:52:05:25
or when I'm talking to a parent or a friend

00:52:05:25 - 00:52:08:25
about whether or not I can talk to that child about it or anything like that.

00:52:08:34 - 00:52:13:21
It's not a conversation we want to have, but we want to be not having it.

00:52:13:39 - 00:52:17:31
But I really would ask people to re-address where is that discomfort coming from?

00:52:17:42 - 00:52:22:46
Because if the discomfort is coming from, you think it's inappropriate

00:52:22:46 - 00:52:26:06
and you don't feel comfortable and you don't think it's necessary,

00:52:26:25 - 00:52:30:00
then the chances are you really most likely need to be having a conversation.

00:52:30:43 - 00:52:34:03
And we want to be preventative and equipping kids

00:52:34:03 - 00:52:37:13
with their toolkit just in the ways that you would teach in the alphabet.

00:52:37:13 - 00:52:40:21
If you want them to learn to read and write and speak, you're equipping them

00:52:40:21 - 00:52:44:11
with the knowledge to make sure that one they can keep themselves safe.

00:52:44:27 - 00:52:48:25
Two they can keep others safe by maybe being that voice of reason

00:52:48:25 - 00:52:51:55
for other people who aren't having these conversations with their parents and kids.

00:52:52:33 - 00:52:55:49
And three, to make sure that they're not repeating those behaviors or,

00:52:55:57 - 00:52:59:00
you know, there's natural sexual curiosity.

00:52:59:49 - 00:53:02:49
And there's a whole guide on this, by the way, which I link in the podcast.

00:53:02:58 - 00:53:06:19
There's natural sexual curiosity, and then there is drawing the line.

00:53:06:55 - 00:53:09:59
And it's very, very important to make sure that you are aware of it

00:53:09:59 - 00:53:11:11
and that your kids are aware of it.

00:53:11:11 - 00:53:14:06
And all the kids in your life from a very young age, because,

00:53:14:06 - 00:53:17:02
like it or not, we are sexually aware of our bodies

00:53:17:02 - 00:53:21:01
from the age of two, like even younger in some cases.

00:53:21:05 - 00:53:24:41
And that doesn't mean that there's a two year old, you know, one, you know.

00:53:24:41 - 00:53:26:18
Wonder like wants to go get.

00:53:26:18 - 00:53:28:49
Wants a sesh, exactly. Yeah. There's just yeah.

00:53:28:49 - 00:53:30:10
There's this thing of like

00:53:30:10 - 00:53:34:04
you also don't want to which is which is something that we see.

00:53:34:04 - 00:53:34:39
Right.

00:53:34:39 - 00:53:36:19
Like you have the ones who go to the extreme,

00:53:36:19 - 00:53:37:53
like I'm going to talk to my kids about it.

00:53:37:53 - 00:53:40:06
And now we've made sex a very scary thing.

00:53:40:06 - 00:53:41:58
And then we take the pleasure

00:53:41:58 - 00:53:46:35
of this natural human experience away because we go into it.

00:53:46:35 - 00:53:46:46
Yeah.

00:53:46:46 - 00:53:49:33
There's a line that you dance with how you talk about it

00:53:49:33 - 00:53:52:28
that doesn't because you're if you're child, if we talk about it

00:53:52:28 - 00:53:56:25
as like any sexual urges are bad before you're over a certain age,

00:53:56:34 - 00:54:00:32
when you're having natural exploration with yourself,

00:54:00:32 - 00:54:03:32
you're also going to internalize this message that like, oh, this is bad.

00:54:04:26 - 00:54:07:08
You're just learning how to masturbate or whatever the case might be.

00:54:07:08 - 00:54:09:21
And now you think it's bad because you've heard

00:54:09:21 - 00:54:12:16
all these conversations around why not touching yourself is the best.

00:54:12:16 - 00:54:16:12
So I love that you have a resource around healthy sexual exploration.

00:54:16:12 - 00:54:18:23
Verses where's the line in the sand of now?

00:54:18:23 - 00:54:20:29
This is now harmful. Yeah.

00:54:20:29 - 00:54:23:13
And also like children when I was talking about kids

00:54:23:13 - 00:54:23:52
like being sexually

00:54:23:52 - 00:54:24:55
where their bodies you know,

00:54:24:55 - 00:54:28:06
you might notice a toddler are just touching themselves like

00:54:28:15 - 00:54:31:15
not even realizing what they're doing, but they're like, oh, that feels good.

00:54:31:15 - 00:54:31:51
That's good.

00:54:31:51 - 00:54:32:45
Yeah, exactly.

00:54:32:45 - 00:54:34:00
They're going to notice that that feels good.

00:54:34:00 - 00:54:36:54
Then they're going to keep doing it. Like and you know, yes you can.

00:54:36:54 - 00:54:39:16
Bat their hand away. Yes you could tell them off.

00:54:39:16 - 00:54:41:47
What is that kind of conditioning them to think.

00:54:41:47 - 00:54:44:54
Or you could say, look I mean they're two.

00:54:44:54 - 00:54:47:00
So I mean I guess at first you're just.

00:54:47:00 - 00:54:48:37
Like, Maybe we'll say they're five for this.

00:54:48:37 - 00:54:51:01
Yeah, let's say that five. Let's say that way. Yeah.

00:54:51:01 - 00:54:52:19
It can be like look like.

00:54:52:19 - 00:54:55:31
There's a part of you touching you and it might feel good to you, but

00:54:55:31 - 00:54:58:37
it won't feel make other feels good if you're doing it in front of them.

00:54:58:44 - 00:55:01:08
And though like it could be as simple as that.

00:55:01:08 - 00:55:03:03
And if you're worried about having that conversation,

00:55:03:03 - 00:55:06:10
you can buy and review different age appropriate resources.

00:55:06:27 - 00:55:11:00
But the answer is to not just bat it away and pretend it's not happening

00:55:11:00 - 00:55:13:49
because then what? Or shame them for it.

00:55:13:49 - 00:55:15:46
Yes, or shame them for it.

00:55:15:46 - 00:55:16:57
Because once you shame them for it,

00:55:16:57 - 00:55:18:59
they're definitely not coming back to tell you anything.

00:55:18:59 - 00:55:23:09
Because now any part of that experience makes mom and dad angry.

00:55:24:54 - 00:55:26:38
I don't know if I'm going to really regret saying this,

00:55:26:38 - 00:55:31:06
but I came to this conclusion the other day that I'm a really good liar.

00:55:31:28 - 00:55:33:09
Like, and don't take from that.

00:55:33:09 - 00:55:34:57
You're a storyteller.

00:55:34:57 - 00:55:36:07
I'm a story- exactly!

00:55:36:07 - 00:55:36:57
You're a storyteller.

00:55:36:57 - 00:55:39:00
That's all it is. Yeah. Your story teller.

00:55:39:00 - 00:55:43:51
And you're able to get into character and that's where, think about earlier

00:55:43:51 - 00:55:45:23
when we were doing the intros

00:55:45:23 - 00:55:47:11
and you, like, turned into like three

00:55:47:11 - 00:55:48:34
different characters, like, that's all it is.

00:55:48:34 - 00:55:50:24
Not a liar. Framing matters.

00:55:50:24 - 00:55:52:12
That's so true. That's so true.

00:55:52:12 - 00:55:53:24
Okay, cool. I feel better now.

00:55:53:24 - 00:55:55:44
I was like, if I tell Soniah this, she's not going to be anything.

00:55:55:44 - 00:55:57:23
I now say.

00:55:57:23 - 00:55:58:06
but yeah, I came

00:55:58:06 - 00:56:01:53
I came to realization the other day that I'm a really good liar.

00:56:02:04 - 00:56:05:56
And it was around my family because like, it was it was over something so dumb.

00:56:05:56 - 00:56:09:50
Like my one of my family members is like, shouldn't you be at work?

00:56:09:50 - 00:56:11:20
Like, why are you here today?

00:56:11:20 - 00:56:14:20
I mean, lovely to see you, but swear you're working?

00:56:14:20 - 00:56:17:16
And that at that time I was unemployed, but I didn't want anyone to worry.

00:56:17:16 - 00:56:20:54
So I just found this whole story of, like, yeah, I was working overtime,

00:56:20:54 - 00:56:22:04
which is why I've got a day off today,

00:56:22:04 - 00:56:24:27
which is why I've come to see you, like, absolute bullshit.

00:56:24:27 - 00:56:26:27
And then I was joking about it with my parents,

00:56:26:27 - 00:56:29:18
and they kept giving me like, little fake scenarios, and they’re like

00:56:29:18 - 00:56:32:04
Okay, lie your way out of this. And every time like that

00:56:32:04 - 00:56:33:01
You’re like, got it.

00:56:33:01 - 00:56:35:04
Yeah. And I was like, where has that come from?

00:56:35:04 - 00:56:36:48
And I think we've talked a lot

00:56:36:48 - 00:56:40:12
about our parents protecting us and have gone through a lot themselves.

00:56:40:12 - 00:56:42:50
And so therefore what to stop this bad is happening to us.

00:56:42:50 - 00:56:45:07
But we also don't talk about the flip side of that,

00:56:45:07 - 00:56:48:37
which can sometimes be you don't want to be a burden to them.

00:56:49:10 - 00:56:52:01
So therefore it can just be really easy to spin this story

00:56:52:01 - 00:56:54:09
or tell this white light, or you can't be bothered

00:56:54:09 - 00:56:55:53
to have a conversation about why.

00:56:55:53 - 00:56:57:55
You've chosen to give up your professional job,

00:56:57:55 - 00:57:00:19
to go freelance, to do a podcast on child sexual abuse.

00:57:00:19 - 00:57:03:12
So you just spin a little story and then it just goes and builds

00:57:03:12 - 00:57:05:51
Yeah. And I think because.

00:57:05:51 - 00:57:10:06
Sex is, shameful and scary subject for many reasons.

00:57:10:06 - 00:57:13:21
In my case, it was part culture, part religion, whatnot.

00:57:14:27 - 00:57:15:45
You kind of get used

00:57:15:45 - 00:57:19:35
to just exploring it on your own and you're like, okay, you learn that

00:57:19:35 - 00:57:23:29
that's a topic that you don't go to with your family, and that's fine.

00:57:24:00 - 00:57:27:00
But then wherever you get your information, for you, it was porn.

00:57:27:21 - 00:57:28:30
Yeah, Yeah.

00:57:28:30 - 00:57:32:33
For other people, it might be like exploring it with other children

00:57:32:51 - 00:57:36:21
or it's gossip, or it's when they get their first sexual partner

00:57:36:21 - 00:57:40:31
and you don't want those same unsafe spaces to be happening.

00:57:40:31 - 00:57:41:47
Where you figure it. Out.

00:57:41:47 - 00:57:43:53
Yeah, yeah.

00:57:43:53 - 00:57:45:46
It's,

00:57:45:46 - 00:57:48:45
it's very when you, when you talk about like, where do you

00:57:48:45 - 00:57:50:43
there's two things that we just kind of touched on.

00:57:50:43 - 00:57:52:42
One, like the part of me being a liar and I'm like,

00:57:52:42 - 00:57:54:10
oh yeah, you're a storyteller.

00:57:54:10 - 00:57:56:34
And I'm like, when you're like, I wonder where this thing comes from.

00:57:56:34 - 00:57:58:22
And I think about a lot of the other people

00:57:58:22 - 00:58:00:36
that I know who've experienced childhood sexual assault.

00:58:00:36 - 00:58:02:38
We all seem to have the same, 

00:58:02:38 - 00:58:04:31
Are we all pathological out here?

00:58:04:31 - 00:58:05:34
We're all,

00:58:05:34 - 00:58:08:15
We are all great storytellers.

00:58:08:15 - 00:58:09:48
We are able to.

00:58:09:48 - 00:58:13:40
And because we've probably spent so much time in our minds

00:58:13:53 - 00:58:16:42
making sense of our experiences

00:58:16:42 - 00:58:20:07
that we're just so good at pulling together a little story very quickly,

00:58:20:07 - 00:58:22:49
we have to use our imagination to cope with

00:58:22:49 - 00:58:25:39
if you're if you're not able to externalize that, you internalize it.

00:58:25:39 - 00:58:28:39
And then you have to create a world to cope with the experience.

00:58:29:00 - 00:58:31:42
And I definitely find the thread of all the people

00:58:31:42 - 00:58:33:57
that I know who experienced childhood sexual abuse.

00:58:33:57 - 00:58:35:38
They all have

00:58:36:43 - 00:58:38:00
really good angles

00:58:38:00 - 00:58:41:13
at creating stories, and a lot of it ties back into our families.

00:58:41:13 - 00:58:42:18
Like how do I

00:58:42:18 - 00:58:45:54
how do I pieces together so you can you can consume what I'm telling you,

00:58:46:37 - 00:58:48:30
because there's always part of you for a really long time

00:58:48:30 - 00:58:50:20
before you disclose that you're hiding.

00:58:50:20 - 00:58:50:45
Oh, yeah.

00:58:50:45 - 00:58:53:31
And there's always a need to protect certain things.

00:58:53:31 - 00:58:56:06
Like, how do you know about this? Well, like,

00:58:56:06 - 00:58:58:55
I just did write, like, when I was 14,

00:58:58:55 - 00:59:01:06
talking about all the stuff I'm seeing on Pornhub.

00:59:01:06 - 00:59:03:07
Well, I don't know if it was Pornhub at the time, but, like,

00:59:03:07 - 00:59:07:10
whatever porn website, with my friends, I wasn't talking about how, like,

00:59:07:28 - 00:59:10:49
my older cousin was touching me and abusing me and like, that's like,

00:59:11:16 - 00:59:12:48
you don't get to that point.

00:59:12:48 - 00:59:17:43
So you have to figure out a way around some of these conversations for so long.

00:59:18:03 - 00:59:19:12
Why do you do the things that you do?

00:59:19:12 - 00:59:21:48
You can't disclose this part.

00:59:21:48 - 00:59:23:45
So it comes with a pretty story.

00:59:23:45 - 00:59:25:17
We're good at that. Exactly.

00:59:25:17 - 00:59:28:19
And you're not spoken to about any of these things or it's it's

00:59:28:19 - 00:59:32:52
such a no go topic that you therefore always thinking ten steps ahead.

00:59:33:14 - 00:59:37:12
So it's like, okay, I can't say that

00:59:37:12 - 00:59:42:43
I went to this person's house because then they will know that I wasn't

00:59:42:43 - 00:59:46:51
doing my homework and I wasn't doing my homework.

00:59:46:51 - 00:59:49:51
Because I was worried about my abuse.

00:59:50:00 - 00:59:52:55
But then I can't say that because then they would start to notice

00:59:52:55 - 00:59:55:10
that in the other. Or like another, another.

00:59:55:10 - 00:59:57:01
Why don't you want to go to someone's house?

00:59:57:01 - 00:59:59:20
That's a that's a very common. This is I.

00:59:59:20 - 01:00:01:51
Was I was making one up on the spot but that is perfect.

01:00:01:51 - 01:00:03:54
That's that's probably one of the biggest ones. Right?

01:00:03:54 - 01:00:06:54
You are now in a situation where you know that

01:00:06:54 - 01:00:10:15
you're being abused, but you can't tell your family that you are,

01:00:10:35 - 01:00:12:30
but they want you to go to their babysitter's house

01:00:12:30 - 01:00:14:06
because mom and dad wants a date night.

01:00:14:06 - 01:00:16:10
Those are tired and work as hard so they don't understand.

01:00:16:10 - 01:00:18:30
You need to go here, but you don't want to.

01:00:18:30 - 01:00:21:30
But you can't say why we become good storytellers.

01:00:21:45 - 01:00:24:50
100%. And for me it was homework.

01:00:25:10 - 01:00:27:59
So I was like, how could I possibly go to the house

01:00:27:59 - 01:00:31:24
over the half term and spend all week there when I have this.

01:00:31:24 - 01:00:33:48
Huge project on the Tudors to do?

01:00:33:48 - 01:00:36:41
And I'm in year six, what year six year old.

01:00:36:41 - 01:00:38:38
So for context, I was about ten.

01:00:38:38 - 01:00:42:28
What ten year old is so busy doing their project was just too overwhelmed

01:00:42:28 - 01:00:44:15
with work. I can't do this.

01:00:44:15 - 01:00:49:01
Couldn’t be bothered because yeah, yeah, it's a very it's a very. You story tell.

01:00:49:01 - 01:00:53:38
Once I realized what was happening in the child on child abuse

01:00:53:38 - 01:00:56:51
and I started internalizing as I'm a predator,

01:00:56:51 - 01:01:00:45
I no longer wanted to be around those other kids

01:01:01:17 - 01:01:05:25
or, you know, my older cousin, but you can't say why. So

01:01:06:25 - 01:01:07:48
I became a little reckless.

01:01:07:48 - 01:01:09:03
Like, I don't want to hang out with people,

01:01:09:03 - 01:01:12:55
but like, I'm not obnoxious, like, pay attention to me, but I had to become

01:01:13:24 - 01:01:14:31
I just want to go in my room.

01:01:14:31 - 01:01:17:15
Nothing's wrong with me. I'm just shy. I don’t want to be around.

01:01:17:15 - 01:01:18:34
No, I don't want to do this thing.

01:01:18:34 - 01:01:20:15
And then you create this personality.

01:01:20:15 - 01:01:22:42
Whatever you need to get out of that thing.

01:01:22:42 - 01:01:22:58
Yeah.

01:01:22:58 - 01:01:25:52
If you loved playing soccer, but your coach or someone is

01:01:25:52 - 01:01:27:15
have something's happening at soccer

01:01:27:15 - 01:01:30:23
and you can't tell your parents now, you can't like that sport.

01:01:30:25 - 01:01:31:42
Well, I just don't want to do it anymore

01:01:31:42 - 01:01:35:13
because it conflicts with this thing or it's boring to me.

01:01:35:15 - 01:01:36:50
And that might not be the truth.

01:01:36:50 - 01:01:38:34
We become really good storytellers.

01:01:38:34 - 01:01:39:30
Absolutely.

01:01:39:30 - 01:01:42:25
And there's so many elements of your character as well that change.

01:01:42:25 - 01:01:44:56
So, for example, I remember being so freaking helpful

01:01:44:56 - 01:01:47:20
around the house whenever my abuser was around.

01:01:47:20 - 01:01:49:35
Because it was like, oh, I know that.

01:01:49:35 - 01:01:52:22
They're never going to go to the kitchen, so that must be the safe space.

01:01:52:22 - 01:01:54:45
Oh, teach me how to cook.

01:01:54:45 - 01:01:56:07
I love cooking Auntie.

01:01:56:07 - 01:01:57:52
You want to show me how you make.

01:01:57:52 - 01:01:58:51
Quick go be around

01:01:58:51 - 01:02:00:59
every other adult like, oh, I want to do this thing.

01:02:00:59 - 01:02:03:54
I want to go here. Yeah, Exactly, exactly.

01:02:03:54 - 01:02:07:26
Or like, you know, I remember I really remember specifically one time.

01:02:07:26 - 01:02:10:26
Like going to the park with my abuser and like,

01:02:10:26 - 01:02:12:39
he just kept wanting to push me off the tire swing.

01:02:12:39 - 01:02:16:52
And I was like, oh, I've hurt my leg today, so I can't go on the tire swing.

01:02:16:58 - 01:02:17:38
And like, you just.

01:02:17:38 - 01:02:19:58
And then you think, okay, but then that means later

01:02:19:58 - 01:02:22:49
he might use that as an excuse to then abuse me again.

01:02:22:49 - 01:02:25:49
So now I'm a recover between the hours of 4 to 6,

01:02:25:49 - 01:02:27:59
so that by bedtime I'm running around like.

01:02:27:59 - 01:02:30:05
Oh my God, my mind.

01:02:30:05 - 01:02:35:02
It’s nonstop in that it doesn't just stop once the abuse stops.

01:02:35:42 - 01:02:39:16
And that's a lot of what, like when you're in therapy, like I'll

01:02:39:16 - 01:02:42:16
have these sessions where I'm like, oh, I'm doing this thing and I don't get why.

01:02:42:25 - 01:02:43:48
And we start peeling back the layers.

01:02:43:48 - 01:02:45:41
I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? This too.

01:02:47:51 - 01:02:49:04
Like the way.

01:02:49:04 - 01:02:49:42
Like how

01:02:49:42 - 01:02:52:01
Like the fact that I need to wash my sheets frequently.

01:02:52:01 - 01:02:53:52
Really? This too. Like,

01:02:55:22 - 01:02:58:31
I don't know about you, but I've gone on this, like,

01:02:58:46 - 01:03:03:05
roller coaster ride with managing my my abuse.

01:03:03:36 - 01:03:05:42
The first part was like this denial of it.

01:03:05:42 - 01:03:08:42
Like I suppressed it really bad

01:03:08:45 - 01:03:11:52
because there was this awareness of it that always existed.

01:03:11:52 - 01:03:14:52
So I can't say there's

01:03:15:19 - 01:03:18:27
a lot of it was forgotten, especially from when I was in Saint Lucia,

01:03:18:27 - 01:03:19:48
a lot younger.

01:03:19:48 - 01:03:21:54
But there was always some parts, mainly the parts

01:03:21:54 - 01:03:24:54
where I was repeating the behavior that was at the forefront of my mind,

01:03:25:08 - 01:03:28:12
and with my older cousin, that was always on the forefront,

01:03:28:12 - 01:03:30:43
but the start of it, where it originated, that was

01:03:31:44 - 01:03:34:24
gone from my memory for the most part.

01:03:34:24 - 01:03:37:46
And the first part was like denial, suppression, like,

01:03:37:46 - 01:03:39:43
how much of this can I suppress?

01:03:39:43 - 01:03:42:43
Because I don't want to think about it, because I don't know where to go with it.

01:03:42:59 - 01:03:45:59
And it was balancing that was like obsessively searching Ask Jeeves

01:03:46:08 - 01:03:48:01
and then trying to suppress it.

01:03:48:01 - 01:03:50:43
Every time I say Ask Jeeves, it cracks me up because.

01:03:50:43 - 01:03:53:12
It really will let us know who's listening. By who goes

01:03:53:12 - 01:03:55:44
oh! Ask Jeeves, this is how we'll know how old you are. Yeah, yeah

01:03:55:44 - 01:03:56:58
Yeah, yeah.

01:03:56:58 - 01:04:00:28
Now my current search is whatever I want to type in.

01:04:00:28 - 01:04:01:12
So, like,

01:04:01:12 - 01:04:02:07
I'll type in, like,

01:04:02:07 - 01:04:02:40
because I still

01:04:02:40 - 01:04:05:56
like to follow the experience and I'm, I still find myself searching

01:04:05:56 - 01:04:08:27
certain things that come up like, oh my gosh, is this still a thing?

01:04:08:27 - 01:04:11:27
But I just do whatever and then throw Reddit on the end of it.

01:04:11:38 - 01:04:13:46
But let me go. Let me go find my people.

01:04:16:01 - 01:04:19:01
Who else is fucked up from

01:04:20:52 - 01:04:24:23
Who else has the same type of fucked up as I do?

01:04:24:48 - 01:04:26:38
But I'll just go on Reddit to find it.

01:04:26:38 - 01:04:30:01
But now there's also going to be this podcast that people could listen to.

01:04:31:04 - 01:04:33:12
It's Google for misfits, why not

01:04:33:12 - 01:04:34:08
It's here it is.

01:04:34:08 - 01:04:37:35
But now one of the results will be this podcast is like, here's a one.

01:04:37:35 - 01:04:39:36
I lost my train of thought

01:04:39:36 - 01:04:43:15
No not at all, you were talking about you were in denial then you went via Ask Jeeves

01:04:43:17 - 01:04:46:01
Oh yeah. Yeah. So I go from this like in denial phase.

01:04:46:01 - 01:04:48:55
I don't want to think about it, try to suppress it and move past it.

01:04:48:55 - 01:04:50:13
And I try to like, claim.

01:04:50:13 - 01:04:53:58
It's not like this hypersexual, a teenager who's, like, obsessed with adults

01:04:53:58 - 01:04:57:34
and like, trying to get validation from, like, masculine adults

01:04:58:03 - 01:05:01:37
to trying to have a conversation with my mom,

01:05:01:37 - 01:05:04:37
which did not go well because she did not respond at all.

01:05:04:40 - 01:05:07:40
She looked at me and said, okay, like, left me in the bathroom.

01:05:07:49 - 01:05:08:45
How old were you then?

01:05:09:45 - 01:05:12:46
17. And I had only told her

01:05:12:46 - 01:05:16:37
about the one bad experience that's like universally bad.

01:05:17:16 - 01:05:19:35
My older cousin, who's like 20 years older than me,

01:05:19:35 - 01:05:21:46
that's like the universally bad experience.

01:05:21:46 - 01:05:23:52
Everyone... That should be accepted.

01:05:23:52 - 01:05:27:45
And she didn't manage that truth very well.

01:05:28:01 - 01:05:31:17
So now I'm like, oh, well, I definitely can't ever talk about

01:05:31:17 - 01:05:33:43
the fact that I repeated behaviors,

01:05:33:43 - 01:05:36:23
because if you didn't manage this part of the experience, well,

01:05:36:23 - 01:05:38:58
what are you going to do with this other part?

01:05:38:58 - 01:05:40:48
And that's why I think a lot of, like,

01:05:40:48 - 01:05:44:22
a lot of what you're doing with the do's and don'ts and trying to help people

01:05:44:22 - 01:05:48:21
learn how to have these conversations because we don't know.

01:05:48:23 - 01:05:50:56
No one teaches you, hey, here's how you should respond

01:05:50:56 - 01:05:53:11
if someone shares that they've been abused.

01:05:54:19 - 01:05:55:49
And your response

01:05:55:49 - 01:05:59:33
really shapes so much of the healing, the very first person that you tell

01:05:59:56 - 01:06:03:00
their response shapes so much of your journey.

01:06:03:23 - 01:06:08:18
And to have this tool is like a resource and an education to help people navigate

01:06:08:18 - 01:06:12:16
that is going to bring so much healing, because had my mom responded differently

01:06:12:45 - 01:06:16:57
and had done, you know, some of these do's and do like do not my like

01:06:16:57 - 01:06:18:32
journey would have changed so much,

01:06:18:32 - 01:06:21:23
I probably would have been in way less toxic relationships.

01:06:21:23 - 01:06:23:43
I'm like, do you think I keep my marketing manager?

01:06:23:43 - 01:06:26:18
I got you,

01:06:26:18 - 01:06:28:01
I got you girl,

01:06:28:01 - 01:06:30:28
but I'm being so, so serious, right?

01:06:30:28 - 01:06:33:25
Like and think about it from any of the other.

01:06:33:25 - 01:06:35:58
Like any of why you're, you know what you're doing the work.

01:06:37:01 - 01:06:38:15
It plays such a big part.

01:06:38:15 - 01:06:39:30
So like, she didn't manage it well.

01:06:39:30 - 01:06:44:09
So now I doubly like I double down and internalizing my badness.

01:06:44:27 - 01:06:47:00
And how it’s evil for all of these things.

01:06:47:00 - 01:06:49:44
But you can't explain to people why you're bad.

01:06:49:44 - 01:06:52:44
So now you're internalizing the fact that you're a bad person.

01:06:53:07 - 01:06:55:57
And this is like, naturally, I'm an overachiever in general.

01:06:55:57 - 01:06:57:21
So now it's like conflicting these

01:06:57:21 - 01:07:00:21
two parts of me, and I'm like, I'm trying to prove to myself, like,

01:07:00:39 - 01:07:01:43
I always think of it as like

01:07:01:43 - 01:07:04:35
the little warrior inside of me who was like, nope, we're good.

01:07:04:35 - 01:07:07:19
We're good person. We're not bad.

01:07:07:19 - 01:07:10:19
But the ways that we could do it was like being an overachiever at work,

01:07:10:22 - 01:07:11:49
keeping my distance from people,

01:07:11:49 - 01:07:12:43
because any time

01:07:12:43 - 01:07:14:24
I would disappoint someone,

01:07:14:24 - 01:07:17:24
or if I couldn't meet someone's expectations or standards,

01:07:17:31 - 01:07:18:27
it would internalize it.

01:07:18:27 - 01:07:22:48
See, you're a bad person when I can't control my eating.

01:07:22:57 - 01:07:24:57
See, you're a bad person.

01:07:24:57 - 01:07:26:31
This is why you have to eat. And now.

01:07:28:49 - 01:07:29:22
I'll finish a

01:07:29:22 - 01:07:30:18
whole packet of Oreos

01:07:30:18 - 01:07:33:59
because that helps in turn, like, bad people can't control their impulses.

01:07:34:17 - 01:07:37:55
So you're gonna eat all this food because you're bad and bad people.

01:07:37:57 - 01:07:39:25
They can't control themselves.

01:07:39:25 - 01:07:42:10
You're not going to go to the gym because people who go to they gym

01:07:42:10 - 01:07:43:51
they're good and they take care of themselves.

01:07:43:51 - 01:07:44:58
And you're a bad person.

01:07:44:58 - 01:07:47:45
Like, this is constantly the thing that I'm working through

01:07:47:45 - 01:07:48:41
So I go through this phase.

01:07:48:41 - 01:07:50:54
Like, hey, you're bad, you're bad, you're bad.

01:07:50:54 - 01:07:54:07
I finally this is a conversation with my mom at 17.

01:07:54:19 - 01:07:55:51
Finally have a conversation with my therapist.

01:07:55:51 - 01:07:58:51
Ten years later, and I'm in the car

01:07:59:09 - 01:08:02:09
for this session driving on the highway, which was a big no no

01:08:02:09 - 01:08:04:39
I'm getting ready to, like, end it all.

01:08:04:39 - 01:08:06:23
And I'm like, I'm just going to tell her, like,

01:08:06:23 - 01:08:10:00
I've been in therapy with her for six months now and I haven't told her that.

01:08:10:01 - 01:08:10:57
And then what?

01:08:12:05 - 01:08:14:58
We've had the conversation and everything else up to it.

01:08:14:58 - 01:08:19:01
This happened to me and this happened to me and this happened to me.

01:08:19:19 - 01:08:22:22
And she's validating that, like, oh my gosh, you were harmed.

01:08:22:22 - 01:08:24:28
Oh my God, this is bad. This is bad.

01:08:24:28 - 01:08:28:04
And never did she ever asked me what else happened.

01:08:30:03 - 01:08:31:38
And then what.

01:08:31:38 - 01:08:33:46
That conversation never came up with my therapist.

01:08:33:46 - 01:08:37:57
I had to be the one to open up and tell her.

01:08:37:57 - 01:08:40:57
And I was in the car at my lowest point

01:08:41:43 - 01:08:43:26
and I'm like just tell her, tell her.

01:08:43:26 - 01:08:45:45
And if she responds badly that means you're a bad person.

01:08:45:45 - 01:08:47:36
You don't deserve to be alive.

01:08:47:36 - 01:08:50:36
And thankfully, she gave me the response that I need.

01:08:55:14 - 01:08:56:11
Yeah.

01:08:57:16 - 01:08:58:37
She gave me the response that I needed,

01:08:59:38 - 01:09:01:17
that I needed to hear that it

01:09:01:17 - 01:09:04:31
wasn't my fault and I wasn't a bad person, and I could have known better.

01:09:04:31 - 01:09:05:51
And she was just.

01:09:05:51 - 01:09:08:52
And I'm literally like, driving.

01:09:08:52 - 01:09:12:37
And this is during Covid, so like, no one's on the road, like peak Covid

01:09:12:37 - 01:09:15:37
and I'm like on 95 driving down.

01:09:16:58 - 01:09:19:24
Driving like 110mph.

01:09:19:24 - 01:09:21:12
And she's like validate.

01:09:21:12 - 01:09:23:25
And I don't know how I got home after that session.

01:09:23:25 - 01:09:26:25
Like I completely like I got home in one piece.

01:09:26:42 - 01:09:29:42
No car accident.

01:09:30:25 - 01:09:33:25
But I completely blacked out after that session.

01:09:33:45 - 01:09:34:46
That was like the whole thing.

01:09:34:46 - 01:09:37:44
She had to go, like, do her.

01:09:37:44 - 01:09:39:30
I scared the shit out of her.

01:09:39:30 - 01:09:42:30
But she responded the right way.

01:09:42:46 - 01:09:46:21
And I think had I had had the guts to tell someone I wasn't my therapist's,

01:09:47:34 - 01:09:48:19
and their

01:09:48:19 - 01:09:51:19
response even questioned, my goodness,

01:09:52:28 - 01:09:55:28
that day would have ended completely different.

01:09:55:33 - 01:09:59:43
And this is why it's so important for us to be able to share this part.

01:09:59:43 - 01:10:02:43
Like I.

01:10:03:19 - 01:10:05:06
We need to be able to create space

01:10:05:06 - 01:10:08:13
for the nuance that exists when it comes to child on child abuse,

01:10:09:00 - 01:10:11:45
because there are so many other people who are walking around

01:10:11:45 - 01:10:16:10
holding that shame and belief that they are bad based off of something

01:10:16:10 - 01:10:19:19
that they couldn't control, and.

01:10:21:32 - 01:10:22:38
If we could all do our part

01:10:22:38 - 01:10:27:16
to create room for that, I think we just all be so much better.

01:10:27:25 - 01:10:30:14
The people that we love, the people that you love, think about.

01:10:30:14 - 01:10:33:34
Have they told you that they were abused at a certain age?

01:10:34:08 - 01:10:37:08
And if we're not creating that space for them to share the and then what?

01:10:37:30 - 01:10:40:44
without feeling like they're going to be deemed bad for it,

01:10:42:03 - 01:10:43:44
there's a lot of shit that you're still holding.

01:10:43:44 - 01:10:46:21
You might think you know all of it, but there are so many people out there

01:10:46:21 - 01:10:48:36
who just like me, who are telling half of the story.

01:10:48:36 - 01:10:50:38
Yeah,

01:10:50:38 - 01:10:53:23
and that we're right there.

01:10:53:23 - 01:10:56:02
Shout out to Karen, a real one.

01:10:56:02 - 01:10:56:54
Thanks, Karen.

01:10:56:54 - 01:10:58:51
Honestly,

01:10:58:51 - 01:11:01:28
because that's the thing that right there is

01:11:01:28 - 01:11:05:29
the crux of why it's the conversations around childhood sexual abuse

01:11:05:29 - 01:11:09:08
that can go just as harmful and if not life threatening,

01:11:09:43 - 01:11:12:12
thsn the abuse itself.

01:11:12:12 - 01:11:13:15
Yeah.

01:11:13:15 - 01:11:16:15
And that is something that everyone can control.

01:11:16:38 - 01:11:18:39
Because you know. -100%, 

01:11:18:39 - 01:11:20:25
You don't know when somebody

01:11:20:25 - 01:11:23:25
is going to disclose to you that they've gone through this experience,

01:11:23:49 - 01:11:24:57
but it's going to happen

01:11:24:57 - 01:11:28:10
because it's at least a quater of the people, you know, statistically.

01:11:28:42 - 01:11:31:33
So make sure that it is as good as an experience as it can be.

01:11:33:18 - 01:11:34:06
Ahh

01:11:34:06 - 01:11:36:01
Also, so nice to hear the name Karen given.

01:11:36:01 - 01:11:38:18
in like a -yeah

01:11:38:18 - 01:11:41:18
positive spin -we're going to have Karen reclaim

01:11:41:56 - 01:11:42:34
and funny.

01:11:42:34 - 01:11:43:03
Yeah. Right.

01:11:43:03 - 01:11:46:29
Like this is you know, this is a good, one point for Karen. Yes.

01:11:48:27 - 01:11:51:10
She's I think she gets more than one point.

01:11:51:10 - 01:11:52:28
For all the Karen’s in the world.

01:11:52:28 - 01:11:53:34
She did it for y'all.

01:11:53:34 - 01:11:55:06
Yeah, I know she was.

01:11:55:06 - 01:11:57:18
She was a real one.

01:11:57:18 - 01:12:00:35
And it's it's so funny how, like, when we think of, what were you going to ask?

01:12:01:01 - 01:12:02:20
I was just going to ask you,

01:12:02:20 - 01:12:05:20
how did you get to finding therapy in the first place?

01:12:05:49 - 01:12:06:39
Yeah.

01:12:06:39 - 01:12:08:22
Funny enough,

01:12:08:22 - 01:12:12:05
therapy has always kind of been this, like, looming thing in my in my life.

01:12:12:05 - 01:12:14:36
My family had to go to court mandated therapy

01:12:14:36 - 01:12:18:25
when I was a teenager because of my one of my siblings.

01:12:19:51 - 01:12:20:43
And that experience

01:12:20:43 - 01:12:23:43
was very unique for me because my family was not forthcoming.

01:12:23:43 - 01:12:25:51
There was no vulnerability in the room.

01:12:25:51 - 01:12:29:58
It was super aggressive, but I was always like, interested in what was happening.

01:12:29:58 - 01:12:33:03
And of course, when you're going to like court mandated therapy or through,

01:12:33:16 - 01:12:36:16
I think, what you call them, charity services,

01:12:37:04 - 01:12:40:04
those like, they, they have the best intent

01:12:40:11 - 01:12:42:52
when we think about the work load and all of those other things.

01:12:42:52 - 01:12:46:40
So at the time, therapist that I saw like that was running our family's case

01:12:46:40 - 01:12:50:42
load was like completely out of touch for this, like family and group.

01:12:52:15 - 01:12:54:41
But as an adult, I just got tired.

01:12:54:41 - 01:12:55:55
I got super tired.

01:12:55:55 - 01:13:01:57
So I went back to Saint Lucia after not being back for 18 years.

01:13:04:37 - 01:13:07:10
We we were there.

01:13:07:10 - 01:13:08:18
I was there for the whole trip.

01:13:08:18 - 01:13:09:28
And then I took my sister kept

01:13:09:28 - 01:13:12:42
trying to get me to go to the place where my abuse started.

01:13:12:43 - 01:13:15:41
I'm like, oh, good. Like, I don't need to go there.

01:13:15:41 - 01:13:16:30
There's so much to see.

01:13:16:30 - 01:13:18:55
Like, let's go here, let's do this thing.

01:13:18:55 - 01:13:23:20
And eventually, the last day she ended up driving us up there

01:13:23:20 - 01:13:26:29
and we went and as soon as we like, the feeling started coming in like

01:13:26:47 - 01:13:29:47
the ick and like, there's this, like black

01:13:30:10 - 01:13:33:07
sticky like gunk that feels like

01:13:33:07 - 01:13:35:15
it starts taking over your body from the inside out.

01:13:35:15 - 01:13:36:45
It started happening.

01:13:36:45 - 01:13:38:30
And we get there.

01:13:38:30 - 01:13:42:10
This gorgeous little black girl comes out and she looks kind of like me.

01:13:42:10 - 01:13:43:13
When I was a kid.

01:13:43:13 - 01:13:44:13
And immediately

01:13:44:13 - 01:13:48:48
all of the repressed memories of that part of my abuse all came back.

01:13:48:48 - 01:13:51:19
And I'm like, someone come save her.

01:13:51:19 - 01:13:52:31
She is being harmed.

01:13:52:31 - 01:13:54:19
Like, this is dangerous here.

01:13:54:19 - 01:13:57:46
And I don't know how to say that because I've, for the last couple

01:13:57:46 - 01:13:58:55
of years, internalized that like

01:13:58:55 - 01:14:02:33
I'm a bad person, but for me to survive, I also try not to think about it.

01:14:02:58 - 01:14:05:33
So I'm like panicking and everyone's like, oh, she's just sad

01:14:05:33 - 01:14:07:57
that we're leaving because I've always been emotional.

01:14:07:57 - 01:14:09:10
I cry at the drop of a hat,

01:14:10:10 - 01:14:11:51
put a pretty sunset in front of me.

01:14:11:51 - 01:14:14:16
I'm crying.

01:14:14:16 - 01:14:16:27
I wish I had the ability to, like.

01:14:16:27 - 01:14:18:41
Put a lifetime movie on. I'm crying.

01:14:18:41 - 01:14:21:41
I'm crying at like the eczema commercial where she's like,

01:14:21:41 - 01:14:25:28
I've got plaque psoriasis, and I can't go to my daughter's

01:14:25:28 - 01:14:28:28
softball game because I have to hide my arms and I'm like, oh,

01:14:30:03 - 01:14:31:57
I'm crying. So I should.

01:14:31:57 - 01:14:33:29
It’s that deep empathy

01:14:33:29 - 01:14:35:36
Everyone I'm with like rides off this

01:14:35:36 - 01:14:38:36
like emotional reaction I'm having because like at this point.

01:14:39:07 - 01:14:41:58
Soniah having like a panic attack and like having a meltdown

01:14:41:58 - 01:14:45:16
and I go, I get nonverbal when I'm triggered.

01:14:45:16 - 01:14:47:29
So like, you're not going to get any words out of me, like,

01:14:47:29 - 01:14:49:21
and not because I don't want to.

01:14:49:21 - 01:14:51:36
I literally cannot.

01:14:51:36 - 01:14:53:00
I've done a lot of work to that.

01:14:53:00 - 01:14:56:34
But I still go nonverbal sometimes where I'm like, it's impossible for me to speak.

01:14:56:34 - 01:14:59:38
You can ask me a question and I'm trying to answer you,

01:14:59:38 - 01:15:01:03
but the words will not come out.

01:15:02:13 - 01:15:03:16
So I go nonverbal.

01:15:03:16 - 01:15:04:22
I'm having a whole meltdown.

01:15:04:22 - 01:15:06:58
Everyone's like, oh, you're just sad that you're leaving its the end of the trip.

01:15:06:58 - 01:15:10:28
I get back home and I cannot focus on my life

01:15:10:28 - 01:15:14:16
like everything's going to shit and I'm like, I need to get help.

01:15:14:16 - 01:15:18:09
I didn't trust anyone in my life. Wasn’t I have that conversation with anyone.

01:15:18:09 - 01:15:20:56
None of my friends, no one. It wasn't going to happen.

01:15:20:56 - 01:15:26:27
And I'm like, okay, well, go talk to a therapist like, let's get to a stranger.

01:15:26:52 - 01:15:29:52
For the first couple of sessions, I was just like, work sucks.

01:15:29:54 - 01:15:30:32
This sucks.

01:15:30:32 - 01:15:31:24
Like, we weren't

01:15:31:24 - 01:15:35:04
getting to the root of the issue because it was still very terrifying

01:15:35:16 - 01:15:38:54
because, again, I disclosed to my mom, her response was,

01:15:40:30 - 01:15:41:07
that's crazy.

01:15:41:07 - 01:15:43:26
You got to forgive yourself.

01:15:43:26 - 01:15:45:59
Like, to just blame me.

01:15:45:59 - 01:15:47:20
I got to forgive myself.

01:15:47:20 - 01:15:50:13
What?

01:15:50:13 - 01:15:50:38
Yeah.

01:15:50:38 - 01:15:52:46
So that's that's how I learned therapy.

01:15:52:46 - 01:15:55:22
And now I'm just like, I'm a serial therapist changer.

01:15:55:22 - 01:15:57:43
I just need something new.

01:15:57:43 - 01:15:59:24
I loved Karen, and she was great.

01:15:59:24 - 01:15:59:58
After a while,

01:15:59:58 - 01:16:02:40
I was like, okay, I need someone who's going to be straight with me.

01:16:02:40 - 01:16:03:43
And that's always another thing

01:16:03:43 - 01:16:05:42
I think we talked about go to therapy, go to therapy.

01:16:05:42 - 01:16:08:42
But finding the right therapist is harder than dating.

01:16:09:30 - 01:16:11:29
Harder than dating. -Hell on earth. It’s a hot hell.

01:16:11:29 - 01:16:12:12
Oh my God.

01:16:12:12 - 01:16:14:45
And also, I think people forget the exhaustion

01:16:14:45 - 01:16:17:13
of having to retell your story time and time again.

01:16:17:13 - 01:16:21:12
I remember that I was I was forced to see someone at my uni

01:16:21:12 - 01:16:24:19
because I had a bit of a moment and,

01:16:25:17 - 01:16:26:47
yeah, I kind of signed myself

01:16:26:47 - 01:16:29:51
up and normally it's people being like, oh, I'm worried because I

01:16:29:51 - 01:16:32:47
have an exam, due. I'm really stressed. And then I wrote into the form

01:16:32:47 - 01:16:36:25
I was like, oh, my abuser got out of jail and I found out by accident, and I've

01:16:36:25 - 01:16:38:07
had a bit of a meltdown and everyone's

01:16:38:07 - 01:16:39:16
making me come here.

01:16:39:16 - 01:16:41:56
And so I got put straight to the front of the list.

01:16:41:56 - 01:16:44:49
But to a therapist who did not know.

01:16:44:49 - 01:16:47:13
How to handle people who'd come sexual assault.

01:16:47:13 - 01:16:49:21
Especially when they were kids.

01:16:49:21 - 01:16:50:13
And so, like.

01:16:50:13 - 01:16:53:13
I'm telling this whole story, she starts crying.

01:16:53:51 - 01:16:56:51
By then I'm comforting her, being like, oh, I'm okay.

01:16:56:52 - 01:17:00:41
And then I leave being like, wait, hang on, is that what's supposed to happen?

01:17:00:41 - 01:17:02:15
Not sure.

01:17:02:15 - 01:17:03:32
And then by the time

01:17:03:32 - 01:17:07:26
I'd actually managed to get support through an amazing therapist who was like,

01:17:08:25 - 01:17:12:55
[EMDR] treatment specialist, I didn't realize that at the time.

01:17:12:55 - 01:17:14:24
I didn't know the different types of therapy.

01:17:14:24 - 01:17:17:11
I didn't know the different special specialisms.

01:17:17:11 - 01:17:18:54
I was just sent to this guy.

01:17:18:54 - 01:17:21:39
I had one session with him, and by then I was

01:17:21:39 - 01:17:25:08
so exhausted because I was like, I thought I told you that, no, I didn't.

01:17:25:08 - 01:17:27:18
I told the other therapist. -Other person.

01:17:27:18 - 01:17:30:00
I never went back again and I wasn't in the right headspace.

01:17:30:00 - 01:17:30:25
So you're right.

01:17:30:25 - 01:17:31:03
It is something

01:17:31:03 - 01:17:35:27
you have to come to you for yourself, which is why the people in your life

01:17:35:38 - 01:17:39:16
who aren't professionals, managing those conversations are usually

01:17:39:16 - 01:17:40:19
your first touchpoint,

01:17:40:19 - 01:17:43:19
and that's why it's so important to get that conversation right

01:17:43:30 - 01:17:47:21
Yeah, it's you don't always go right to there.

01:17:47:22 - 01:17:49:19
No one's like, hi, I'm writing to talk about this.

01:17:49:19 - 01:17:51:46
No, you're going to go to the people that you trust first.

01:17:51:46 - 01:17:53:11
For the most part.

01:17:53:11 - 01:17:55:35
And I don't know, like, do you ever do a thing

01:17:55:35 - 01:17:58:06
where you put feelers out to see how you're going to respond?

01:17:58:06 - 01:17:59:52
Like, I would do this with my sister

01:17:59:52 - 01:18:02:24
if I wanted to eat her left- like when I was a kid.

01:18:02:24 - 01:18:05:31
If I wanted to eat her leftovers in a fridge, I would call her and be like,

01:18:06:01 - 01:18:07:21
yeah, just eat your food.

01:18:07:21 - 01:18:10:58
And then, like, I would gauge her response if she, like, freaked out, I'd be like,

01:18:11:25 - 01:18:13:30
I'm just kidding. I didn't even touch it. Oh my gosh.

01:18:13:30 - 01:18:17:06
If her response was kind of mild, I'd be like, I was just kidding.

01:18:17:06 - 01:18:18:23
I'm only half of it.

01:18:18:23 - 01:18:20:15
No, she didn't respond. It was like, oh, it's cool.

01:18:20:15 - 01:18:21:43
I'm like, yes, I could eat all of it.

01:18:21:43 - 01:18:22:01
And like,

01:18:22:01 - 01:18:26:34
that's how I would gauge what I can get away with by, like proactively looking.

01:18:26:34 - 01:18:29:47
So sometimes the people in your life are already dropping

01:18:30:36 - 01:18:33:23
feelers to see how you'll respond

01:18:33:23 - 01:18:37:10
and if you're safe, for them to disclose the experience.

01:18:37:49 - 01:18:41:45
And those are also things to look for, like, is this person like I think

01:18:41:45 - 01:18:45:28
that I generally find and I think it's because I think we find that our people.

01:18:45:30 - 01:18:47:30
You're like, I know you real recognize real.

01:18:47:30 - 01:18:51:32
Like I can spot you, and like, not 100%,

01:18:51:43 - 01:18:56:22
but there's just a certain kind of person that I tend to gravitate to me.

01:18:56:22 - 01:18:57:34
I gravitate towards them.

01:18:57:34 - 01:18:59:25
I'm like, I got you.

01:18:59:25 - 01:19:02:01
Is it. liars? Liars keep Lying.

01:19:03:18 - 01:19:06:12
Come over here with your storytelling self.

01:19:06:12 - 01:19:07:10
Oh dear

01:19:07:10 - 01:19:10:21
Like, give me that story with all the unnecessary detail.

01:19:10:22 - 01:19:10:35
Yeah.

01:19:10:35 - 01:19:13:44
The people in our lives are probably putting feelers out to be like, hey,

01:19:14:13 - 01:19:16:55
can I start, like, eggshelling this conversation?

01:19:16:55 - 01:19:21:50
If you're someone who repeated behaviours from your childhood abuse

01:19:22:13 - 01:19:25:21
and you are able to come to someone and just say it flat out

01:19:25:21 - 01:19:28:51
for the first time, I- my hat off to you.

01:19:28:53 - 01:19:31:46
You are the bravest soul. Please teach us the way.

01:19:31:46 - 01:19:36:45
But it took me like two and a half decades from well know

01:19:37:12 - 01:19:42:30
from experience, but it took me a whole decade from my first attempt

01:19:42:30 - 01:19:45:59
at telling the truth, to be able to tell the whole truth.

01:19:46:40 - 01:19:49:51
And that's with, like, dropping hints and conversations in between.

01:19:50:15 - 01:19:55:10
So the people in your life, probably, who have experienced child abuse

01:19:55:10 - 01:19:57:23
or who may have perpetrated repeated behaviors

01:19:57:23 - 01:20:00:30
or any of those things are probably dropping some hints for you

01:20:01:13 - 01:20:03:57
to be able to open up that door for that conversation.

01:20:03:57 - 01:20:05:06
Absolutely.

01:20:56:04 - 01:20:59:04
My parents never had a sex conversation with us.

01:20:59:04 - 01:21:01:10
Never had a conversation around consent.

01:21:01:10 - 01:21:05:07
All it was, is once I was like 14 and I had a boyfriend that was being very brash.

01:21:05:07 - 01:21:08:07
Was like, don't bring a baby to this house.

01:21:08:43 - 01:21:10:19
I'm an overachiever at work.

01:21:10:19 - 01:21:13:03
Because for so long I thought that I was a bad person

01:21:13:03 - 01:21:16:03
because I repeated behaviors that happened to me.

01:21:16:55 - 01:21:20:13
I came to this conclusion the other day that I'm a really good liar.

01:21:20:36 - 01:21:22:17
Like I don't take from that.

01:21:22:17 - 01:21:22:49
They you hear.

01:21:22:49 - 01:21:25:49
A story teller.

01:21:28:35 - 01:21:30:48
I'm never being taught how to, Dottie whined.

01:21:30:48 - 01:21:33:48
On the playground to collect boys in year four.

01:21:33:52 - 01:21:36:52
In year four?

02:01:14:36 - 02:01:15:52
Thank you so much, senor.

02:01:15:52 - 02:01:18:23
Seriously. I've learned. I've learned so much from you.

02:01:19:49 - 02:01:20:45
And I always try

02:01:20:45 - 02:01:25:22
and end up end by saying to people is if you just tell one person

02:01:25:22 - 02:01:29:07
that you listen to this conversation that you heard about this podcast,

02:01:29:07 - 02:01:33:03
you won't have no idea the sort of conversations you can open up from that.

02:01:33:27 - 02:01:36:48
And hopefully when you do have that conversation anyways,

02:01:36:48 - 02:01:39:14
because you will, it's very statistically common.

02:01:39:14 - 02:01:42:16
You can now have it with more care and a bit more knowledge

02:01:42:16 - 02:01:46:44
of what you should and shouldn't say, and yeah, talk about abuse.

02:01:46:44 - 02:01:50:34
Support children who might have harmful, sexual, harmful sexual behavior.

02:01:50:56 - 02:01:54:52
Educate the kids in your life gently, so often.

02:01:55:10 - 02:01:58:10
Do all the things Soniah said around making sure that there's

02:01:58:10 - 02:02:01:15
care, that there's positive options that you.

02:02:01:28 - 02:02:04:28
What was the last one that you said that was really beautiful?

02:02:04:28 - 02:02:09:19
Proactively hold and create space for folks to discuss repeated behavior.

02:02:09:37 - 02:02:12:43
Exactly like if even within the child

02:02:12:43 - 02:02:15:50
sexual abuse sphere, that conversation is not happening.

02:02:15:50 - 02:02:19:35
So yeah, please do share what you've learned and share it with others

02:02:19:35 - 02:02:21:27
and you'll be amazed at the fruits of that.

02:02:21:27 - 02:02:24:54
And I don't mean fruits in a pseudonym for your.

02:02:25:44 - 02:02:26:54
Not that I thought.

02:02:26:54 - 02:02:29:54
Yeah, I mean the actual metaphorical fruit,

02:02:30:05 - 02:02:32:11
not your vagina, penises and sexual organs.

02:02:33:41 - 02:02:34:31
Yeah.

02:02:34:31 - 02:02:35:33
Beautiful.

02:02:35:33 - 02:02:37:12
Sophie, thank you so much.

02:02:37:12 - 02:02:39:07
This was.

02:02:39:07 - 02:02:40:10
This is magical.

02:02:40:10 - 02:02:43:42
I again, here I am with another plug for this work.

02:02:44:27 - 02:02:48:10
Because what you're doing, secrets, work, sharing resonates so,

02:02:48:32 - 02:02:51:32
so deeply with baby Sofia.

02:02:51:41 - 02:02:55:06
My my passion for how I speak about the work

02:02:55:06 - 02:02:58:53
that you're doing does not come from, yes, me as an adult,

02:02:59:13 - 02:03:04:31
but really what it is, is 11 year old me, 12 year old me, 14 year old me

02:03:04:31 - 02:03:07:55
screaming and searching the internet for what you're doing right now.

02:03:08:47 - 02:03:12:07
And it's it's so powerful.

02:03:12:07 - 02:03:14:25
You're doing incredible work.

02:03:14:25 - 02:03:15:52
Oh thank you.

02:03:15:52 - 02:03:19:21
To be honest, I really needed to hear that because after my one year.

02:03:19:21 - 02:03:22:10
Review about how much I earned, I was seriously like,

02:03:22:10 - 02:03:23:47
I don't think I can keep this up anymore.

02:03:24:50 - 02:03:27:45
I will, but in what capacity?

02:03:27:45 - 02:03:31:31
It's told you you have to work is the work is hard and like, it's not sexy.

02:03:31:39 - 02:03:35:06
No, it's not sexy where someone's going to be like, let's go.

02:03:35:27 - 02:03:37:42
You can't go get like, a cute art grant, right?

02:03:37:42 - 02:03:41:13
Like, cuz you're doing it like you're doing nitty gritty work that's not,

02:03:41:49 - 02:03:45:01
you know, but it's I believe so deeply in my heart.

02:03:45:01 - 02:03:48:01
It's going to pay off dividends because.

02:03:48:13 - 02:03:49:12
Need. This.

02:03:49:12 - 02:03:51:57
They're going to find it. It's going to come.

02:03:51:57 - 02:03:54:23
I truly mean this. I'm not just saying this.

02:03:54:23 - 02:03:58:48
I have not recorded a podcast with anybody where I've learned so much.

02:03:59:13 - 02:04:02:33
I just know I'm I'm not I'm truly not saying it.

02:04:02:33 - 02:04:07:21
Like, I think what you've done today has broken so many taboos

02:04:08:00 - 02:04:11:58
and even with myself, like I've started thinking, no, I never ask.

02:04:11:58 - 02:04:12:43
And then what?

02:04:12:43 - 02:04:16:30
I never ask suddenly that question about if someone's repeating the behaviors

02:04:16:37 - 02:04:20:24
I've never thought about reframing lying as storytelling

02:04:20:36 - 02:04:23:54
or sexual harmful acts as repeated behaviors.

02:04:23:54 - 02:04:27:41
Like there was so much that you shared today that I, I'm going to take forward.

02:04:27:48 - 02:04:30:57
That just makes me feel like when I'm putting this all up on this, I'm

02:04:30:57 - 02:04:34:10
writing that information knowing that people are going to learn from it.

02:04:34:10 - 02:04:35:54
Because I learned so much from you today.

02:04:39:01 - 02:04:41:47
And the whole

02:04:41:47 - 02:04:45:54
virtual hug, I I'm just I'm excited and like, it's all kismet.

02:04:45:54 - 02:04:47:54
I told you like I was on my Instagram hiatus.

02:04:47:54 - 02:04:50:20
I'm like, oh, I'm not doing me.

02:04:50:20 - 02:04:51:30
I'm not doing any of this.

02:04:51:30 - 02:04:54:30
And then here this was first post like, what the hell?

02:04:55:01 - 02:04:56:25
Wild. It was wild.

02:04:56:25 - 02:05:01:21
No, I think you even just do this whole experience that you've kicked off

02:05:01:40 - 02:05:05:02
another big part of my healing journey around, like, food and eating,

02:05:06:52 - 02:05:07:14
for me.

02:05:07:14 - 02:05:09:16
And where I realized, like, I am freaking out.

02:05:09:16 - 02:05:10:51
Like, what am I freaking out about?

02:05:10:51 - 02:05:13:39
Because there's this part that I haven't touched yet.

02:05:13:39 - 02:05:16:55
Like you said, we can go on this journey and be so healed,

02:05:16:55 - 02:05:19:24
but there's still going to be shit that's hard for us.

02:05:19:24 - 02:05:21:45
And I realized like, oh yeah, I can talk about it all.

02:05:21:45 - 02:05:24:25
I want. I could talk about the fact that I was an abuser.

02:05:24:25 - 02:05:28:12
I abused, like, I can have that conversation freely with anyone.

02:05:28:37 - 02:05:31:39
And then when we started talking about the food shit, I was like,

02:05:33:03 - 02:05:34:51
oh, meltdown, I can't do this.

02:05:34:51 - 02:05:36:09
I don't feel safe.

02:05:36:09 - 02:05:37:03
Yeah.

02:05:37:03 - 02:05:37:30
And it's

02:05:37:30 - 02:05:40:35
it's just interesting to me, like, I think there's there's more work to be done

02:05:41:09 - 02:05:41:33
also.

02:05:41:33 - 02:05:44:11
Thanks so much for that email chain, by the way.

02:05:44:11 - 02:05:44:58
Yeah. Cuz I remember.

02:05:44:58 - 02:05:47:04
At the time you were so apologetic and I was like,

02:05:47:04 - 02:05:50:15
why so are you being so want to get it like this makes perfect sense.

02:05:51:25 - 02:05:54:28
And it sounds like what we need to do here is just have a bit of a no go topic.

02:05:54:28 - 02:05:56:04
But like, I'm really, really grateful

02:05:56:04 - 02:05:59:34
that you reflected shared back and then actually told me why like that.

02:05:59:49 - 02:06:01:35
I'm very honored that you felt like you could do that,

02:06:01:35 - 02:06:05:36
because we ended up recording something which I know is going to be very powerful.

02:06:06:52 - 02:06:09:12
With you, with this one.

02:06:09:12 - 02:06:11:16
Before I forget, though, my love. Yeah.

02:06:11:16 - 02:06:13:30
Shall we rerecord those intros very quick?

02:06:13:30 - 02:06:14:51
Oh, yeah.

02:06:14:51 - 02:06:17:55
Because I'm going to leave and then be like, oh, fuck the intro.

02:06:17:55 - 02:06:19:49
I think. It's.

02:06:19:49 - 02:06:20:16
Okay.

02:06:20:16 - 02:06:21:52
So do you want a.

02:06:21:52 - 02:06:24:32
Minute to read your little thing that.

02:06:24:32 - 02:06:25:06
You write?

02:06:25:06 - 02:06:29:04
I'm desperate for a wee, do you need the Twitter or anything?

02:06:29:04 - 02:06:32:01
Are you okay? Yeah. I'm good. Okay. I'll be like.

02:06:32:01 - 02:06:33:48
Yeah, to work on my little sound.

02:06:33:48 - 02:06:34:39
You perfect.

02:06:34:39 - 02:06:37:39
I'll be back in a second.

02:06:52:57 - 02:06:55:57
Okay.

02:08:06:14 - 02:08:07:21
Oh my God,

02:08:07:21 - 02:08:10:21
I was so desperate for that, like I.

02:08:10:24 - 02:08:12:39
I've been holding that in for about an hour ago.

02:08:12:39 - 02:08:14:42
How long? We've been talking.

02:08:14:42 - 02:08:17:42
Yeah.

02:08:18:16 - 02:08:18:34
Yeah.

02:08:18:34 - 02:08:20:00
Are you still good for time, by the way?

02:08:20:00 - 02:08:22:31
I reckon. Yeah. We'll only be, like, ten more minutes.

02:08:22:31 - 02:08:23:24
Okay, cool. Yeah.

02:08:24:46 - 02:08:26:18
One thing I did reflect about

02:08:26:18 - 02:08:30:45
when when I was peeing was actually we did kind of just jump straight into it

02:08:30:45 - 02:08:34:01
without giving any context about you and your experiences.

02:08:35:25 - 02:08:37:31
So if it's okay with you,

02:08:37:31 - 02:08:40:31
I would love to record the intro again,

02:08:40:44 - 02:08:43:44
and then maybe just ask if you could just give a little bit of

02:08:43:58 - 02:08:47:11
context about your experiences of child on child abuse.

02:08:47:11 - 02:08:49:48
And it could like you've already done it throughout the podcast.

02:08:49:48 - 02:08:53:40
But I realized as we we jumped straight into like that Age.

02:08:53:40 - 02:08:56:11
Of Innocence and we didn't actually talk to. About you.

02:08:56:11 - 02:08:58:04
So is that cool?

02:08:58:04 - 02:08:59:56
Yeah. All right. Amazing.

02:08:59:56 - 02:09:00:12
Okay.

02:09:00:12 - 02:09:03:12
So how you feeling with your spiel?

02:09:04:08 - 02:09:05:13
I was googling

02:09:05:13 - 02:09:08:13
how to how do you introduce good old Google?

02:09:08:33 - 02:09:12:28
How do you introduce yourself as a guest on a podcast script?

02:09:12:28 - 02:09:12:59
Read it.

02:09:14:56 - 02:09:16:21
It's the right day at the end.

02:09:16:21 - 02:09:17:43
That gets me every time.

02:09:17:43 - 02:09:19:53
Every time I look, I need to, I need to go.

02:09:19:53 - 02:09:22:49
Google is not reliable anymore. I'm like, take me to read it.

02:09:22:49 - 02:09:25:49
That's where I'm going to get the information that I need.

02:09:26:36 - 02:09:27:30
Yeah, I feel good.

02:09:27:30 - 02:09:29:33
I'm just going to do the first one.

02:09:29:33 - 02:09:31:22
Like survivor certified goofball.

02:09:31:22 - 02:09:34:22
Each fan of secrets worth sharing.

02:09:34:28 - 02:09:36:16
Well, so you really don't have to say you're a huge fan.

02:09:36:16 - 02:09:37:55
Like,

02:09:37:55 - 02:09:40:53
you don't don't feel like you plug me so much throughout.

02:09:40:53 - 02:09:42:28
Like they're going to be there.

02:09:42:28 - 02:09:44:25
Like, is she is she a. Player you paid?

02:09:44:25 - 02:09:47:25
Yeah, you were paid tons of.

02:09:51:18 - 02:09:52:10
Yeah.

02:09:52:10 - 02:09:54:05
Okay. I'll take it out. So they're not like, yeah.

02:09:54:05 - 02:09:54:55
Is she a plug?

02:09:55:53 - 02:09:56:06
Yeah.

02:09:56:06 - 02:09:56:31
Well.