🚫 What it means to have experienced childhood sexual abuse
Experiencing sexual abuse as a child meant your understanding of safety, boundaries, and your own body was fundamentally altered during your most vulnerable developmental years.
You may have learned to disconnect from your body as a survival mechanism, developing an early warning system that made you hypervigilant to potential threats while simultaneously teaching you to freeze or dissociate when overwhelmed. Your relationship with trust, intimacy, and physical touch became complicated in ways that other people struggle to understand. You carried secrets that felt too big for a child to hold, often blaming yourself for something that was never your fault.
You may have developed a fractured relationship with your own body - sometimes feeling completely disconnected from physical sensations, other times experiencing overwhelming anxiety or pain without clear triggers. The abuse taught your nervous system that intimacy and danger could coexist, making adult relationships feel like navigating a minefield where love and fear became tragically intertwined.