If you’ve been sexually abused, tell, Mad Mom says

It’s Mad Mom here, and people know enough not to tangle with an angry mother!

What am I angry about you ask?

It’s about sexual abuse. A few months ago, I called it a festering wound in Nunavut. The weight of what so many people carry around inside, in the form of their dark secrets about what happened to them.

This weight, this burden, becomes unbearable.

There has been so much anger, sadness, violence, depression, suicides, addiction and acting out because of it. Sexual abuse seems to be at the root of so much of what we are seeing now.

Standoffs, murders, partner violence, hostage-taking, shooting up detachments, purposely trying to set up a confrontation with police.

All of these actions speak loudly about what people are going through in their hearts and minds, people who lack the knowledge that things could get a lot better, or how to draw that kind of attention to themselves to get help.

I am mad that we have not gone out of our way to educate suffering people on one important point: the worst has already happened to them, nothing they do now, in reaching out and getting the help they have always needed, will ever be as scary as the abuse itself was.

People are frightened to tell; they think only bad things will happen. Yes, some people may be upset, but it didn’t happen to them, it happened to you.

You have the right to be in control of your own body and to feel as safe as anyone else. No sad, yucky secret should be kept any longer.

Nunavummiut, it is time to let it out, to take the pain, fear and awful feelings out of you, once and for all. Refuse to let them live in you anymore.

Make a huge change in your life and do one thing; tell.

The blame and the shame are not yours to carry around, in fact, they never were yours – instead, shame on the person who did this to you!

Have courage, value yourself enough to come forward and speak up about what happened to you, because you deserve a better life, free of secrets, free of silence.

Please trust in your own self and take that step forward; tell.

Sometimes we spend way too much time worrying that talking about it will only make things worse. Not correct.

As you talk about it, it is like thawing out emotionally. Although you will sometimes experience the feelings around when it occurred, you will also feel the strength returning to you that has been absent since this happened.

When you stand up for your own life, you will begin to take better care of it, you will get rid of what is not healthy and replace the space it used to fill up with so many better things.

You will be building you! You will grow emotionally and mentally, no matter what your age, once you do this.

You will begin to see the world through new eyes and mature in a way you could not, when you were so shut down from secret tears and fears.

Trust me. Come forward now. It will be okay.

Just tell.

(Name withheld by request)
Iqaluit

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