To Society
By Amanda Kill ©
To Society
You tell survivors to speak.
Then choke on the truth
the second we finally do.
You say:
“Speak up.”
“Break the silence.”
“Tell your story.”
But what you really mean is:
tell it softly.
Tell it politely.
Tell it in a way that does not make people uncomfortable.
But there is nothing comfortable
about child sexual abuse.
Nothing comfortable
about children learning fear before safety.
Nothing comfortable
about a child’s nervous system being shattered
before they even understand what danger is.
Nothing comfortable
about survivors carrying PTSD,
panic attacks,
hypervigilance,
nightmares
and shame
for the rest of their fucking lives.
And maybe that is the problem.
Society wants survivors inspirational,
not honest.
You want us healing beautifully.
Quietly.
Privately.
Not angry.
Not broken open.
Not screaming truths
that force people to look directly at the horror
this world keeps trying to soften.
You replace abuse with “misconduct.”
You replace grooming with “bad choices.”
You replace predators with “troubled men.”
Meanwhile survivors are over here
trying to survive the aftermath
of things that rewired us before we even hit puberty.
And let me make this painfully fucking clear:
Child sexual abuse is not only rape.
Because too many survivors spend their entire lives
believing their trauma “wasn’t bad enough”
to deserve support,
understanding
or healing.
Child sexual abuse is grooming.
Manipulation.
Molestation.
Coercion.
Sexual exploitation.
Incest.
Inappropriate touching.
Online exploitation.
Boundary violations.
Being sexualised before you were old enough to understand what was happening.
And every single one of those things
can leave lifelong trauma.
Trauma is not measured
by what society considers “severe enough.”
Trauma is measured
by what it did to the child.
What it did to their mind.
Their body.
Their safety.
Their trust.
Their ability to sleep.
To love.
To feel safe being touched.
To exist without constantly scanning the world for danger.
And society still does not understand that.
People hear “survivor”
and picture strength.
They do not picture us shaking in supermarket carparks.
Locking bathroom doors out of instinct.
Flinching at footsteps.
Dissociating during intimacy.
Waking up from nightmares
with our hearts pounding so hard
it feels like we are reliving it all over again.
They do not understand
that trauma lives inside the body.
That child sexual abuse does not end
when the abuse itself stops.
It follows survivors.
Into adulthood.
Into relationships.
Into parenting.
Into sleep.
Into love.
Into every single corner of life.
And still society asks:
“Why didn’t you tell someone sooner?”
Because children are easy to silence.
Especially when the person hurting them
is trusted.
And here is another truth
society desperately avoids:
Most survivors knew the person who abused them.
Family members.
Family friends.
Trusted adults.
People welcomed into homes.
People described as “good people.”
People trusted around children.
That is the truth
people cannot stomach.
Because society wants monsters
to look monstrous.
But real monsters often look normal.
Friendly.
Helpful.
Safe.
That is what makes grooming so fucking dangerous.
And that is why these conversations matter.
Because silence protects abuse.
Silence protects paedophiles.
Silence protects cockroaches hiding behind reputations.
Silence protects perpetrators
while survivors carry shame
that should have belonged to them all along.
Do you know what survivors carry instead?
PTSD.
Depression.
Anxiety.
Dissociation.
Self destruction.
Addiction.
Eating disorders.
Fear.
Hypervigilance.
Rage.
So much fucking rage.
Rage at perpetrators.
Rage at systems.
Rage at adults who should have protected us.
Rage at society
for being more offended by swear words
than by child abuse itself.
How fucking broken is that?
In Australia,
around 1 in 4 people have experienced child sexual abuse.
The Australian Child Maltreatment Study found:
around 37.3% of girls,
roughly 1 in 3 girls,
experience child sexual abuse.
Around 18.8% of boys,
roughly 1 in 5 boys,
experience child sexual abuse.
One in three girls.
One in five boys.
Those are not “rare cases.”
That is an epidemic of trauma
walking silently through this country every single day.
And the average survivor takes almost twenty four years
to disclose abuse.
Twenty four years of silence.
Twenty four years of fear.
Twenty four years carrying trauma alone.
Some survivors never speak at all.
Not because they are lying.
Not because they forgot.
But because society has taught survivors
that silence feels safer than truth.
And that should fucking terrify people.
Not survivors speaking out.
Not survivors using words like rape,
molestation,
grooming
or paedophile.
What should terrify society
is how many survivors are suffering silently
while the world keeps looking away.
You want to protect children?
Then stop silencing conversations about abuse.
Teach people the signs.
Teach children body safety.
Teach parents about grooming.
Teach society what trauma actually looks like.
Because children cannot be protected
from dangers society refuses to acknowledge.
And survivors cannot heal
in a world still trying to minimise what happened to us.
So this is my message to society:
Stop asking survivors
to make trauma sound pretty.
Stop asking us
to speak gently
about things that nearly fucking killed us.
Stop protecting comfort
over children.
And start listening.
Really listening.
Because survivors are everywhere.
Walking around carrying invisible wars inside our bodies
while pretending we are okay
just to make everybody else comfortable.
And to every survivor reading this:
You are not weak.
You are not dramatic.
You are not “too damaged.”
And you are not alone in this big wide world.
Your pain matters.
Your trauma matters.
Your survival matters.
No matter what form the abuse took.
You deserved safety.
You deserved protection.
You deserved childhood.
And none of what happened to you
was ever your fault.
Amanda Kill ©
Protect children.
Silence is where survivors are left to suffer.
Amanda Kill ©