Something really bad happened to me

Q: Something really bad happened to me and I feel awful inside. I don’t know what to do. I feel disgusting and dirty all over.

A: The first thing I would ask that you do is to tell someone what happened that you know you can trust like a teacher, a parent or a relative. No one has the right to hurt you, or make you hurt others. No one has the right to touch you or have you touch them in an inappropriate way. No one has the right to take advantage of you by making you do inappropriate things. Please always remember, that no matter how bad it was, You did nothing wrong! I know you may feel embarrassed and uncomfortable talking about it but an adult that you know you can trust will know it was not your fault and they will help you. If you feel very scared telling someone in person please call or go on-line to the Kids Help Phone which is in my links listing or go to another organization in your area. They will listen to you, they will know it’s not your fault and they will help you.

Digging into the roots of the situation:

                Usually we are with someone because we trust them or you are put in their care because a parent or guardian trusted them. But if someone you trusted or someone you didn’t know forced you to do something or did something to you that was inappropriate, it can make you feel like you can’t trust anyone anymore. Trust is something that is earned because you have developed confidence over time by your experience, or were told by someone else, that a certain person can be depended on to be nice and to do what is right and good. But once that faith is undone or gone, we may not trust anyone for a long time. It’s ok to feel that way. It may be that much of what you feel inside is the sadness over being hurt so badly by someone you trusted.

When bad things happen to us that make us feel very uncomfortable because we know it’s wrong or we think it’s wrong, we can become very upset and confused inside. It can be difficult to understand what happened, why it happened and we may not even understand how we should feel. Sometimes we don’t know what happened was wrong until after it was over. If what happened was really bad, all that anger, confusion, sadness, disgust and fear builds up inside of you like a balloon ready to bust.  Except the balloon doesn’t seem to burst, it just stays locked up inside and it can really hurt us, like we’re screaming to let it out.

                I know that you have a lot of pain inside of you. It’s difficult for anyone who has experienced a horrible event to feel better, but you need to know that you will feel better. I won’t lie to you, it will take time to feel better and you won’t forget what happened but you can heal and feel better inside. The best way to start the healing is to talk to someone and let them help you.

Transformation- What Action can we take: The first thing we need to do is to make sure the person does not hurt you again and that you are safe. Secondly it seems reasonable that you will want to feel better inside. Thirdly, you need to be able to trust again. Although I know it may take a long time and maybe you will never trust completely again, you need to know there are a lot of good people out there who care about you and can be trusted.

                The first step to making sure your safe is to tell an adult you know you can trust or call the helpline. They will make sure you are safe and the person who has done this to you cannot do it again. To feel better, you need to let someone help you, talk to you about it and let all that pressure out of your balloon. As you talk to trusted people you will find that slowly you will begin to experience some of that trust that you had before. The pain inside of you will get less but probably not go away completely. Kind of like a scar after you have cut yourself. The pain will stop but the scar will be there for a long time. Remember that you are a good person, many people love and care about you, and the world has many good people in it that you can trust. Start with someone you know you can trust and take tiny steps from there.