Fall Forward (my journey in a nutshell)

By Sophie Olson

This is me; this is my story. But of course, it’s not just mine. This story has happened to and continues to happen to many people. The details may differ but the impact is devastating.

At best, we might experience feelings of shame, confusion or lack of self-worth. At worst, we might feel our lives are blighted by unbearable emotional distress or physical illness. A lack of support for Child Sexual Abuse survivors might lead some to develop coping mechanisms such as the ones described in this blog.

If you relate to anything here, I hope you are reassured to know that you’re certainly not alone. Navigating your way through life as a CSA survivor can feel overwhelming. At times, it might feel insurmountable, but it’s not. There is always hope. There is always a way through.

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Lived Experience

It is a commonly expressed concern that survivors are too vulnerable to do this work and might be retraumatised in the process. I have never felt this, on the contrary I feel empowered when I speak and it is fulfilling to be left with the sense of having made a tangible difference to the way professionals might perceive, interact with and respond to child and adult survivors of child sexual abuse.

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So…how are you now?

When we present a talk or workshop on CSA, we state at the beginning that we welcome disclosures as we do like to signpost people to further support, and we always allow ourselves extra time at the end so people don’t feel under time pressure if they want to talk.
Some want to speak about their experiences and others talk about the experiences of friends or family.

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A Good Week!

This week has been a busy one! On Tuesday The Flying Child Project presented to a secondary school. It was successful for a few reasons: Firstly, we learnt an important lesson as to where our own limitations lie. We know that running the same workshop four times in one day is too much. When you do this work, you share from your soul. It took its toll and, during an important debrief meeting on Thursday, we decided how we can better manage the structure in the future.

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