My name is Esther Hernandez.
I’m originally from Dorset, UK and now live in Leeds.
I decided to take part in Victorious Voices because although I am doing a lot better, I think I still struggle with shame around what happened to me, and I think sharing my story will help me to accept that I am not to blame. I hope that, once I am ready to share, it will also help other survivors know they aren’t alone or to blame for what happened to them too.
I want to challenge victim-blaming and stop the subject being brushed under the carpet, and to empower children who are currently experiencing/ at risk of experiencing CSA to get help. I think that if children are educated properly around relationships, including abusive behaviour, and if society becomes more responsive to survivors, then abusers won’t have any more power to carry on hurting others- kids will feel able to speak about inappropriate or uncomfortable behaviours and be protected before it escalates, but that relies on children feeling able to speak up and being listened too properly, one without the other doesn’t work.
The person who first abused me was a close family member on my mother's side. The abuse was my first memory of him, so I would have been about 3 years old, if that. I then had other experiences of abuse as a teenager, but this was the one that impacted me the most as it went on the longest, and he was a man I should have been able to trust and feel safe with. Instead, he took full advantage of me. I know I wasn't the only one either, and that other girls were victimised by him in similar ways. I don't have any real memories from a time before him, my whole life has been lived with this experience in some way.
At school, my class had a relationships/sex ed lesson at school and this really distressed me, mainly because I realised, I could get pregnant. I always knew it was wrong, but this aspect really shook me up because I felt like everyone would blame me if it got that far, so I told before we went to Colombia, and luckily my parents cancelled the visit.
To begin healing from my abuse I accessed counselling, spoke to some friends and a teacher who I really trusted. It’s been a difficult process, but these are some of the things that have helped me. Learning to set boundaries was really key, especially with my family. I’m still working on that, and setting boundaries sometimes ties me up in knots, but some affirmations that help with this are ‘No is a complete sentence’, ‘I deserve compassion and respect’, ‘you shouldn’t need to ask permission to feel safe.’
EMDR was really helpful for me as a therapy, but everyone is different. I would say that finding a therapist you feel safe and comfortable with is most important- the relationship is the foundation for any good work. Volunteering and working for a charity that supports survivors has really helped me, but it took me a while to feel ready and it was hard initially. Carolyn Spring’s resources have also been really helpful.
One of the biggest ways I reclaimed my sense of identity and agency after experiencing abuse was through dance, especially Latin dancing- as I felt really disconnected from my heritage as a Latina. Dance has reconnected me with my culture and improved my confidence- I even danced professionally for a while. I forget everything bad when I dance. It also improved my body image as I struggled a lot with this too.
I initially started small with self-care practices, and with things I could include in my daily routine e.g. a small self-care purse with my favourite candle so I can use the smell to ground for example, and breathwork.
I let my partner and best friends know what I like to do when I feel overwhelmed, so that if they can see me getting stressed they can remind me of what I can do and hearing it from someone else helps when I’m not giving myself permission to do something.
Boundaries are the biggest self-care for me. I make sure I schedule time by myself when I can see I’ve got a busy week ahead, and try to overschedule my weeks in general I remind myself of the child I was when this happened when things get really bad, because I have accepted now that being angry with her is what he wants, showing compassion to who I was and who I am is the biggest act of rebellion against what he did for me.
Some key moments that served as turning points in my recovery were speaking out properly for the first time at university, it was the first time a few family members found out about what he had done/was doing and it helped to have their support, it could have gone either way.
I spent a lot of time really angry and turned this on myself because I couldn’t let it out anywhere else. Self- forgiveness took a lot to achieve, but seeing myself not as the person I am angry at, but the child who was hurt, helped me to have compassion and shift the blame. In terms of forgiving others, I know I will never forgive my abusers, or those that helped them- I don’t owe them that, but I am able to extend the compassion and self-forgiveness to the people I work with and my friends, so I think it’s helped me to help others too in a way.
To other CSA Survivors on the healing journey, I would say:
- To remember that boundaries aren’t just rules from other people that you need to follow, you can set them, and you have every right to ask for what you need.
- You are not to blame and will never be to blame for this. It feels like you are, but you didn’t ask for what happened and deserved so much better.
- Recovery isn’t linear, and it’s ok to want different things. We don’t all have to aim for the same goals, and how we get to them is going to be different for everyone.
It’s ok to be angry at what happened, but remember being angry at yourself, no matter the circumstances, is the perpetrators game and aim. Being kind to yourself, remembering you were a child who should have had protection, compassion and empathy, giving yourself space and grace, is the ultimate rebellion against what they wanted for you.