[Bonus episode] How to END a conversation on Childhood Sexual Abuse?

In this bonus episode, survivors Soniah and Sophia discuss how to end a conversation on childhood sexual abuse, after the filming of their episode on repeated behaviours.

Transcript

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Can I ask you a question?

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Yeah. Of course.

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When you're having conversations around

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childhood sexual abuse,

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how do you normally segue out of the conversation back into real life?

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It really depends on what it is.

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When it's a first first disclosure

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like and it's someone that I know and I, and I know that I'm

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either the first person they've told or it's been, you know, a very long time.

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I really, really give them that space.

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And like we talk about it for as long as they need to.

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And then when I'm sensing that, you know,

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the emotional peaks have like started to drop.

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So for example, either the crying has stopped, we've processed that

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and then we're starting to like lowkey make a couple of jokes.

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Then I'll just say something along the lines of like, right.

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I think it'd be really good now to spend a bit of time doing something

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like good, and to just make sure that you leave feeling positive.

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And so what I suggest is like we go and get a pizza,

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or we go on a walk, or we just get into a different zone

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and we don't talk about it for that moment.

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That's not saying I'm not going to talk to you about it ever again.

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It's just I think we need to end on a positive.

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And then I'll just say that anything else you want to say before we do that?

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And then usually they’re like, no, let's go get fucking pizza.

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Let's go get some. Yeah. Yeah. Shit fucking sucks.

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Like I'm ready to go.

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Yeah, I this came to me because I think as we're, like,

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winding down, I think about this sometimes with people that I've talked to.

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It's like the moment where I'm like, when I first started disclosing

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and I'm like, I don't really know where we go from here.

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But now I'm just like, here's all this shit.

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Yeah, ends up being kind of awkward,

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and then I end up trying to be like, I got to muster this up.

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I wanted to offer this up for anyone else who might have that conversation of,

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how do you how do you navigate from, we've just had this conversation,

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and what you said is exactly what I would offer up as like offer care.

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Yeah. What is this?

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What does this person love?

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And can we go into a space where we can ease you into care

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and then back into your into your real life?

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Let's go outside for a walk.

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Let's go get some dessert, because that shit is crazy.

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Yeah. -Let's do this. Like.

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Yeah, and I will.

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I'll offer two other different examples because I think it's really it's

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a really important question and actually something no one's asked me before.

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When I started to

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become like, I want to make this my bread and butter.

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How much I earn on doing this as my bread of life is a whole other story

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But when I started working full time on child sexual abuse,

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it just naturally comes up in conversation as part of the job.

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And obviously I'm extremely aware about who I have my work rants to

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because my work rants aren't just like, oh, my emails are not working.

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And I was late to a call

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My work rant will be, oh, like someone wanted to collaborate with me.

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But instead of offering a business

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opportunity, they ended up ranting to me for two hours about the experience

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their child had.

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And it's just a very blurred boundary there

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I'm always quite aware about who I'm having those conversations with.

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And I guess there’s more trusted work conversations.

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But funnily enough, a lot of the disclosures that I've had from

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people close to me have come from the fact that they're like, you talk about this

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so blasé that you made me feel like I could do it too -To tell you.

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Yeah.

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So there's that kind of option of it as well.

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And I remember I was having a chat with someone at dinner.

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I was at a dinner party of, like, close friends

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and one person I'd only just met for the first time.

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And I remember just being like, oh, yeah.

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And at work there was this whole thing around.

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I was trying to get some money, but I was like, oh, nobody funds sexual abuse.

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It's so not fun. It's so not on trend.

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And then I was like, oh shit.

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And I was like,

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I should probably say to you, I'm a child sex abuse activist, but like,

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doesn't have to go deeper than that.

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We don't have to talk about it more than that. But sorry.

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Sometimes I bring things up about my work because.

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It's just so normal the way it should be, right?

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Yeah. The way that, like.

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And this is the mission.

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Yeah.

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It's I mean, yeah, it's

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a very interesting line because it's like until that becomes normalized.

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Yes. You lost your inadvertently triggering people.

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So I am still very careful about how I do those conversations.

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Or I usually lead by I'm an activist and I focus on topics people

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find really hard to talk about.

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And when people go, go on what I think, you know, be like death.

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I'm like, oh, child sexual abuse and assault and all the intersections around it

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And then they’re either like, yeah.

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And from that reaction

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Everyones back straightens up a little bit

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Exactly.

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So like I told someone today,

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I was messaging, my coworker right before on slack and I'm like,

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oh yeah, I'm like, leaving early, I'm going to go record a podcast.

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And he's like, oh, what are you going to talk about?

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The Phillies versus the Yankees or some sports thing?

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And I was like, no child sexual assault or abuse and

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there was like the moment we're now and this is where we have it in our do not.

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I was like, okay, I know I just dropped a bomb on this person.

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Let me do like my due diligence to help, like clean this up

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and make it easier for him. And I'm just like, yes.

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But like our goal is to be authentic and like use some humor while doing it.

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So it's should be should be a good time.

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And like that was the end of it.

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And then they were able to respond to that.

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And I think that that's something I'm always working through,

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through this new stage I'm in.

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I'm like, I'm like, okay, freely talking about it.

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I'll tell anyone.

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Yeah, because I've reached that point where I've accepted

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this part of the reality and I'm okay with talking about it, because I know

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the more that we talk about it openly, the more people that will get freed.

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There is also a part of the care that comes from us survivors

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who've already done the work to make sure we're caring

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for people who may not be on that journey because. -Yes.

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We never know who we're triggering when we when we share it.

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So there is a part about being free.

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We do want to be free and open in our experience, and we don't owe anyone

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our story being polished and we don't owe anyone our story having filters on it.

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No one. We don't owe that to anyone.

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And also we should offer community care

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by being mindful that yes, we've dealt with it,

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but there might be someone that we're talking to on the other side

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who is never looked at their their abuse, who has completely suppressed it.

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And this might be the time that it comes up. Yeah.

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So there is that delicate line that we also walk and there is some also

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like accountability for us survivors who have now crossed that line.

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Yeah, I think there's a line in healing.

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I think I started talking about it earlier, like the repress stage

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Now I'm in my anger, now I'm depressed,

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and now I mean, like the space where I need to be cared for as a victim.

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So now I need to be coddled and cared for by people.

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I need everyone to, like, walk on eggshells around me

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because I need to feel that.

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And then now on the other side of like, hey, it is what it is.

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And I'm constantly having to remind myself, like, there are

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people around me who are

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still on the other side of that healing journey.

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And while I can be free and blasé about it,

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I do also need to hold space for those who aren't there yet.

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Yeah.

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And that's also another important part, like accountability part

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for us as survivors who are already on the journey for a while.

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Absolutely.

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Until it's normalized, we're still disruptive and that can be great.

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But it used to be very tri-

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Triggering people. Yeah, I know, I'm so proud of that.

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I came up with that and I was like, wow, she’s so quotable

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That is like until it's normalize it is disruptive.

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Yeah.

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But on the flip side, we also still need to care for ourselves, right.

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So the other example I was going to give to you was that

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sometimes

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people can quite quickly assume you're indestructible.

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When you're a survivor activist, it's like, wow, she's healed.

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She's got to a point where she's talking about this publicly.

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What a queen.

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I'm going to come to her with all my shit.

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Don't get me wrong.

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Like there is absolutely a certain amount of healing

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I've done to get to this point, and I'm sure the same with you.

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But it doesn't mean that every now and then I'm

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still not going to feel like angry or pissed off or like overwhelmed.

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Just just in any capacity.

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Like how you feel overwhelmed at work, if you're great at drawing

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and now you've got to draw 5000 pictures, you're going to feel overwhelmed.

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And I had a situation where I was doing, one of my events,

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last year,

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and someone was coming to support me with them, who was also a survivor.

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And it was very tricky because we both met in

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we both met in the context of being survivors.

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So there was never any like disclosure in the sense of like

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we were both from the get go, like, hey, I'm a survivor activist.

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Oh, hey, I'm a survivor activist, whatever.

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So they were coming to support with my event,

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and we hadn't really had that conversation of like,

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you're might, you might get triggered through what comes up at the events.

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But also I'm very tired

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because I'm going to be playing this role for quite a lot of people at the event.

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So then what support do I need from you other than putting up the chairs,

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and how are we going to process that after?

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And because we hadn't had that conversation at the beginning yet

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at the end of the event, we just sat there

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and it was almost like it was like sitting on a carousel.

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So it was like they felt really bad.

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I felt a duty to support them because they supported me.

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So then I let them share all of these things,

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even though I wasn't in the right headspace.

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But then they felt bad about doing it, and we just went round

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and round and round and even recognized at like three points.

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We were like, we need to get off this carousel.

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Like we said, we're not going to talk about it.

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We agreed to like, leave the space and go to another space and not talk about it.

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And it happened again and again and again.

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And I swear it nearly got to a point where I nearly just left and walked away.

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And I'm so glad I didn't because I was like,

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I'm not going to do this because that's so uncool.

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And also it doesn't help me in any which way,

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because I'm still going to have this conversation with this friend.

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Yeah.

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But instead I was just like, look, something needs to give here because

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we're still having this conversation.

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So let's switch it up.

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Like, why do we think we keep having this conversation?

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Yeah, a better question. -I think it's because

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Yeah. Yeah.

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I think it's because we didn't define any parameters

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about how we support each other as activists in this space.

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And then it led to something wholesome and productive.

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And once we had our takeaway actions, because I don't know if you guessed,

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I absolutely love my takeaway practical steps

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Once we had those, it felt like, okay, there's

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been some sort of outlet for this conversation.

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Let's get a kebab and then we got a kebab.

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So I guess the reason I share

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that one as well is because yes, sometimes it does go wrong,

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and you might not always want to react in the way your body might want to react

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in a completely different way.

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But just recognizing those, those moments where you still feel

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a bit overwhelmed and then trying to ask the question in a slightly different way.

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Yeah.

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How do you how do you navigate around it, give yourself a chance to.

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Yeah, I think about this too sometimes.

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Like if something doesn't go the way that we want it to

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and you're like, oh, I fucked it up.

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This person told me, and I tanked it.

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Like, you still get a chance to come back.

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Yeah.

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And try again.

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And also this is so important.

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Soniah, from what you were saying earlier, we struggle

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with this conversation as full ass adults.

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Full ass adults!

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People are still people in their 60s are still asking me these kinds of things.

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And yet the first thing that a lot of kids do is disclose to other kids.

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Do you think there's that emotional capacity there?

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I certainly did not have it.

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I'm still learning it now. -Yeah.

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So just be mindful that as much as you're navigating these conversations,

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your child probably already had it with another child.

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And whether or not they've been equipped

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and aware and educated will totally affect the actions that happen next.

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Yeah.

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Big time.

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Yeah. There's so many layers.

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So many.

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So yeah its... -Beautiful complex layers.

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But I love kind of we went on this like and and and

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because that's that's what's needed here is this nuance.

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Because no response or no reaction or how you ease out of it

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is going to be the same in any, in any capacity.

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And all we have is the best that we can, and all we can do is equip ourselves with

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as much information to be able to choose differently

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and guide down that line. So,

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and on that beautiful note,

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I want to end the podcast.