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sophiebunny
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Default Mar 24, 2020 at 12:18 AM
  #1
Trigger warning

I don't know if anyone on this board has survived being the victim of child pornography. I'm just starting to acknowledge it outside of therapy. It's been 30 years since I showed my first trauma therapist pictures that were taken of me at 5, 6, and 7.

I walked into her office, silent. She had been trying so hard to get me to say something, anything about my childhood. She had all my medical records, police records, and social work records. What she didn't have was a single word from me. On this particular day I walked into her office silently, handed her some photos, and sat on her couch emotionless. I didn't know what to expect. She didn't say anything for a long time. I thought she was disgusted with me. When I got up the courage to look at her face, I realized she was crying. I was completely baffled. I couldn't understand why anyone would be crying over those photos of me.

I never forgot what she said to me. "The utter void in your little face breaks my heart. That's why I'm crying." I didn't get it. I sat expressionless. Then she said, "I know you cannot let yourself cry for this little girl and all the little girls who live inside of you, but if we work slowly and carefully, one day you'll be able to cry too."

And she was right. It took decades of work, but I did finally cry for the little girl in those photos. To this day I can't Google myself under the name they used for me. I'm terrified that somewhere in the dark web, all those pictures still live on. My psychiatrist said its unlikely that a child pornography ring back in the 1960s would have their photos on the web in 2020. Still, I worry. I'm 60 yrs old now. And I still worry.

Thanks for listening.
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Default Mar 24, 2020 at 10:09 AM
  #2
Dear Sophiebunny,

I am so very, very sorry that you were exploited and abused like this as a child. It is really so terribly, terribly tragic and horrifying what happened to you. I cannot even imagine what you went through and are still going through after all these years. The whole this is just so utterly heartbreaking!

-- Yao Wen
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sophiebunny
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Default Mar 24, 2020 at 10:59 PM
  #3
The sexual exploitation of children is rarely even acknowledged. Sex trafficking of children, child pornography, the selling of children for sex and profit, no one wants to think about it, which means no one wants to solve the problem. Sometimes something is so awful its easier for societies and governments to think it isn't happening within their own borders than face these human rights abuses head on and prosecute them. The UN has declarations on child sex trafficking and yet all over the world little girls like I was are sold for just that purpose. At least President Trump made stopping child sex exploitation a priority in his administration. It's too late for me but maybe not for other little girls being sold right now.

Mostly the mental health community doesn't even know how to treat us. They don't want to hear our experiences so they shut us down. Our existence is too painful for them to deal with so they pass us around one therapist to another. Everyone hoping someone else will be brave enough to bear witness to what was done to us. I was blessed. After being committed to a psych hospital for a year, I was referred to a specialized trauma therapist and a gifted and tenacious psychiatrist who weren't afraid to look. Weren't afraid to hear. They first had to teach me to talk. From talk came the lost tears. There in lays my 30 year journey.

I don't really look for compassion or empathy. That boat has long since sailed. I don't really even belong here on Psych Central. My experiences are just too far down the bell curve for most people's comfort. I have even had people block my posts, as if my insights and experiences might contaminate them. It doesn't hurt. It just makes me sigh. My therapist has been trying to get me to leave this site. She's probably right. There is no place for me on this board. I am incredibly tenacious myself though.

What I do want is to raise awareness that human rights abuses against children continue on right under people's noses. No child should be sold as sexual property. I wish the governments of the world could just agree on that. It would be progress.

Last edited by sophiebunny; Mar 25, 2020 at 12:18 AM..
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