survivor of sex abuse

andrei · Silver Member Joined: 04 Jun 2002 Posts: 298

Hello! My friend is survivor of sex abuse and ever since that happened -9 months ago and she’s 28- she’s been depressed. Who can tell me something of how she could deal with this experience and keep on with her life. I want her back just the way she was before but I started to be suspicious over that. I know it is hard to manage it but there must be the way out of this depressed condition for the survivors of sex abuse. And I wonder how I could help my friend?

cherilyn · Silver Member Joined: 24 Jan 2002 Posts: 229

I might be of help for I’m one of the survivors of sex abuse. I am now 39 and I was sexually abused at the age of 26 and it took me years to “forget” it. I hope your friend is a strong character and if not she will need a lot of patients and understanding and even lot of help in gaining the strength from her surroundings including her friend too and the family support of course. you now, after all that happened to me I was diagnosed with depression as a consequence of sexual abuse so I was prescribed proper treatment consisted of antidepressants that I was taking for almost three years. Yes that’s right and in some cases it takes even longer. So important is if she is depressed to get right diagnose and to start proper treatment for this is also important in dealing with her current condition. I was also going on rehab treatment meaning I frequented the psychiatric meetings and was having conversations with others survivors of sex abuse which is also effective treatment. And I could bet now that exercising had helped me a lot in dealing with what I’ve experienced and so now after so many years have passed after this event I exercise and work out or jogging whatever and am off of medicines or to be more precise of antidepressants for longer than a decade now. I don’t want to say that I’ve forgot what happened to me but I was lucky to find the way to get out of the dark stage I was in for so long. And the fact is my family and my two friends helped me a lot they’ve made me believe that life goes on anyway so I got it like I had to choose in what way I would be living what’s left and I choose the lighter side.

survivor of sex abuse

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