Yesterday was a very strange day.  Talk about doing something that puts you right out of your comfort zone.  Last night I went up to London, with Pete as my chaperone, to a TV studio to broadcast on a live show about childhood sexual abuse – “It’s our little secret”, The ChrissyB Show.  It was a real honour to be invited, and even more of one to share the sofa with two survivors.

The show will come out on YouTube, so I’ll post a link in due course.

I have so many thoughts whirring in my mind about the show, some my own process (if you like, things I noticed about myself, but that’s the professional counsellor in action, always in active process), and some responses to things I heard and joined in the discussion about.  I’ll mull on those for now, and come back here sometime soon.  I think today I just wanted to note how proud I felt, how much in awe I am of these brave survivors to go live on TV and talk about the dark secret of sexual abuse.  The dark secret that Society still tries to keep a lid on, and pretend it doesn’t happen – at least, not near them.  I looked at some research yesterday in preparation for the show… As an aside, I remembered well the point I made in the opening to Hurt, that research, statistics, quotas are of little help or comfort to those going through the trauma of childhood sexual abuse…… Anyway.  It was so dense, so impenetrable.  I’m not sure that I got much out of it.  Perhaps one thing.  Of those surveyed, and had said that they were sexually abused as a child, only 1% was by someone not known to them…  Bang!  That’s another piece of evidence in the solar plexus of the myth that our children are most at risk from ‘stranger danger’.

I shall keep on saying this, but the greatest risk to children is from sexual predators within family networks.  Read the cases in Hurt.  Watch the YouTube (when it comes out), to see the abuse from within known networks.  This is the real danger, which is why “it’s our little secret” is such a powerful title to choose for the programme.  I hope there will be others to follow.