The MeToo Movement Triggered My Childhood Trauma

How thousands of voices silenced mine

The road is a long one. Often dark and almost always lonely. At least that’s how it started out for me. Even in the midst of a hashtag gone viral followed by massive media coverage, instead of feeling a burden lifted, I felt my voice once again silenced.

But mine is not a story of despair. I prefer to think of it as a journey of forgiveness and self-discovery.

It happened when I was 11.

A one-time abuse that I would repress for over 30 years, it wasn’t until just before getting married that the pain resurfaced. I had started seeing a counselor once a week and the therapy had begun to unveil more than my past sexual trauma.

My parents’ divorce, my father’s alcoholism, and my resentment towards him all started to reveal themselves. With each therapy session, I felt the weight of my childhood dysfunction. And while it was extremely emotionally draining, I knew that I was making progress towards becoming a healthier version of myself.

I have a distinct memory of sitting on the bed, sobbing.

You are going to marry a broken woman.

In his attempts to assuage my hurt, my fiancé simply replied “don’t say that…it’s not true.”