Laurie's Story

“I am Laurie. I am exactly who I am supposed to be.  The DNA in me is right, not wrong.”

Laurie is a strong, amazing woman. Her strength of character is reflected in her eyes – she has a soft determination that surrounds her and emanates from her core.

Laurie bravely told her story to me. She grew up without a safe place. Laurie witnessed physical violence as a young child. This sets the stage for a child to question the world in ways she shouldn't need to. She grew up feeling different. Feeling isolated from her peers, and the adults around her. She developed a protective shell to keep that negativity from reaching her.  This shell was often perceived as superiority when in fact,  the opposite was true.  “You really can’t know someone without really taking time to allow them to unfold and be who they are”.  

Her one oasis was defined as a person that made her feel like she could just be herself.  This oasis provided the small piece of stability and love on which she could anchor her soul.  

Laurie's offender groomed her. Fed her lies. Violated her in many smaller ways to tear her down and create a more vulnerable victim. He created an environment to suit his desires to do as he wished with her. Coercing her to be unclothed. He forced much more access to her private self than any person has a right to.  She knows that hurt people, hurt people.  

There were layers of pain that served as a platform in her life for some painful years on which she based her decisions out of her wounds rather than her strengths.  

“I have made mistakes in my life. But I own them now.”

Growing up as she did, there is no wonder how she developed a negative inner monologue. But Laurie knows that she is not responsible for what happened to her. Pain is a universal experience.  That making choices based on hurt creates more hurt. And letting go of pain – not forgetting, but not letting it lead one's life – is the most healing thing one can do.  Forgiveness sets you free.

“Recovery is the most badass thing a person can do.”  “We are all recovering from something.”

Laurie lives a very full and fulfilling life. She has professional success. She works daily to love and be loved.  Acceptance goes a long way.  Grace levels the playing field of life. . She has found forgiveness in her heart.

Finding a stable and functional life as an adult is no easy task for a child that has experienced trauma from before her first memories. Laurie knows that she is exactly who she is supposed to be, but recognizes the long road it took to get her to where she is now. She also knows that recovery from trauma is not a static state of being, but requires constant work as life changes around you.   And…..she believes “LOVE ALWAYS WINS”.

Monika's Story

Chef. Innkeeper. Wife. Furrmom. Friend. Bleeding heart liberal. Animal lover. Cultural Anthropologist. Francophile. Forever Student. Feminist. Gay Rights Activist. Celine Dion Superfan.

By all accounts most people would look at me and see a successful business owner and passionate creative. Someone who has proven herself to be strong, driven, hard working and has made a good life for herself. Someone they may even admire. What most people don’t know about me is that I’m all of these things, but I’m also a statistic.

I am 1 in 3. It’s not an elite club that offers many perks. It’s not something to brag about or to be proud of. In fact, it’s something I’ve spent most of my life, at least the last 29 or so years of it, pretending I didn’t belong to because the implications of it were too frightening to me to acknowledge. But I’m here to tell you that I am 1 in 3. I’m one of the unlucky women who is a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

Not unlike most children, I wasn’t abused by a stranger. I knew my perpetrator very well. In fact, he was my step grandfather. I grew up around him. I was left alone with him. My family trusted me with him. So I had no reason to question or doubt that trust…until I did. I don’t know exactly when it started because I’ve spent a long time trying to forget, to minimize what happened, to numb myself to its effects, to pretend I’m ok and I’m one of the lucky ones who didn’t suffer as a result of what happened to me as an innocent child.

I cannot pretend any longer. Based upon my earliest memories of when it started I was somewhere around 7 or 8 years old and it lasted until I was somewhere around 11 or 12. This was not an isolated incident, nor was it a harmless touch. I was groomed, developed for it. The abuse had a progression and a systematic evolution. The only reason it ended was because a family member walked in on us one time. The incident was never discussed any further and no questions were asked. So in my child’s mind I decided I must have done something bad. I must have deserved it. I must be damaged or sick or disgusting and it’s my shame to bear in silence. I pushed the abuse so far into the recesses of my mind that I felt like I could put it into a little box, lock that box up with a key and never open it again. It was the only way I knew how to cope. I decided that if I was the bad one, the damaged one, the one who deserved it, I somehow had to make myself undeserving. I had to be better, smarter, stronger, more perfect and more loveable.

I also decided that if it was my body that caused this to happen to me, than it was my body that deserved punishment. I decided to systematically try to make that body disappear so that it wouldn’t cause me any more pain. I’d like to chalk up my anorexia to a dysfunctional dance world and a patriarchal society that worships beauty, which of course contributed to the disorder, but the reality of it was that it was the only way I knew how to control what happened to my body. So control it I did, through exercise, laxatives, diuretics and not allowing any “bad” foods to pass my lips. He robbed me of any power over my body so I took it back by controlling it, by punishing it for what it did.

Traits that perhaps made me excel in school, or be an exemplary employee, be a good dancer, be a respected business owner and even be a model wife all grew out of the abuse. I became a hyper perfectionist, a hyper over achiever, a systematic hard worker willing to push myself to the limits of my capacity, a super pleaser and someone who needed validation like others need heroine. These were my ways of soothing myself, of making myself feel ok, of making myself feel strong and capable and confident, of feeling loved.

But the reality is that these coping skills don’t make you any of those things. They are an illusion. They put into place a fragile pseudo security blanket that has no foundation. They support a sense of self that isn’t fully developed and that hinges on outside forces. A self that is incredibly susceptible to stress and to anxiety and to challenges that rock that fragile security. This is what happened with me as life threw a bunch of curve balls my way in the span of 2 years. Between medical issues, family issues and business stresses, I felt like my life was suddenly spiraling out of control.

It wasn’t until I finally decided to seek the help of a capable professional that I realized the depth of the hurt inside of me. It took the support and safety of a therapeutic relationship to realize that the abuse I locked away so carefully as a child was never as innocuous and hidden as I thought it was. It was a time bomb ticking and just waiting to explode. Once it did, there was no way to put the pieces of myself back together again in the way I had so carefully crafted up to this point. Within that Pandora’s box was immense pain, shame, guilt, fear, helplessness and anger that I had hidden along with the rest of my emotions in a valiant attempt at being the pillar of strength. I equated no emotion with maturity, with being strong, when in reality I was hiding from vulnerability and keeping my feelings repressed for fear that once I let them out they would overwhelm me and I wouldn’t be able to function anymore.

Only now am I beginning to deal with the ramifications of the abuse. Only now am I allowing myself to grieve the child self that lives inside of me and allow her to grow up feeling safe and loved and wanted and you know what? It sucks. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever done. You cannot comprehend the degree to which this kind of trauma affects every aspect of someone’s life. And sadly, the hardest part of dealing with this is the degree to which it makes everyone around you uncomfortable. When people discover you are a survivor of childhood sexual abuse most of them either shut down or say “it was in the past…get over it” or some permutation thereof. I get it. Believe me I do. There’s nothing comfortable about it, especially for me. I don’t want to tell people that this happened or how it has affected me, but I know that I cannot possibly heal by hiding it.

Abuse happens in the context of a relationship, a dysfunctional sick one where a perverted adult exerts their power over a non-consenting innocent child. That kind of trauma can only heal through connection. And so I keep telling my story to anyone who will listen, hoping to find my tribe of people who can and will support me through my healing journey.

If someone tells you they have been abused, please try to stay open and listen. They are trusting you with the most personal, difficult, shameful story of their life. They have chosen you. You are special. And trust for someone who has suffered from abuse is tenuous at best. As someone once said, it’s like a spider web. It takes forever to form, yet it’s incredibly fragile and can be destroyed in an instant. So as I say, if someone has put that delicate trust in you, tell them you believe them and tell them you care about them. Let them know you don’t think any less of them and that you are there to support them in any way you can. And if you say you are there to support them… mean it. Don’t shut down on them. It only reinforces the many ways in which they feel unworthy of love.

If there is anything good that can come out of something like this, it is to promote awareness of and to remove the stigma of abuse and of talking about it. Please help me to start an open conversation and dialogue about childhood sexual abuse. Teach your kids the difference between good and bad touch. Tell them that their bodies are their own and nobody else is entitled to touch them in any way that they do not approve of. And please for the love of God don’t shy away from discussing their anatomy with them. Children who do not know what makes them unique biologically are vulnerable. You don’t need to have blatant sexual discussion, and in fact I don’t advise hyper sexualizing children at a young age, but let’s not ignore obvious anatomical differences because it makes us uncomfortable.

And most of all, to parents…if you suspect that something is not right with your child, if he/she has become withdrawn, broody or any other obvious change in behavior, talk to them. You know your kids better than anyone and they have to know that they can trust you with anything, even something as frightening and shameful as abuse.

The First Words Are The Hardest - Shanna's Story

The first words are the hardest.  My grandfather molested me, from a very young age.  I don't remember when it started.  I don't remember when it stopped.  I do remember how very wrong I felt for most of my life.

For a long time, I never felt safe.  The people who were supposed to keep me safe didn't.  The people who could have stopped it didn't.  I didn't trust anyone around me, and was drawn to all of the wrong people at the same time.  I had good friends, who were good people, but I never put my trust in them.  The connection between love and trust had been broken in me at a very young age.

I was a "good kid."  I got good grades, played sports, was involved in activities, helped with my younger siblings.  I repressed many memories from most of my childhood.  In junior high, one night while in my room reading, something in my book triggered these memories, and they came rushing at me all at once.  The room was spinning, and all I could think was, "if I just stop breathing, everything will be ok."  That was the first time I contemplated suicide.  All of my relationships went downhill at that point, and suffered for a very long time.

I eventually began to feel ok.  I broke off contact with most of that side of the family.  I rekindled old friendships, and started new ones.  I began dating.  The long term romantic relationships I found myself in weren't very healthy.  Alcoholism, parental issues, violent childhoods, abandonment issues, controlling personalities - the personalities of the men I dated during my teens and twenties weren't always the best. My broken-ness felt a connection with their broken-ness.  There was something comforting in knowing I wasn't the most fucked up person in this relationship.  Until it became too much.  There were several times I felt the world was crashing down on me.

During my mid twenties, it came to my knowledge that I wasn't the only person to have been molested by my grandfather.  This revelation brought about so many conflicting emotions.  Guilt that I hadn't done anything to prevent what happened to me from happening to anyone else.  Fear that I was just as as bad of a person as he was because of it.  Shame that what happened to me was "out there."  Relief that there wasn't something wrong with me that made it happen.

As an adult, a mother, a wife - I've learned a lot about coping.  Thirty years of carrying this burden, and there have been only a few times I've talked about it.  What happened to me, to us, is not talked about in our family.  This grandfather - this monster of a man - is held in such high regard still.  Every time I see a picture of him, every time someone talks about him, part of me dies a little more.  I see so clearly the destruction he has caused in multiple lives, and it's completely brushed under the rug, never to be brought to light or acknowledged.

1 in 3 women have been a victim of sexual abuse.  1 in 5 for men.  60% of perpetrators are known to the child - 30% are family members.  The repercussions on children and their families lasts a lifetime.  Let's break the silence, and give voices to so many whose innocence was stolen from them.  There is a great freedom in saying out loud that which so many refuse to acknowledge.

I'm starting this project to give you back your voice.  Your story may or may no feel familiar to mine, but it is yours to tell.  We are listening - we love you - we support you.

If you would like to participate in this project, either by telling your story, or working behind the scenes, please contact me via email:  hello@photographybyshanna.com.

Shanna Aitken

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The Voices Project was conceived in 2012 while attending a training for working with abused children.  I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse, who has never had an appropriate platform for speaking out about what happened to me and how what I went through effected my life.  My photography work has led me to work with people who have been through quite a bit in their lives - life threatening illnesses, abuse, loss...  Many people have said that their sessions were healing.  I would like to use my training as an advocate for victims along with my professional photography to help those that have experienced sexual abuse in their lives to tell their stories.

Shanna Aitken
Owner/Photographer of Photography by Shanna