Posts

Q: I was a victim of sexual abuse in my childhood by two men. I’ve been to court and both were convicted. One of them got 9 years and 6 month in jail and the other 1 year and 4 months. I’ve been in and out of psychiatric care where I sought help.
The question is whether it’ll be easier to live as time goes on?

A:
Hi and thank you for mailing us.
I can tell by their penalties that you’ve had horrible experiences, I’m glad on your behalf that the perpetrators were caught and punished. I can tell you that living with the abuse you experiences as a child is a challenge. They’ll not be forgotten and the trick is to learn to live with the pain you’ve experienced. Proper and vital treatment, processing is important and this will take time. Place the blame and shame where it belongs and it’s only with the perpetrators.

You say you’ve been in an out of psychiatric care and hope you’ve gotten help there, but have you ever considered consulting at a help-center?
You didn’t tell us where in the country you live, I’ll include the link to FMSO (felleskap mot seksuelle overgrep) which have a list of where the centers are located in Norway.
http://www.fmso.no/Medlemssentrene
We also have a center for sexually abused men in Oslo: http://www.ssmm.no
I recommend you to contact one of them, they might offer discussion groups and/or one to one chats which has been a big help to many of us in Utsattmann. These conversations are a free offer, they don’t keep any records and you can choose where and when to participate in a conversation. Meeting other people with a similar experience might have been the best form of self-help for me and I recommend this to you.
I wish you good luck with others and feel free to contact us again.

Regards,
Jarle Holseter
Utsattmann editor