The Parts of Abuse No One Understands

Trigger Warning: This piece contains references to childhood sexual abuse, trauma responses, and self-harm thoughts.

There is a part of abuse that people don’t talk about.

A part that feels too uncomfortable, too misunderstood, too easily judged.

The part where your body betrays you.

Because no one prepares you for that.

No one tells you that your body can respond… even when your mind is screaming.

Even when everything inside you knows this is wrong.

You can feel trapped in your own skin—

confused, disgusted, and disconnected all at once.

How can something feel physically responsive

when emotionally, it is breaking you?

And that confusion… it stays.

It follows you into adulthood, into relationships, into moments where history repeats itself in ways you don’t fully understand.

Moments where you freeze.

Moments where you don’t say no.

Moments where you go along with something you don’t want—

and afterwards, you’re left with a silence that feels deafening.

And then come the questions.

What is wrong with me?

Why didn’t I stop it?

Why did I allow it?

But those questions are built on a lie.

Because it was never about allowing.

It was about surviving.

When your body has been conditioned from a young age, it learns responses without your permission. It learns to disconnect. It learns to comply. It learns that resistance isn’t always safe.

And sometimes, it learns to react in ways that feel like betrayal.

That doesn’t make you guilty.

That doesn’t make you “easy.”

That doesn’t make you what people so cruelly label you.

It makes you traumatised.

But the world doesn’t always understand trauma.

Instead, it shames.

It points fingers.

It uses words that cut deeper than people realise.

They say you should have known better.

They say you should have said no.

They say things about your character, your worth, your choices.

But they don’t see the internal battle.

They don’t see how hard it is to say no

when your voice was taken from you before you even knew how to use it.

They don’t see how your body can go into autopilot—

how it can freeze, comply, or shut down just to get through the moment.

They don’t see the aftermath.

The way you sit with yourself afterwards, replaying everything.

The way shame wraps itself around your thoughts.

The way you feel like you want to disappear from your own body.

Sometimes even thinking you don’t want to exist at all…

not because you truly want to die,

but because you don’t know how to carry what you’re feeling.

And that is a pain many will never understand.

But here is what needs to be said—clearly, gently, and without judgement:

Your body’s response was not consent.

Your silence was not permission.

Your inability to say no was not a failure.

It was a trauma response.

You were navigating something your nervous system was trained for—

not something you chose.

And the shame you carry?

It does not belong to you.

It was placed there by people who didn’t understand…

or didn’t want to.

Healing from this is not about asking,

“Why did I allow it?”

It’s about slowly learning to ask,

“What happened to me… and how do I begin to take myself back?”

That journey is not easy.

There will be days where the confusion still rises.

Days where the shame feels louder than the truth.

But the truth is still there, even if it whispers:

You were trying to survive.

You were doing what your body had learned to do.

And none of that makes you broken.

It makes you someone who deserves compassion—

especially from yourself.

And maybe, just maybe,

that’s where healing begins.

If you are reading this and something inside you feels seen—but also stirred, heavy, or overwhelming—please don’t carry it alone.

If these feelings become too much, if the memories feel loud, or if you just need someone who truly understands without judgement… you can reach out to me.

You don’t have to explain everything perfectly.

You don’t have to make sense of it all.

You just have to take that one small step.

Because sometimes, being heard by someone who understands

can be the beginning of feeling a little less alone.