World Wide Organizations for CSA

Prior to 1950 there were no organizations working in the field of child sexual abuse. It wasn’t even spoken of. It didn’t exist. For those unfortunate enough to get caught in its web not even some of the limited number of therapists were much help. I went through so many counselors in my many decades of trying to find out why me and my life were such a mess that I couldn’t begin to count them. Very few asked any questions about my childhood and none (other than the last one, a child sexual abuse specialist and survivor herself, who I began seeing when I was 45) asked if I had ever been sexually abused. It probably wouldn’t have mattered as I couldn’t really define what had happened to me.

Imagine having a problem this enormous and there being no successful help for it, no place to go and no future other than suicide, drugs, addictions, mental institutions and the horror of finding out years later that you unwittingly passed along your problem to your children.

Today, we are fortunate to live in an age when there is a large number of organizations and individuals who are fighting the good fight. Today, most therapists and counselors have been educated in the field of sexual abuse and know something about how to help their client to have a better life. A large number of them were sexually abused themselves. Not all therapists, unless they have been through it themselves, know what to do. When my daughter, a child sexual abuse survivor herself, first went to a therapist and told her what had happened, the therapist told her it had no bearing on her alcoholism. I found this almost unthinkable.

I’ve had people who were sexually abused as children say things like, it only happened once, he didn’t penetrate so it doesn’t count, it wasn’t really child sexual abuse because my mother told me so, my drug addiction has nothing to do with that, and, I ran away from home because of a beating my father did that almost killed me – it had nothing to do with his middle-of-the-night raids (this last is my voice). These excuses and many more keep thousands, maybe millions of people from getting help for their own child sexual abuse problem. The first stage in my Repair Your Life program is Recognition, “Recognizing and accepting that your adult problems stem from childhood sexual abuse and being able to recognize that what happened to you was, indeed, child sexual abuse.

Today, we have help available. Today, there is no excuse for not getting help. Only the prison in your own mind, the locked room in your brain, where you keep all these memories and the excuses you feed yourself keep you from taking advantage of that help.  You don’t need money. There are Twelve Step Programs available like Incest Survivors Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous, Over Eaters Anonymous and especially Codependents Anonymous (the one I used with great success) and many others that will give you help that works (if you work it) in recovering from your own child sexual abuse problem. And they cost nothing. Check the Internet or your local phone operator to get the phone number of the one nearest you.

I want to take this opportunity to thank many of those who are working to stop child sexual abuse. Some of them are:

The National Association for People Abused in Childhood (http://napac.org.uk/ ),

Founder Peter Saunders,

National Association of Adult Survivors of Child Abuse  (http://www.naasca.org/), Founder, Bill Murray

Together We Heal (http://together-we-heal.org/) Founder, David Pittman

Rape, Abuse and Incest, National Network, (https://www.rainn.org/ ) Founder, Scott Berkowitz,

Stop The Silence (https://www.ivatcenters.org/stop-the-silence ) Founder, Pamela Pine, PhD, MPH,

Michael Skinner, musician, advocate, mentor, coach (http://www.mskinnermusic.com/home/ )

Darkness to Light, Lyndon Haviland, MPH, DrPH, Interim CEO (http://www.childadv.net/darkness-to-light.html)

NSVRC –  National Sexual Violence Resource Center (http://www.nsvrc.org/projects/child-sexual-assault-prevention/preventing-child-sexual-abuse-resources)

Child Help, Prevention and Treatment of Child Abuse, Founded in 1959 by Sara O’Meara and Yvonne Fedderson, (https://www.childhelp.org/ )

The ACE Study, Adverse Childhood Experiences, Vincent J. Felitti, MD and Robert F. Anda, MD, Co-Principles Investigators (http://www.acestudy.org/ )

Stop It Now, (http://www.stopitnow.org/ ) Founded by Fran Henry

For those of you in other countries, look up the Handbook of International Centers for Survivors of Sexual Assault and Harassment on the Internet and find the one near you.

These are only a few organizations. If I have failed to list any others I apologize. 

In addition these there are many advocacy centers and each state has their own child sexual abuse organization. A multitude of governmental organizations address this problem as well and the number of books in this field are too numerous to list.

Get started! You have the entire rest of your life to live. Do it after having gone through recovery. It will make an enormous difference. Use the resources on this website if you’d like to start a chapter, find out if a chapter is near you or learn about the Repair Your Life program and how to order it.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *