TIVI

Collection: Survivors’ Stories

Est. Read Time: 9 Minutes

There are moments in life that divide everything into before and after. For me, that moment came soon after eighth grade.

Before, life was what every boy hoped it would be. There was innocence, adventure, and the quiet confidence that the adults around me would protect me. The world felt safe because I believed the people entrusted with my care were worthy of my trust.

I don’t remember the exact day shame entered my life. But somewhere in the months that followed the abuse, something changed. The abuse eventually ended. The shame did not. Without realizing it, I began organizing my life around one goal: protect yourself at all costs. That became my identity.

I spent my teenage years, my twenties, my thirties, and much of my forties living under the weight of a voice that constantly reminded me I was damaged. Even today, after years of healing, there are moments when I still hear it whisper.

Psychologists have spent decades studying shame, but I didn’t need to research it to know it was real. I lived with it long before I knew its name. Unlike guilt, which says, I did something wrong, shame says, There is something wrong with me.

That distinction changes everything. Guilt leaves room for forgiveness. Shame convinces you that you are to blame.

Years after the abuse, I came across a description of how psychologists believe shame develops. Reading it felt less like learning something new and more like reading my own biography. A deeply painful event occurs. A child searches for an explanation. Responsibility becomes internalized. Eventually, identity organizes itself around shame.

As many children do, I started asking questions. Why did this happen? Why me? What did I do wrong? When those questions go unanswered, children often reach for the only explanation available.

It must have been me.

That is one of the cruelest consequences of childhood sexual abuse. The child who was betrayed slowly becomes convinced they are the problem.

Shame is patient. It doesn’t demand to be believed all at once. It whispers. Then it waits. Over time, the whisper begins to sound like your own voice.

That is why shame is so difficult to recognize. It no longer feels like something being said to you. It feels like the truth.

Mental health professionals describe shame as a maintaining factor in trauma. Long after the abuse has ended, shame continues to shape how a survivor sees himself and the world around him. It feeds secrecy. Secrecy leads to isolation. Isolation prevents the very relationships that might have corrected the lie.

The cycle quietly repeats itself: shame, secrecy, isolation, no corrective experiences, more shame. For many survivors, that cycle lasts not for months, but for decades.

Looking back, I can see how thoroughly shame shaped my life. It convinced me I was powerless. It told me I was responsible. It taught me to see my own body as something dirty. It warned me that no one would believe me. Most of all, it insisted that this was my secret to carry alone.

Those weren’t simply thoughts. They became the lens through which I viewed every relationship, every opportunity, and every disappointment.

What I didn’t understand then—and what many institutions still fail to understand today—is that shame is not formed only by the abuse itself. It is also shaped by what happens after someone finds the courage to speak.

That may be the greatest tragedy of all.

The abuse wounded me. But the responses of trusted adults would determine whether that wound began to heal…or whether shame would be given permission to stay.

A misunderstanding about shame is that it belongs only to the abuse itself. It doesn’t. Shame also grows in the silence that follows. It grows when an individual finally gathers enough courage to speak and is met with disbelief. When an institution protects its reputation before it protects the person who trusted it. When the leaders who should have interrupted the lie instead allow it to continue.

The abuse wounded me. The response that followed taught me what to believe about that wound.

The two institutions entrusted with protecting me failed in different ways, but they reached the same conclusion. They had multiple opportunities—before the abuse, during the abuse, and after I disclosed it—to choose the difficult path of courage. Instead, they chose the easier path: indifference, denial, self-preservation.

Looking back, I don’t believe those responses simply prolonged my suffering. They were a force multiplier of shame. Maybe they were right. Maybe I am blowing this out of proportion. Maybe I wasn’t worth protecting.

Years later I would learn that mental health professionals have a name for this experience: institutional betrayal. It describes the additional harm that occurs when the very institutions we trust fail to prevent abuse or fail to respond with integrity after it is disclosed.

I remember reading those words for the first time and thinking, Someone finally has a name for what happened to me.

The abuse planted the seed. Institutional betrayal watered it.

For years, shame continued to shape almost every decision I made. I wasn’t trying to destroy my life. I was trying to survive it.

When I discovered alcohol at twenty years old, it felt less like a temptation and more like medicine. It quieted the relentless voice inside my head. It helped me fall asleep. It helped me be around people. For a few hours, it convinced me that I could escape myself.

Of course, it never lasted. The voice always returned. Only louder. Years passed before I understood that alcohol wasn’t treating my shame. It was simply postponing it.

The longer I relied on it, the more my life began to narrow. Relationships became harder. Responsibility became overwhelming. My emotional development seemed to stop while everyone else continued moving forward. I struggled in my education, my career, and even in my closest relationships because shame had convinced me that failure wasn’t something I experienced.

Failure was who I was.

That is what shame does. It doesn’t simply tell you that you’ve made mistakes. It quietly rewrites your identity until you believe you are one.

For me, perhaps the deepest wound wasn’t even the addiction. It was the loss of hope. I stopped believing healing was possible. I stopped believing anyone could truly love someone like me if they really knew me.

Even my understanding of God became filtered through shame. If I struggled to believe my own family could love me, how could I possibly believe that God could? Shame replaced grace.

Thankfully, shame doesn’t always get the final word.

In 2020, after twenty-five years of alcohol addiction, I found sobriety through Alcoholics Anonymous. That sentence is easy to write. Living it has been anything but easy. Recovery has not been a straight line. Healing rarely is.

But somewhere along the journey, another voice began speaking more clearly than shame. The voice of my wife, who chose to stay. The voice of my children, whose love I had done nothing to deserve. The voice of friends who refused to let me walk alone. The voice of God, patiently guiding me through the darkest valleys and reminding me that my identity was never determined by what happened to me.

For the first time in decades, shame had competition. It still speaks. But it no longer speaks alone.

That may be the most important thing I have learned. Healing is not the complete absence of shame. Healing is learning which voice deserves your trust.

That lesson has changed the way I think about institutions as well. Institutions cannot erase abuse. They cannot give survivors back the years that were stolen. But they can choose whether their response becomes another chapter in the story of shame or the beginning of a different story altogether.

Every disclosure presents a choice. Will we protect ourselves? Or will we protect the person who has entrusted us with one of the most painful truths they have ever spoken?

That choice matters far more than many institutions realize. Because while abuse often happens in private, healing almost always happens in relationship. When institutions understand this responsibility and begin using their power for good, individuals heal and communities grow stronger.

Every courageous response tells a survivor: You matter. We believe you. You should never have carried this alone.

Those words cannot erase the past. But they can begin to silence the lie that shame has been telling for years.

Thankfully, I have seen our society begin moving in that direction. Thankfully, I have also watched our society begin to change. I have seen legislatures strengthen protections for children. I have watched courts recognize the lasting harm caused by childhood sexual abuse. Slowly, institutions are beginning to understand that accountability is not their enemy—it is the first step toward restoring trust.

There is still much work to do. Far too many survivors continue to encounter indifference, defensiveness, and denial when they finally find the courage to speak.

But I am hopeful. Not because shame has disappeared. Because I have watched the truth become louder. I have watched accountability become stronger. And with accountability, I have watched healing become possible. I have watched compassion become more common. And I have watched survivors discover that they are no longer walking this road alone.

For years, shame convinced me that my story should remain hidden. Today, I believe the opposite.

Perhaps the most powerful way to silence shame is not to pretend it never existed. It is to tell the truth loudly enough that shame is no longer the strongest voice in the room.

Reflection: Shame survives in secrecy. Healing begins the moment the truth finds a safe place to land.

Continue the Journey:

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Next: 004. A Seat At The King’s Table: What Mephibosheth taught me about identity.

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Why This Library Exists

TIVI exists because no one should have to walk the road toward healing, accountability, and restoration alone.

Every story in this library was written to offer one or more of three things:

• Experience – So you know someone else has been there.
• Strength – So you can borrow courage when yours is running low.
• Hope – So you can believe healing and accountability are still possible.

If even one story helps you take the next right step, then it was worth writing.

Please feel free to reach out to us if we can help. We’re here.