27 {Aggie Seiler} The recovery journey from child sexual abuse

Trigger warning: this episode discusses childhood sexual abuse and depression.

In Australia support for sexual assault survivors is available at 1800 RESPECT or 1800 737 732. Children and young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800, and adult survivors of child sexual assault can seek help at the Blue Knot Foundation.

In today’s episode the incredibly brave Aggie Seiler has chosen to speak to us about the incredibly traumatic experience of surviving childhood sexual abuse.

This occurred with a family member, someone with whom she should have been safe, but that was not the case.

What followed was a years long journey as she worked through the trauma, her relationships and her own story, before eventually reporting the assault to police as an adult.

In today’s episode Aggie shares:

- What family and life moments led to the assaults of her and her sister

- How the family and community chose to sweep it under the rug

- The long ranging effects the assault had on her mental health and well being

- The traumatic experience of the justice system and having her uncle charged

Key Quotes

“I started getting pretty wobbly…so I ditched him and went really off the rails.”

“Until then there’d been no one defining what was right and wrong. So you’d internalised this very blurry line of what was right and wrong.”

‘You just don’t realise how much psychological trauma is holding in your body.”

“We need to learn more about how we can do this better and we need to learn the skills to have those hard conversations.”

“We need to be able to say to a young person, it is not your fault.”

Information

The Australian Childhood foundation have amazing tools around trauma and have launched Emma’s project to get surveys from adult survivors. You can find that here:

https://www.childhood.org.au/emmas-project/#:~:text=Emma's%20Project%20aims%20to%20collect,listened%20to%2C%20validated%20and%20effectively

www.Safecare.org is the organisation in WA that has incredible resources for a whole range of people.

If you want to find out more about what Ali does, check out her business via the website:

http://www.trialtitudeperformance.com.au/personality-performance

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www.altitudefitnessarmidale.com.au

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