Overcoming Smut

OVERCOMING SMUTFifty-two years ago, I was dealing with my life's challenges and circumstances in a vacuum. I was hiding from the world and myself, daily, every day. I just didn't know it. One day as I was walking through my small apartment in a small town in California, the "Oprah Winfrey Show" was on the television. She was speaking about the sexual abuse she had experienced at an early age. I was spellbound Was it possible that someone as famous as she was had a background with a similar "secret as me?" That day I realized for the first time that I was not the only one who had been suffering in silence. This hidden, dirty, shameful, unspoken subject had only been spoken by me twice in my life. Both times that I spoke of the "secret" were to my young friends, and some trauma had just occurred. I was suffering, but not sure that anyone could tell. Not that I hid it well. People including family members just don't want to see this kind of abuse as they will have to deal with it. My mother simply ignored it. I finally accepted that fact when I was in my forties. Following Oprah via her television show over the years has brought so many victims to their own awareness concerning this issue. Thankfully, I was one of those who was helped by her reaching out to other victims of abuse during her television shows. --Sue Brazeal