When those tiny bumps begin to pop out, the exhilarating experience soon gives way to the horrific realisation of growth pain. Yes, those bumps are not just cute, sexy or ornamental—they are painful, they hurt, they are tender and highly sensitive to touch. Our world at large does not reward hard truth so the girls soon learn to focus on bra sizes.

The first shock

When I entered this stage years ago, I realised that apart from being excited about getting boobs, a lifetime of needing to protect these boobs also awaited me. How did I get introduced to this fact? Some pervert decided to teach me a lesson for having boobs. As I was trying to climb a very crowded bus, quite protected by my cautious mother, a hand slipped onto my chest and began to squeeze one of my literally tiny breasts. I was numb  with shock and pain. His excruciating grip only loosened because the crowd pushed us on to the bus.

After what felt like an eternity of pain, I took a breath and let go of the lips I was biting. As soon as I was on the bus, I made a vain attempt to identify the predator. Unfortunately, like for most girls, the world had to go on, everyone had to get back home and the crowd had little patience for a teenager’s lost look.

I wonder what made me silent that day? I had grown up watching my mother, an epitome of self respect, kick butts. She never forgave any encroachers. It was only decades later that I, too, learnt to embody Durga.

But the painful, traumatic and toxic experience of my first shock left me shaken for days afterwards. As I grew up, I learned to protect my boobs—just like all those who get molested, groped, touched, braised, all that stuff that is a “normal” for so many women.

Girls have feelings too

Growing up girls are beautiful, innocent, trusting beings. I say that from experience—I have been one. Girls feel pain just like others; they have feelings.; they are emotional too. They are pretty vulnerable to getting scarred for life. So tread carefully.

Watch the karmic trail your suppressed sexuality is leaving behind. Don’t grope their boobs and pussies (and, come to think of it, the willies of young innocent boys as well) against their wishes. If this turns you on then it’s not enough for you to know that you are twisted. You need to know that you are not the predator but a victim here; you are not functioning from choice but compulsion; you are not empowered but totally deprived; you are not a free man but an enslaved junkie. You need healing. Urgently!

Girls grow up and find ways to heal their wounds. It is the predators who never allow healing. They go unnoticed, unregistered… just like the countless domestic rapes in world. These men never find a way to heal themselves. They remain stuck in a loop, in an illusion of supremacy, that only drives them further down the abyss.

The perpetrators must heal

Girls and women reporting, confessing and healing themselves is not enough. It is the confessions and the healing of men that will actually change the world and make it friendlier.
As a society we also need to encourage this healing process. We need to have both an internal and external space for men where they can heal in confidentiality.

So those who are groping, braising, feeling up and giving friendly smooches to girls (and boys) Wake up! The victim will somehow handle it. But you, my dear, need help. Please reach out, seek help and give yourself a break. Cut yourself some slack. It is hard work to remain a perverted version of yourself; it has been too long.

Please give the girls and boys (many boys suffer worse traumas and go without healing for a whole life time) a chance to grow up without your sexual agenda. They need to have their childhood; leave them alone. Growing up is, in itself, a significant task and they have so much on their plates already. Let them be. Instead, focus on yourself, your healing and how to make healthier consensual choices.

Yes, try consent. It works wonders! A person’s consensual sexuality will blow your mind such that you will never need to abuse again.

The post Groping is the evidence of a twisted psyche, not a symbol of machismo appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Soon after that dreadful night, Tom completed his exchange programme and went back to Australia, leaving behind a physically and emotionally bruised girl who spent the next several years trying to cope with the effects of that chilling night, suffering in silence.

Nine years later, Thordis decided to put an end to her ordeal once and for all. Watch this TED video to find out how she did it.

Please share the video if you think more people need to watch it.

The post This inspiring video will change the way you think about rape appeared first on Complete Wellbeing.

Sexual abuse of children is rampant but rarely spoken about. Harish Iyer has used his personal experience to show us how we can protect our children.

Growing up in India, we are fed on a heavy dose of films that romanticise the great Indian family. So much so that one would start believing it is an ideal setting to grow up in. I was brought up in a joint family, with mothers more than one. Till the age of four I did not even know who my actual parents were, because I was the apple of everyone’s eye in the family.

My unseen abuse

So, with a family like that, I should have had one of the safest childhoods. But it was not so. I was raped when I was seven, by a relative, who lived outside my home. Ideally, someone should have noticed my unsaid trauma. But no one did. Instead, I was called a sissy who cried in a corner. I was lectured on how I should interact more and be more energetic—from people whom I called family. Not one of them could understand that I had a reason for going from being a rejoicing child to being a reticent one.

The sexual abuse was so severe that I would bleed. Yet, the fear of getting another painful scar made me swallow my words. I lived a dual life, one when I was being abused, and one when I was not. These were two parallel strains of my life, which I thought would never intersect.

When I finally gathered the courage and the voice to explicitly open up about my abuse to my parents and family members, I was already an adult, and had spent 11 years of my childhood suffering traumatic sexual abuse, years that I would never get back. I couldn’t help but ask myself, how and why didn’t my parents or immediate family notice my sudden behavioural change? Why didn’t they notice my face shrink whenever I was asked to stay at my [abusive] relative’s place?  Why was I made to respect someone for his age, when what he was doing to me was anything but respectable?

These questions were raging in my head and I was unable to find answers to them. It took me many years to park my past in the past and move ahead with my present like everyone else [who seemed to be presumably doing so].

Viewing my past as an outsider

After a series of challenges, I found a way to deal with my abuse and discover my own strength. Soon, my past became a story, a story of ‘that child’. I learnt the trick of dissociating the emotions of my past and telling the story of my life as just another story. Years of abuse had maimed my memory. It had created blind spots in my memory that would open up when I would speak passionately about my experience. I used to utter things without realising, and when I thought deeper about them, I realised that my subconscious mind had stored away instances of abuse that my conscious mind had forgotten. Slowly, speaking up and sharing my story became my own therapy as my past became clearer and clearer.

Every time I spoke about my abuse, I had more people opening up about similar horrors of their lives. So while speaking was therapy for me, I realised that my speaking up was therapeutic to others. It soon became apparent that familial abuse or incest was a common phenomenon; it had happened to almost everyone I knew. I came across several men who had been abused when they were young boys. What was more shocking was the fact that they had been abused by women. Most of these survivors considered what had happened to them as a ‘fantasy’. They didn’t even know that what they had been put through was actually abuse. These incidents had occurred to boys between the ages of seven to 10 and their innocent minds didn’t know what to make of the events.

What you can do to keep your child safe from sexual abuse

The horrors of familial abuse are many. But one could avert the danger of a lost childhood if parents and guardians followed a few simple steps to safeguard against familial abuse.

1. Respect the child’s actions. If the child refuses to visit, greet or speak to a relative, don’t force the child. Also, try to find out what the underlying cause of your child’s fright towards this individual is.
2. It’s your responsibility to teach your child that it’s not okay if any adult touches them on certain parts of their body.
3. Respect distance. India has the culture of kissing and hugging children. It is good to hug and lovely to kiss. But it is also important to ensure that your child is protected. If your child does not want a certain someone kissing or touching them, don’t force your child. Let your relatives know that your child is not a doll.
4. Teach your child to respect elders but not be fearful of them. Don’t force-feed the value of ‘respect’ to the extent that your child will not be in a position to tell you if adults behave inappropriately with them.
5. Believe your child. If your child tells you that he or she has been touched in a way that they do not like, even if it is by the most respected person in your family, believe your child. Children don’t lie about these things.
6. Don’t get paranoid after reading points one to five. It will not help your child in any way but will only complicate the issue further. Be aware, not paranoid. Let your child enjoy his [her] life. You just have to assure them that you will be beside them to help if needed.

Childhood is the most precious phase of one’s life. As parents, it is up to you to ensure that sexual abuse is not a challenge your child has to face.

This was first published in the September 2014 issue of Complete Wellbeing.

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