Elizabeth Margaret: A Contact from Australia

I told my own story 50 years late but the fall out with my siblings was ferocious. My own children coped well and supported my right to speak. The novel is called Daddy's Girl.

Having worked with damaged teens all my life - as a teacher, foster parent and youth worker - I have seen the amazing array of self-harm that people do to deal with their sense of complicity and culpability in their sexual abuse. In Australia 75% of girls are known to have been sexually abused in the family environment before they turn 18. We estimate the figure for boys to be around 60%.

That is why I wrote the novel Bent but Not Broken. It is with dismay that I have watched our young people know how to get professional help but will not due to fear and stigma. This novel tells them accurately about the most common mental health and self-harming presentations of teenagers and their treatments. It has been well received by both teenagers and with gratitude by their parents. Suicide remains the biggest single killer of our under 25 year olds in Australia. On average 200 people attempt suicide daily.

And that doesn't even begin to undo the harm that the now adult survivors have experienced in institutions growing up. They have found the courage to speak up in the Royal Commission into Institutionalised Sexual Abuse. Their stories and the life-long effects are horrific.

The links to both Daddy's Girl and Bent but Not Broken are on Inspire Inspire Facebook page. The more voices that assist survivors to seek help and help tell their stories, the greater the chance they may eventually heal.

I tell the young people I work with:

“We will always be scarred, but those scars do not have to define us”.

Elizabeth Margaret

Contact from Australia via Inspire Inspire Facebook Page https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100004978937747

Written by Elizabeth
Edited and published by Team Inspire with permission via Facebook Inspire Inspire
08.11.14