Asking for a friend: I escaped a violent relationship but the sexual abuse I suffered is eating me up and I blame myself. How do I process this?

Sexual abuse, no matter what it looks like, is the fault of the person who acts to cause harm: You are not to blame. Photo posed

Caroline West

Q: I managed to escape an abusive relationship a few years ago, and I am still piecing everything together and trying to wrap my head around everything that happened. My ex-partner was very physically abusive and left me in physical pain more often than not.

While I am working on processing that, I am really struggling with even opening the lid on what else happened. There was sexual abuse, but I can’t even talk about it in any more detail than that right now. It’s too much and I haven’t even said it to my therapist yet.