‘I had to move through the hard parts to be here’
The importance of speaking out about abuse is the message that women walked away with at the Manenberg library, after a talk by Samantha Adams, author of Warrior Outside Chaos Within.
Earlier this year, Ms Adams, from Athlone, published her book about the sexual abuse she endured from her father and other men from age 5 to 16.
At the Manenberg library on Thursday November 24, she spoke to women about speaking out about abuse and seeking help to overcome their trauma. Each person had their own story and it did not make sense to compare oneself to others, she said.
Ms Adams created a Facebook page, My Safe Space, where women can post anonymously about their trauma and have access to therapists.
It was important for women to be true to themselves and not what society wanted them to be, she said.
“Ask yourself who are you? I am now trying to be myself, not worried about anything else. I have bad days and good days. I share both on social media because at the end of the day, I have to be honest. People think that if they seek help, trauma goes away but it never goes away, it just gets easier to manage.”
In her book, she describes how she turned to drugs and alcohol to cope with the abuse.
She said she hoped her book and the talk would bring hope and encouragement to trauma survivors.
“There was a point where I thought of murdering my father, but I didn't want to go to jail. Last year, I made the decision to change my mindset and got help. I was getting sick, always had headaches and ended up in hospital. I didn't want to see people, didn’t want to smile. I had psychologically induced seizures. One day, my husband told me enough is enough, I needed to get help and be present in my life, so I did.”
She said she had needed to write the book to be where she was today, but the road to recovery had been a bumpy one and she had lost, but also gained, friends along the way. “I had to move through the hard, tough parts to be here.”
The title of her book, she said, referred to the fact that many people appeared to okay on the outside when really they were not.
Since publishing the book, her relationship with her husband had improved and she had found people to be more understanding of why she is the way she is and does not like to be hugged.
She uses boxing as a stress reliever, and on the days when she feels offish, she listens to her body and takes a break.
Assistant librarian Wahiera Naiken said the book would help to break the stigma around sexual violence.
“There has always been a stigma that you musn’t talk about it. People still don't talk about it. People just go on and forget about it but it happened.”
Patsy Daniels, from Manenberg, said Ms Adams’s story gave others hope.
“Many times, mothers told their children that they were lying when they spoke out. You are lucky to have a supportive husband. Many women don’t have that, especially when women have been through trauma as you have. Your book is encouraging us to also write about our past, which now makes more sense to a lot of us. What we couldn't verbalise before we can now.”
Faldiela de Vries, from Manenberg, said all police stations should have victim support rooms for rape survivors because charge offices were intimidating places to report a rape. Some support rooms were no more because they were not funded by SAPS but were rather the responsibility of community police forums. SAPS needed to take control of establishing the rooms, she said.
“People experience secondary trauma when reporting rape because they are not referred to just one person but to this one and that one, and before you know it the whole police station knows. There is no proper training at SAPS or the courts to prevent secondary trauma.”
