The Scarlet Letter - otherwise known as "I just want to be loved."

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There are times, I believe, in the lives of many of us women who have survived sexual abuse that we find ourselves acting out of a desperate need to really be loved, not as a sexual object, not as someone that our abusers want us to be...but we long to be loved for just plain old 'who we are.'

It is a natural response to the abuse that we really do not know what true love is, and that we go looking for love in all the wrong places. We fall for the first person who gives us attention, and abusers just seem to have an inner sense of knowing where they can find some woman to prey upon. They can be the sweetest, kindest men in the beginning...and slowly over time, they gain our trust, then much like the vampires we see on television today, they know when to bite and suck the life out of us. Oh, they let us live, only taking as much of our 'blood' as they need, leaving us weak and immobilized. But then they come to us, apologizing and helping to care for us until we are back on our feet. When we least expect it they begin the ritual again. And again. And again.

This pattern of abuse usually begins from a very young age, and continues until we get the help we need in the form of counseling and a lot of hard work on our part to recognize in our own self the codependency, and learn how to bring healing and wholeness to our broken spirits.

I was pretty much the typical abused child, growing into my teenage years with a lot of confusion about how love and sex fit together. There were a lot of confusing messages sent out to us girls who grew up in the 60's and 70's. It was a time of Women's liberation, the sexual revolution and a world where 'Make love not War' was truly the motto of the day.

That is the world I grew up in, dysfunctional attitudes towards sex and love in my home life, a very strict religious upbringing, the attitude of making love not war in my social life, and a huge need to be accepted and loved. All of that combined made it very hard for me to make choices that were for my highest good.

But, the choices I made, were my choices. I own them.

And in owning them, I can tell my story embracing the girl I was, the young woman I grew into, and the strong woman who sits now typing these words. I do not think of myself as a victim. I think of myself as a being who experienced a lot of trauma and abuse, who took what could have destroyed me, and turned it into strength and power to move through my life today healed and whole.

My mother put a scarlet letter on me, in her mind and verbally, from the time I first started dating. And that is where I shall begin the next chapter.