I have anonymised the following story which is written by the inner child of an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse.

I was a lonely messed up 13 yr old girl stuck in an adult's body and lots of bad things had happened to me. The grown up me knew the bad things weren't her fault and wanted to forget about them but I couldn't forget and I couldn't see how it wasn't my fault, I let some of the bad things happen. I wanted to run away and hide, even (the adult) wished I'd go away, I don't blame her 'cos I use to shout and throw temper tantrums just like I did when she was 13. When I was feeling sad or when I remembered another bad memory I use to hurt myself and she had to look after her kids and go to work and stuff and have to hide the marks I made. She use to hide me away as well. I was scared and lonely and felt like nobody cared. I was screaming inside and (the adult) was ignoring me like I didn't exist. I was burning myself nearly every day, I hated myself, I hated (the adult) and I hated being alive. I was feeling very sad and lonely. Then one day when we went to see Carl, I realised somebody did care; there was someone who didn't ignore me and he was sitting in front of me. I looked in to his eyes and he asked me what I was searching for and I didn't know but what I did see was trust and his love and dedication to help me get better. I use to say I don't know, all the time. Sometimes I didn't know but sometimes it was 'cos I was scared of talking about the bad things, I wanted to talk to him, tell him the bad things but I couldn't let him know how bad I was. I knew he wouldn't tell anyone but I was scared that he wouldn't like me anymore when he knew the things I'd done. It was scary talking about them things but he didn't care about the things I'd done and that I hurt myself he still liked me anyway, he kept telling me it wasn't my fault and I didn't believe him at first but he helped me to believe it and helped me believe I wasn't bad and dirty. He helped me to stop being scared and helped me and (the adult) stop being scared of each other and work together to get better, he helped us become friends. She let me go sledging and go on rides at theme parks with her kids. It was good fun and when I felt like hurting myself she would talk to me and try to help me. Sometimes it helped but sometimes I couldn't listen to her because the feelings were so bad but I've not hurt myself for about 1 and half years now.