Sexual Abuse and the Unresolved Issues of Guilt and Shame

“I will never understand why it is more shameful to be raped
than to be a rapist.”
~ Anonymous

f we have any major unresolved emotional traumas . . . any physical, emotional or sexual abuse in our past.

Anything we would never want to share with anyone (even a therapist) . . . those traumas will reflect somewhere in our life. Whether a memory has been fully suppressed or sits in the gut like a low-level colic.

In my work, I have found that unresolved guilt and shame are the core issues that need to be addressed in order to be free of the trauma. I doubt you’re ever going to clear things up if you don’t get to the underlying guilt. Because guilt often lies at the heart of our suffering. Diffusing the guilt is often the key to emotional freedom.

In the case of Jeffrey Epstein’s prey, there was guilt around accepting money and, more insidiously, around becoming part of his sex-trafficking ring.

Here is the account of guilt and shame of one girl who found herself in over her head after becoming part of his recruiting scheme. It’s a burden she says she’s carried for more than a decade:

And I remember just like, feeling so disgusting and shameful. But then . . . in the same way, you know, I had two hundred dollars I didn’t have before. So, it was like, it was just a tough pill to swallow.

He asked me if I could bring him girls. And for every girl I could bring him he would give me two hundred dollars for them . . . I just hold so much guilt for ever.

I just want to f***ing die! I just don’t want to be angry anymore. I’m just so mad. No one is going to want to be with me again for the rest of my life. I’m going to have to explain this for the rest of my life to anybody I would really want to be with. ⁱ

~ Michelle Licata, victim of Jeffrey Epstein at age 16

In my next post, I will tell you the story of a dear friend, her university professor, and decades of regrettable shame.

ⁱ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XShjryvBOt4