TRIGGER WARNING

I'm still so disturbed by #victimblaming by the @IrishTimes reporting of a raped minor earlier this week
Why, because I was that minor & forced to live with the effects everyday.
This is graphic but rape of a minor is far from a soft image, the trauma alters 1/

our neurochemistry, rewiring our brains to always be in high alert, it steals our ability to relate & trust, to conform to societies norms, no peace of mind no joy. For me it also altered my organs, forcing my womb so far beside my spine that every month my legs go numb & 2/

feeling in my feet, the pain in my spine excruciating, only opioids relieve, leaving me open to possible addiction or suicidal thoughts to just get away even from the physical pain.
I was that child @IrishTimes the child you victim blamed 3/

I was the child that cried out for help to my family, my teachers & my church, nobody heard. I was that child abused by men, failed by others who should have protected me.
You report, you are supposed to educated us, inform us 4/

But instead @Irishtimes you show me as an adult that there is little hope for rape victims like me, as in your failure to communicate the awful horrendous acts upon a child, you blamed her, you called the paedophiles who raped her "adult men" 5/

You showed me in your reporting, that not only would society & the courts not protect me as they blame me for being a victim of another's actions, but you the media who is supposed to inform us would also judge me, vilify me 6/

Let me tell you of the horror as another beats, strangles & rapes you, as you fight to survive. The attacks I don't even have the words to describe. To be shamed for surviving, for what we wore, to call us our for how we behave in a world where not even our media hear us 7/

I have no words to describe the shame imposed & have never wished any other person, even the perpetrators to know the pain of that shame until now @IrishTimes if only for you to understand that rape is not a one time event, it haunts us every day & worse every night afterwards 8/

It steals our hopes & dreams, it removes any semblance of peace replaced with hypervigilance, fear & anguish, the physical pain may remain, but the emotional pain is tortuous, it reverberates every nanosecond, taking from us every joy we should experience in life 9/

For me, like the child you victim blamed, it destroyed my life, leaving me with a mark as though a beacon on my head alerting every other perpetrator to abuse me.
Never did I think I would tell the @irishtimes to educate yourself, in compassion, in truth, in who the 10/

...guilty are, not the victims, the perpetrators who forced &/or coerced the victim, it is traumatic devaluation that only those who have experienced it can comprehend. So, in that regard I request that in future you at least attempt to understand how truly awful it is to 11/

a victim of rape. A child victim of rape let down by so many including the media.
Do better.
Do better, because your inadequate reporting & #victimblaming of this child left me as an adult failed by you too 12/

Should the words of my tweet not resonate with you @IrishTimes This is a scan of a normal child versus an abused child's brain, so emotionally traumatized that certain parts including most of the limbic system & large parts of the frontal lobes fail to develop normally 13/

You had the opportunity to report in a compassionate, truthful manner of the crimes done unto her, yet like the perpetrators you choose to further injure the child.
It's no wonder victims are afraid to report rape, it's no wonder that Ireland is now a Tier 2 classified country14/

Do better @IrishTimes as 1 in 3 female uni students reported in a recent survey they were raped, do better support us, report properly in order for us to at least get justice in the media as the court system & society currently fail us.
Do better, hear us, believe us be our voice

Correction
I meant to say temporal lobes & limbic system in relation to this scan of a healthy brain versus a brain of a traumatised child