2. Below, I share a response from someone who read that sexual abuse by a Qur’an teacher post of mine and allowed me to share their experience as well. I shared another individual’s story in another blog post before this – it can be read here.

Educate yourself, and listen to those who open up to you.
My friend sent me your blog because of my experience. I wanted to share with you that I also was molested by my Quran teacher but it wasn’t at school but at my home. Reading your blog just made me go back into time to things I haven’t thought about in ages. I have blocked out that part of my life and I just see flashes of that time but I don’t remember how long it lasted. I did end up telling my parents and they stopped it but they never spoke to me about what happened and to this day, they have not acknowledged anything. I can tell you one thing that even though it didn’t last for very long (I think) I was deeply affected by it. I haven’t been able to have a relationship and no physical contact with any man and now I am 29 years old. Although, now I have finally accepted that this is something I have to get over and I am trying really hard to allow someone to be close to me.
I do think that my religious beliefs have also changed and I have a really hard time trusting authority. I wanted to thank you for sharing this blog and I truly feel sorry for the girls that had to go through this for years and not being able to tell anyone. Knowing that other girls have gone through this makes me feel sad but also comforted that I wasn’t the only one.
This one breaks my heart; because I recognise that phrase, “Knowing that other girls have gone through this makes me feel sad but also comforted that I wasn’t the only one.”
We live in a world that has facilitated child abusers, given them privileges as teachers, religious, scout and guide masters, sports coaches … and we have told children ‘obey’ … and those who survive abuse, come to adulthood wearing the shame, the knowledge that even if it stopped, no adult ever said ‘it was not your fault’, the shame leached out into those who failed to protect the child. ‘The crime that cannot be mentioned’ becomes a shield for the abuser to hide behind; his name does not get divulged, and he continues, for decades sometimes, finding more children to abuse.
I live a long way from either the USA or Persia, but the same issues occur in my country.
Survivor support is an area that I have been involved in (as much as I am able) for some 15 years now, since I broke free from an abusive spouse, and answered the question ‘So why did you let him do that to you? It can’t have been all bad, there must have been some love in the beginning, surely?’ – and my journey backwards to the abused child, forgotten in my past, began.
Take your time becoming a stronger survivor before you try to have a relationship as an adult; or the vulnerability that you carry will be found by a person who is looking for a partner they can control, and the relationship will be abusive from the offset, gradually building in degree until it is obviously abusive to everyone around you.
I learned this very slowly and painfully, over the course of twelve years of marriage, which took me a very long time to de-construct into an understanding of exactly how I was abused emotionally, financially, physically, sexually, socially, destroying my faith in God and even in my fellow human beings .. I was gradually educated by the feminist networks that I developed after divorce, and then I took up academic courses in feminism.
I have survived, and I am sometimes able to celebrate that; I support others where I can, and sometimes that is limited to being able to say ‘I understand you’, and offer such examples of how to recover from my own life, that may seem to be appropriate.
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Anarkaytie,
Thank you so much for reading and for responding! I’m so sorry to know you’ve had an abusive past as well; as common as it is for people to be that insensitive, I’m stunned that anyone could dare to tell you — or anyone in your situation — that it couldn’t have been bad enough for you to get out of it through divorce. We live in such a corrupted and brutal world that people would rather condemn us for leaving abusive relationships and attempting to heal ourselves rather than condemn those who have harmed or abused us! We find divorce more immoral than (sexual and other) abuse! This is scary.
May you continue being strong and helping others cope with similar abuses. I wish you peace! Thank you again for writing that comment – may it heal many wounded hearts, aameen.
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