The Hardest Words I Ever Said: ‘Mom, I Was Abused.’
- Shannon Brown
- Mar 15
- 4 min read
Some of the hardest words I have ever spoken in my life were the ones where I finally told my mom about the abuse I experienced as a child, teenager, and young adult.
For years, I kept it inside.
Not because I didn’t want to tell the truth. Not because I didn’t need help. But because I didn’t want to cause anyone else pain.
My mom had already been through so much in her life. The last thing I wanted was to add to that. I didn’t want her to feel guilt that didn’t belong to her. I didn’t want to see her blame herself. I didn’t want to open wounds that had already cost our family so much.
And if I’m being honest, part of me was afraid of what would happen if the truth came out. I didn’t want my mom dragged back into courtrooms. I didn’t want more chaos in our lives. When you’re a child who has already seen too much conflict and pain, you start trying to manage the emotional world around you.
So I stayed quiet.
There is something deeply damaging about being threatened as a child by an adult who is supposed to protect you. It scrambles your internal system. It teaches you to silence yourself, to carry secrets that were never yours to hold.
Over the last few years, I have slowly begun opening up to my mom about everything that happened.
In many ways, it has been freeing. Carrying the truth outside of myself instead of burying it inside my chest has brought relief I didn’t know I needed.
But it has also brought another complicated emotion with it: guilt.
Not guilt for what happened to me, because I know now, deeply and clearly, that none of it was my fault. I was a child. Children cannot be responsible for the harm adults choose to inflict.
The guilt comes from watching my mom process the reality of what happened.
The last thing I ever wanted was for her to feel like she failed as a mother. Because she didn’t.
She never did.
Abuse has a way of planting guilt inside victims that does not belong to them. It grows quietly and deeply, even when logic tells us it shouldn’t exist.
I worried for years that telling the truth would blow everything apart.
But when my mom learned what happened, her reaction was not anger toward me.
It was fury at what had been done to her child.
I know my mom well enough to know something else too: if she had known when it was happening, she would have protected me with everything she had. She is a fierce protector. Honestly, if she had known the truth back then, someone probably would have ended up in jail.
But at the time, I needed her. She was my safe place.
And I was terrified that speaking up would somehow take that safety away from me.
So I stayed quiet and tried to carry it alone.
As I’ve grown older and done more healing, I’ve begun to understand how deeply those experiences shaped me.
I developed an incredibly low sense of self-worth. I second-guessed myself constantly. I struggled to form secure attachments and trust people fully. I carried fear and hyper-awareness in situations where other people felt safe.
At one point, I even tried to make myself less appealing to the person hurting me. I gained weight intentionally, hoping that if I changed how I looked, it might make me less of a target.
When you look back at survival behaviors through the lens of adulthood, they can be heartbreaking. But they were the ways my younger self tried to stay safe.
I also realize now why leaving for college was so hard for me.
My mom was my safe place. She was my protector. For the first time in my life, I was going to be away from her and out in the world on my own.
Looking back, I understand why that transition felt terrifying.
Healing has a strange way of bringing realizations years after the events themselves. Memories surface. Patterns make sense. Behaviors that once felt confusing begin to reveal their roots.
None of those realizations erase the past.
But they do help me understand myself with more compassion.
The truth is that telling my mom was one of the hardest conversations I’ve ever had. But it was also one of the most important.
Silence protects abusers.
Truth protects survivors.
And even though opening those doors can be painful, it also allows healing to begin.
If you or someone you know has experienced abuse, please know that support is available.
Speaking with a trusted person, therapist, or advocate can help survivors begin the process of healing and reclaiming their voice.
You are not alone.
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