Being a survivor of abuse yet feeling like a failure

It happens once a day at least...I am sitting watching tv or visiting a friend and it hits me' images in my head of a black and white cartoon perfectly lined with dark sturdy edges and clean, white graphics that turn suddenly gray and splotchy.Like someone took a crayon and scribbled all over yet the feeling is so much worse.I attribute it to my experience of being molested at 7 years old. ~Everything was a normal as possible for a kid of that age (see more blogs for more details on what "normal" for me was) and then in came the gray, the squiggles and the dark feelings. Although I am open about the fact that I was molested I also don't really like to talk about the details. After it happened it was years before I told anyone. I was in grade school when they called the school into the auditorium/lunchroom and someone stood before all of us describing what we now know as "good touch/bad touch".We were told by this stranger not to trust strangers ever and if something horrible like this "bad touch" had indeed happened to us we should tell the nurse. I don't remember the details but I remember sharing it with her, she called Mom and Mom came to school and picked me up. She asked me the details, who?WHen? Where? It was a schoolmate's step-grandfather who did it. I had gone to her house to sleep over but we ended up sleeping at her Grandparents apartment in the neighboring city (if you can call Pittsfield a city). I remember to this day where he lived which is funny because every place we visited in Pittsfield or anywhere back in those days is unfamiliar now. I remember the place, the man and his wife, what was playing on the television (solid Gold) and that there were Dunkin Donut Munchkin donut holes on the counter. My Mom asked if my friend also came up to talk to the nurse. I would know back then but now I can't remember. We never spoke after that, me and my friend whose Grandfather molested me. I have seen her around but she hardly looks at me.
I don't really want to talk too much about this since my stomache is starting to get upset and the images are beginning to flash but I just want to say one thing: I truly believe what happened that day was NOT my fault. I didn't know better and either did my friend. Did that happen to her before? Did she know when she invited me there what might happen? If she did, if she knew he would molest me along with her it doesn't make her a bad person.As a child we are taught to trust our elders, especially family. We need to teach our children how to trust now who...We shouldn't make a list of who because we never know if the people on that list are hiding an awful secret. We have to teach our children how to know to trust people, how to take time and pay attention as well as allow them to be rude to strangers if it keeps them feeling safe. Teaching our kids to be nice to people and to trust policemen and adults? BAD, bad decision. I don't know where to start with all of this teaching but I do it everyday with my kids the best way I know how-By being honest with them that it happened to me, that it was sad and it bothers me still and that they are not to blame if it happens~They are kids who are outweighed, outranked and just outeverything BUT they have the control in one very important thing...They can tell a trusted parent or friend NO MATTER WHAT!I don't feel like a failure because of being molested but instead of another reason I wish not to talk about right now, maybe in another blog another time.

~Dream not of what is expected of you or of what you think will impress but dream of what really makes your heart sing and your mind start racing...Live, laugh and love...~

~Stacy