My accident was my salvation
Chanice (31) was sexually abused in her youth: 'I had buried it, but after the accident everything resurfaced'
In our new section Life Turned Upside Down we talk to people who have experienced something that drastically changed the course of their lives. A tragic accident, recovering from an addiction, or the loss of a child. This week: 31-year-old Chanice, who long suppressed childhood sexual abuse, but after an accident, everything resurfaced.
Name: Chanice
Age: 31
Event: an accident brought back memories of childhood sexual abuse
Life motto: everything is possible
Life Turned Upside Down: Chanice Was Sexually Abused in Her Youth
"I had a difficult childhood and was abused by a family member during my puberty," Chanice states directly over the phone. She speaks powerfully, immediately confirming one of the first things she says: "Transforming pain into power." The abuse caused her to go into 'survival mode'. "I mainly numbed myself, I looked for an escape. Lots of partying, drinking, constantly looking for distractions. That worked well and didn't attract much attention due to my age; those kinds of things are more normal when you're a teenager."
She was only 14 when a family member abused her. Chanice: "I was drunk, so much so that I had to vomit. When I realized that a family member who was supposed to put me to bed was not tucking me in, but was abusing me and the situation, I went into complete shock."
"I was very confused and physically not yet ready to have sex. With my boyfriends at the time, I only kissed. That normal playful discovery was taken away from me. I didn't really know what was happening. Ultimately, there was no penetration, but I was in shock. I didn't fully understand what was happening, I literally stepped out of my body several times. Sometimes I fell asleep, but I also didn't know what sex really entailed. The day after, I was mainly preoccupied with whether I had dreamt it or not, and if I could be pregnant, for example."
'I wanted to know if I could be pregnant'
She confided her story to a peer, a friend she knew was already sexually active. She felt she couldn't tell her what had happened to her and with whom, so she made up a story. "I mainly wanted to know if I needed to get a morning-after pill or something," Chanice explains. "So I made up a story that I had seen two strangers on the street doing what had happened to me. But she noticed that something wasn't right; it became a very muddled story. What can you do with that as a peer? That's why I always advise telling your story to a trusted adult."
At that moment, Chanice didn't know where to turn with what had happened to her, so she kept it to herself. She did everything to suppress it, to seek distraction. "Unconsciously, you attract people who, even though it wasn't discussed, also carry pain. Years later, when I finally shared my story publicly, I sometimes talked about it with people from that time. It turned out that almost everyone carried a story, even though we didn't talk about it. We were mainly focused on having fun."
I was very confused and not at all preoccupied with sex myself.
It took 14 years before Chanice told her family. She was 28 then, only three years ago. "In the meantime, I had slowly informed a few friends, because it had to come out," she says. "I just continued with life. Then I was hit by a car while cycling and physically I couldn't do anything anymore. The accident itself wasn't even that severe; I was hit by a car. But again, I was in shock. I just got up and kept going. I even comforted the driver." But it was precisely that shock reaction that would later liberate Chanice.
'Had to accept that my body no longer worked'
Initially, after she was hit by the car, she just went to work. She worked as a hairdresser, but the regular activities were not possible. Other jobs offered were also too demanding. Once the adrenaline wore off, she felt significant pain in her neck and back. Chanice: "After a while, I had to accept that my body no longer worked. I couldn't do anything; everything from the past years came out. My body realized during the shock I experienced during the accident, 'hey, we've experienced this before.' That powerlessness, that you can't defend or protect yourself. That released everything."
Through this situation, she came into contact with physical and mental therapies. "That's when things started to unravel: what happened in my childhood? I found the connection between body and mind very interesting, and how many complaints you can cause yourself through stress, thoughts, and trauma stored in your body."
Sexual abuse
In 2022, 30 percent of 16- to 18-year-olds and 33 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds reported being victims of sexual transgressive behavior in the past twelve months. This is according to the Prevalence Monitor Domestic Violence and Sexual Transgressive Behavior.
Among women aged 16 to 18, 46 percent have been victims of sexually transgressive behavior, and in the 18 to 24 age group, this figure is 52 percent. For young men, the figures are 2.8 percent and 14.5 percent, respectively.
The search for a therapist that suited her was not easy for Chanice. "When I spoke to a therapist and told only a very small part of my life, it was immediately 'oh, how intense'. Then I thought 'then I don't need to tell the whole story there'." Eventually, she did find the right match, a haptotherapist, who worked with body, feeling, and light touches. "I only told her after about a year and a half that I had been abused in my youth," Chanice says.
"It took so long because we had so many other things to discuss and treat. The transition from a healthy body to 'I can't do anything.' My therapist even had to pick me up for a session once because I just collapsed; I couldn't walk anymore." She went from someone who never called in sick and even showed up at work after the accident, to someone who had to prove that her complaints were real.
Connection between body and mind
Still, Chanice calls the accident the best thing that ever happened to her. "If the accident hadn't happened, I probably would have still lived with tunnel vision. The accident sparked my interest in the connection between body and mind." Eventually, she retrained as a holistic coach, and by her own account, primarily attracted people with a similar history: people with childhood trauma. "They were like mirrors for me."
While it took Chanice herself a good year to feel comfortable enough to share the sexual abuse from her past, she noticed that it happened much faster with her own clients. "I found that very special. In my opinion, sexual abuse is one of the biggest things you can share, especially if it happened within the family. You're more likely to say you were beaten as a child. It's a taboo, there's shame surrounding it, and you want to bury it as deeply as possible yourself." She also mentions that many victims of sexual abuse carry a feeling of insecurity. That feeling becomes so normal that they only realize they carried it when they are out of it.
Now Chanice herself works as a therapist, in a holistic way. "That means I really look at body, mind, and spirituality. It's a combination of reiki, haptotherapy, but also breathing and family constellations. Eventually, I realized that I attract a certain type of client in my practice, and I've also specialized in sexual trauma."
In my opinion, sexual abuse is one of the biggest things you can share, especially if it happened within the family. You're more likely to say you were beaten as a child.
To draw more attention to sexual trauma, she recently recorded a video at the Erasmus Bridge. "In it, I said that one in three women and one in five men have been sexually abused. 'And I am one of them,' I said. Because when I told people, they were really surprised. They said: 'You don't see it in you, you smile, you seem to have a good life, you seem so strong.' But inside, that past was eating away at me. It's a scar that doesn't go away," Chanice explains.
Healing from sexual abuse
Chanice not only wanted people to be more open about abuse, but also to take action to deal with it. "It has to come out," she says resolutely. "It's not enough to just acknowledge it. That's a lot, but it has left such a big scar, you have to do something about it. It's liberating to heal from it."
For Chanice, this has proven to be true time and again. Her life now is completely different from before the accident. "I have mental freedom, I have physical freedom. I listen very carefully to my body now, something I couldn't do before. Now I can express myself much better emotionally. If someone used to ask me 'what do you feel?', I was just an ice cube, without a facial expression." Relationships with people around her have also improved, deepened. "I actually don't do anything in life that I don't feel like doing or that I 'have to'."
