Little Girls Are Like Kittens They Don't Remember Anything

AUTHOR NOTES: Little Girls Are Like KittensIn this brief story, where the life of a child is stranger than you expect in flash fiction, you look into the innocent world of a child impacted by incest. Through the eyes and mind of a five-year-old, you get a glimpse of dissociation and how that gift keeps the child functioning on this earth. Although this child experiences the mind leaving the body, she has no words for what has occurred. She does not yet have the understanding to know what has just happened. She is in the moment ¿ enduring and surviving. The child has no idea that every part of this experience will go to a place in her mind where she doesn't have the access codes. It will be decades before she can put the word "repression" to the fact that she didn't recall that event or dozens more like it. Although the sweet smell of dried alfalfa, the pungent odor of bleach, and the taste of warm milk will always be repulsive, she will not know why for many years. This story is shared, not to shock or frighten you, but to shine a light into the world of an abused child. The reality is that a significant number of children go through the door of abuse on their journey into adulthood. And having experienced abuse markedly increases the likelihood that they will experience negative mental and physical health outcomes as well as career and relationship difficulties. It is critical that those of us who can speak openly, do so ¿ because the long-term effects of childhood sexual abuse will affect every one of us economically, relationally, and culturally. Reading Little Girls Are Like Kittens, you see naivety cradled in grace, you feel strength embodied in the human spirit and you witness the foundation of resilience.