Grace Tame posts searing open letter to media following 'that photo'

‘You’ve chosen to punish the product of an evil, not the evil itself’: Grace Tame posts searing open letter to media following ‘that photo’

Grace Tame

Child sex abuse survivor and advocate, Grace Tame has posted a blistering open letter to media following the rampant publishing of a photo that showed the former Australian of the Year next to a bong when she was nineteen years old.

Having chosen to stay relatively quiet on the furore over the past week, Tame said that while her “humour and strength remain intact” the situation had let her down as a survivor of abuse who had been “completely transparent” about her demons.

“At every point — on the national stage, I might add — I’ve been completely transparent about all the demons I’ve battled in the aftermath of child sexual abuse; drug addiction, self-harm, anorexia and PTSD, among others. You just clearly haven’t been listening,” she said, adding that “whilst we must acknowledge the harm that drugs can cause, if we want to have an OPEN and HONEST discussion about child sexual abuse in this country, we must also have an open and honest discussion about trauma and what that can look like.”

“It can be ugly. It can look like drugs. Like self-harm, skipping school, getting impulsive tattoos and all kinds of other unconscious, self-destructive, maladaptive coping mechanisms.

Whilst I do not seek to glorify, sanitise or normalise any of these things, I also do not seek to shame or judge survivors for ANY of their choices. For anyone who needs to hear this: it is NOT YOUR FAULT,” she wrote.

Tame condemned some media outlets of brutalising survivor advocates like herself in a bid to gratuitously profit from sensationalism, suggesting the practice was “as low as you can possibly go”.

“There are survivors out there who are terrified of seeking help because they’re afraid they’ll be blamed for what has happened to them. They are afraid they’ll be chastised for their coping strategies instead of being offered support and treated for the cause of their suffering.

“And what do you think happens when they see the mainstream media deliberately brutalise survivor-advocates like me for actions I took when I was 19 and still trying to process something I didn’t understand? I’ll tell you. Their fear is magnified,” she wrote.

“Publicly shaming survivors for their past is as low as you can possibly go. Moreover, in many CSA cases, substances are PART of the crime. When the man who abused me first tried to rape me, he used alcohol to stupefy me. I’d only been drunk twice in my life before that.

“Perpetrators often use substances in grooming and offending, first to lower inhibitions, and second to build a conspiracy with the target which prevents them from reporting,” she added.

Tame also noted the fear survivors feel, assuming that “authorities will zero in on the substance use instead of the wider complexities of psychological manipulation — which are much harder to prove and explain” and that “drugs feature in the broader story of abuse, during and after.”

“They feed into and compound the many layers of guilt and confusion. Later they become a familiar, go-to means of escape.”

“By point-mocking a symptom of a bigger picture, you’ve reinforced the imbalance of an already skewed culture. You’ve chosen to punish the product of an evil, not the evil itself. This is precisely why survivors don’t report. Congratulations.”

The former Australian of the Year noted that there were “only two possible explanations for why you did what you did: either you’re so irretrievably ignorant of how trauma affects people and therefore didn’t consider the RE-traumatising effects of your actions, OR you are wilfully complicit in perpetuating abuse culture.”

“If it’s the former, please allow me to share some insights that might be helpful in the hope that you never do this to an abuse survivor ever again:

“In the case of many violent crimes, the majority of us have both the vocabulary to explain exactly what happens should we experience them, and the knowledge of how to seek appropriate help.

“Child sexual abuse is very different. Its perpetrators are very manipulative and sophisticated. And children — by virtue of their age — do not have the mental framework to comprehend it. For many survivors, it remains shrouded in mystery long after the contact offending stops,” she said.

Tame added that in her experience of trauma she didn’t even know the right terms until several years after the event.

“I didn’t even hear about the word ‘grooming’ until 7 years after I’d experienced this insidious form of psychological abuse. I didn’t know paedophiles operated in a way that is considered ‘textbook’,” she said.

“I blamed myself for what a 58-year-old man did to me when I was 15. In the years that followed, I beat myself up relentlessly. I thought everyone else around me blamed me too. To cope, I engaged in activities I deemed befitting of a person as worthless as I deemed myself to be.

“Shame is embedded in the experience of child sexual abuse. It survives in every part of your being long after the physical acts have ceased. Infused at the unconscious level, you have very little control over it once it’s there. It is a life sentence,” she said.

Ending the note with a message of hope, Tame said that the “legions of strangers and friends alike from all over Australia who showed up and showed out for survivors by calling out the unnecessary shaming” of her had made a significant difference.

“Healing, self-love, triumph and total transcendence are all possible. But they require patience, compassion, encouragement and forgiveness. They require ongoing community support,” she wrote.

“On that note, is with a swollen heart that I wish to thank the legions of strangers and friends alike from all over Australia who showed up and showed out for survivors by calling out the unnecessary shaming stunt on Monday. I have never seen anything quite like it…”

Tame ended the letter with “a story worth publishing”.

“It means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to many other survivors as well. Our foundation received a record amount of donations that day, bringing us one step closer to a future free from the sexual abuse of children and others. Now that’s a story worth publishing…”

And that’s the one we’re choosing to publish here.

If you or someone you know needs help or advice call the national sexual assault, family and domestic violence counselling service 1800RESPECT on 1800 737 732. The service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

In an emergency call 000.

You can also call the Men’s Referral Service on 1300 766 491 or Lifeline on 13 11 14.

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