Why It Is Important to Tell Someone About Your Past Abuse

Talking about your past abuse experiences can help you put the past in the past.

Posted November 7, 2025 |  Reviewed by Davia Sills

Key points

• Telling someone about the fact that we were abused can help us to heal.
• Unfortunately, many people are afraid to tell anyone about the painful things that happened to them.
• They are afraid they won’t be believed or they will be blamed for their own victimization.
• They may also be afraid that others will lose respect for them. This is especially true for men.

In my latest book, Put Your Past in the Past, I offer ways for victims of childhood abuse to address their unfinished business as a way to put their past trauma behind them. One very powerful way of breaking your pattern of reenacting your trauma is to talk about it with someone—whether it be your partner, a good friend, a therapist, or members of a support group. Reenacting your childhood abuse by continually choosing abusive partners or by becoming abusive yourself can be akin to letting others know what happened to you—albeit not very directly. Put another way, since reenactments can be a cry for help, why not make your cry for help overt instead of covert?

Although journaling is often a very effective tool for releasing your emotions connected to the trauma, talking to someone about it can be even more effective. Unfortunately, there are many reasons why former victims of abuse hesitate or refuse to tell anyone about the trauma they experienced:

• They don’t want people to think less of them or think of them as being “damaged.” This is especially true for former victims of child sexual abuse. Many clients have shared with me about being concerned that their partner or friend would no longer see them the same way.
• They don’t want people to feel sorry for them. Men are especially reluctant to acknowledge being victimized in any way because they are afraid to be seen as weak or helpless.
• They are afraid of being judged or not being believed. This is particularly true for victims of childhood abuse, especially childhood sexual abuse, who have good reasons for this fear. Because it is so difficult for the average person to hear about such atrocities, they often look for a reason to avoid feeling the victim’s pain. Blaming the victim is an easy way out of their dilemma. Former victims are also afraid of being judged for not being “over it.”
• They have a need to remain in control. Because those who were abused felt powerless over what was happening to them at the time, being in control now can be extremely important. Sharing their story with another person can feel like letting go of their sense of control.
• They have difficulty being vulnerable. For many, the idea of telling someone about their abuse experience makes them feel extremely vulnerable. Men tend to have the most difficulty, but anyone who has built up a wall to protect themselves from feeling the pain, fear, and shame of a trauma can find sharing their trauma with someone else almost impossible.
• They don’t trust anyone. Many abuse victims don’t trust others to be there for them emotionally. To these people, telling someone about their trauma seems to be a huge risk—a risk they are not willing to take.

Those who experienced the trauma of parental neglect, abuse, or abandonment are especially reluctant to disclose it for various reasons, including fear, uncertainty, shame, and the need to protect others, all of which can feel like good reasons to stay quiet. But the people who have the most difficulty sharing their trauma with someone are those who adapted to their trauma by shutting down their most vulnerable feelings. Ironically, these are the people who will benefit the most from sharing their story. This is because by doing so, they are required to be vulnerable and to connect with their softer side, which ends up being very healing.

Many former victims convince themselves that they don’t need to talk about what happened to them. They believe “the past is the past.” But the truth is, for many former victims of abuse, the past isn’t really in the past. Many suffer from flashbacks and nightmares and are continually being triggered by things that remind them of the trauma they experienced. Others continue to reenact their trauma by continually being attracted to those who are similar to their abuser(s) or getting involved in the same types of dangerous situations.

The Benefits of Talking About Your Trauma

It can be painful to revisit a traumatic memory, but our trauma memories can continue to haunt us, especially if we try to avoid them. Even though it can be difficult to share with others what happened to you, the benefits often outweigh the cons. Opening up about your trauma can accomplish the following:

• It can help you to feel less alone. Once you tell someone about your trauma, you no longer have to carry the burden of it alone.
• It can provide a catharsis. When you don’t share your story with anyone, you may end up suppressing the emotions connected to the trauma. The memory of your trauma can become a festering wound. Talking about the trauma, on the other hand, can feel like a tremendous relief and can be very healing.
• It lowers feelings of stress related to the memory. By retelling the story of your trauma, you may find that your distress about it decreases. You may find that the memory no longer controls you.
• It can help you begin to heal. When you talk about the trauma, you not only feel unburdened, but you take away some of its power. You come to realize that you already survived the trauma and that, as much as it still hurts to think about what you suffered, it is, after all, in the past. It happened, but it is over.
• It can help feelings of shame subside. Keeping trauma a secret can reinforce the feeling that there is something shameful about what happened. But when you tell your story and find support instead of criticism, you realize you have nothing to hide.
• It can help you feel stronger. Facing your trauma and telling your story can help former victims of abuse feel like they can face anything. It takes courage to tell your story, and witnessing your own courage shows you that you’re stronger than you think.
• It can make your relationships stronger. Sharing the story of your trauma with a friend, partner, or other loved one tends to strengthen your relationship with that person. Those whom you choose to trust with your story will likely begin to feel closer to you, and it can help them understand you better.

Although negative childhood experiences can be difficult to disclose, it is vitally important to your emotional health and well-being that you do so. For example, childhood abuse creates a significant psychological wound that is not only difficult to heal but often worsens over time. The more this wound is denied, neglected, or hidden, the more it festers and the more it makes itself known in physical, psychological, and relational symptoms.