Sexual Abuse: Why You Can’t “Just Get Over It”

Understanding why trauma lingers and how true healing speaks to every part of you

I am a trauma therapist.

And I am a trauma survivor.

I know the landscape from both sides; the aching silence of the aftermath and the long, fierce pilgrimage back to wholeness.

Sexual abuse is one of the most silenced wounds in our collective story. It hides behind shame, misunderstanding, and a culture still learning how to hold the sacredness of healing.

Far too many of us carry this pain alone, convinced we are somehow to blame, or that we are too broken to find our way home. We bury our feelings. We armor our hearts. We try to survive without the community and witnessing that are essential to true healing.

And then someone says it. Carelessly. Casually.

"Just get over it."

If you have ever heard those words, spoken out loud or implied in a hundred subtle betrayals, you know the way they carve into you. You know that sexual trauma doesn’t end when the perpetrator stops.

It echoes.

It reverberates.

It weaves itself into your nervous system and the architecture of your being.

Every dismissive comment. Every bystander silence. The wound is reopened again and again.

"That was so long ago. Aren’t you over it yet?"

These words reveal a profound misunderstanding: Healing from trauma is not a matter of willpower. It is a reweaving of body, mind, and soul

The statistics paint a stark picture and even the official numbers on abuse and assault are likely underestimations. For women especially, the true prevalence of sexual violence likely approaches half the population.

But let me be clear:

The shame of sexual violence does not belong to survivors.

It belongs to the abusers.

And it belongs to the culture that enabled them.

Trauma Lives Beyond Words

Sexual abuse doesn’t stay locked in the past. It lives on, in relationships, in sleepless nights, in a nervous system that cannot rest. Sometimes the signs are loud: flashbacks, nightmares, hypervigilance. Sometimes they are subtler but no less potent:

• Sudden floods of emotion

• Chronic feelings of worthlessness

• Emotional shutdown or isolation

• Numbing with substances

• Trouble saying “no” or holding boundaries

These aren’t flaws. They’re the natural signs of a body still trying to protect itself.

Because trauma doesn’t live only in memory. It lives in the tissues, the breath, the very bones.

Trauma and the Triune Brain

To understand why survivors cannot simply “get over it,” we must journey inward to the ancient architecture of the brain.

The triune brain model offers a map:

The Reptilian Brain

The oldest layer, rooted in survival. Here live the instinctive defenses: fight, flight, freeze, submit. It’s fast, instinctual, and completely non-verbal.

When danger strikes, this part of the brain acts without thought. If you froze or submitted, it wasn’t weakness. It was the wisdom of your body choosing survival.

The Old Mammalian Brain (Limbic System or Emotional Brain)

The emotional brain is the keeper of sensory memory. It stores smells, sounds, images, and emotions. It remembers in feeling and sensation, not words.

This is why a scent, a song, or a color can trigger a flood of fear. This brain doesn’t rationalize, it remembers. When the emotional brain is activated, the ability to think rationally is suppressed and decisions are made based on emotions.

The Thinking Brain (Neocortex or New Mammalian Brain)

The rational mind, our storyteller. It seeks meaning and coherence. It’s the part most traditional therapy addresses.

But trauma is not just a story. It’s a living imprint across all levels of being.

And the thinking brain isn’t the one holding the trauma. That job belongs to the emotional brain, which is where emotions and images live.

That’s why talk therapy alone, while necessary, isn’t sufficient.

Trauma Is Not What Happened, It’s How It Was Experienced

Survivors of sexual violence often couldn’t run or fight. They froze. Dissociated. Their bodies held the terror without a chance to release it.

The result? The trauma loops on in implicit (non-narrative) memory.

The body still believes the danger is happening now.

PTSD is, in a sense, an illness of time travel. The body lives trapped in yesterday’s terror. Long after the danger has passed, the reptilian brain and emotional brain can still react as though the trauma is happening now. It’s like the movie Groundhog Day, if it was a nightmare.

The Thinking Brain might know you’re safe, but the rest of your system doesn’t.

Healing Requires Speaking to Every Part of the Brain

True healing speaks to all three layers of the brain, each in its own language, and with integration of the messages.

Speaking to the Thinking Brain

Talk therapy offers language, insight, and education. It helps survivors build a coherent narrative, connecting memory fragments into a whole.

It teaches coping skills, grounding, breathwork, and reality testing, all crucial tools for stability. Insight helps. But it alone cannot reach the depths where trauma lives.

Speaking to the Old Mammalian Brain

The emotional brain heals through imagery, sensation, and feeling. Modalities like EMDR, art therapy, and somatic therapy bypass words and work directly with sensory memory. Mindfulness becomes a sacred skill: witnessing the body's messages without judgment, allowing what was frozen to move again.

This is where survivors begin to recognize how their body reacts when they’re triggered—tightening muscles, shallow breathing, a racing heart—and learn to listen rather than override those messages. The phrase “feel it to heal it” refers to this process.

Healing here is about honoring the language of the body.

Speaking to the Reptilian Brain

At the deepest level, the body must complete what it couldn’t during the trauma.

A somatic therapist may help a survivor enact the motions of pushing away, running, or saying "no", actions that were blocked during the assault.

These aren’t symbolic acts. They are direct communications to the survival brain:

You are safe now. You have choice. You are free.

You Are Not Broken

Many survivors live for years thinking that they’re defective or emotionally unstable. In reality, they’re having completely natural reactions to an unnatural experience. The symptoms of trauma are not signs of weakness, they’re signs of strength.

You are not broken. You are not weak. You are not beyond repair.

Your nervous system did whatever it needed to do to get you through, to survive.

But surviving is not the same as healing.

Healing is possible. It takes time and it is sacred. It asks you to meet yourself with tenderness and to explore the places inside that still believe they’re in danger. And it demands a trauma-informed approach that honors your story, not just with words, but with presence, patience, and deep listening to the body.

Healing trauma requires time. It requires witnessing.

It calls for a deeper kind of listening, one that honors body, mind, and spirit alike.

You do not have to do this alone. There are wise ones who know the way and can walk beside you as you find your way back to safety, connection, and wholeness. There is a future beyond survival.

I know. I have walked that path.

And if you are walking it now, please hear me:

There is another side.

Keep going.

---

How Healing Happens is a space where science meets soul, and where the journey toward wholeness is honored in all its beauty and messiness.

If this essay spoke to something inside you, you can support this work by liking, sharing, or subscribing.

Soon, I’ll be opening a deeper layer of connection for those who feel called to walk this healing path even more closely.

Thank you for being here.

---

© Linnea Butler 2025