The One In Four website, www.oneinfour.org, is run by people who have been sexually abused for people who have been abused.
I have started visiting it recently and, apart from the personal support I find there and the validation for myself in hearing other people's stories, I have found a most surprising similarity in the feelings of the people who visit and contribute to the site. I find it hard to imagine that a group of people who would experience any other traumatic event in common would have such an identical set of feelings.
It seems sufficient to mention on the website that you are having a bad day and within a short time you are in receipt of a number of messages of support from people who can describe in detail, possibly better than you could yourself, how you are feeling and what you are experiencing. As someone said to me recently in an e-mail: "when we read each other's writing, it is like reading a page out of our own book".
I do not presume to describe anybody else's feelings because ultimately each person's experience is unique. But I question the ability of people who have not been personally touched by abuse to really understand just how horrific is the legacy.