I have been asked to explain what it’s like living as an abuse victim, and I will try my best. As a victim who has spoken to countless others, I can safely say that nothing here is an exaggeration in the slightest. Everything I write is what I have felt, continue to feel or have heard from others.

Imagine driving down a road. You're alone in your car, enjoying the peace and quiet. Looking down at your phone for a moment, you see that a text came through. It isn’t a very important one, but the urge to respond overpowers the responsibility of keeping your eyes on the road. As you read the last word, you hear a loud thud. Your window shatters, and through the broken glass you see a little boy flying through the air and landing on the pavement.

After freezing momentarily, you jump out of your car with shaky legs and run over to the boy. His skull is clearly broken and you can't do anything but watch helplessly as blood pools around his head. You watch in horror as the medics arrive and, despite heroic life-saving measures, are forced to cover him with a white sheet and declare him deceased.

As the family arrives, you learn that this was an only child, born after many years of infertility. The shame and guilt is indescribable. The next few days are a blur of pain, self-disgust and anger, among many other emotions.

The funeral is heartbreaking, and although you feel horrible attending, you feel obligated to go. You're the odd one out. Everyone is there to give final respects to the boy while you're choking on guilt. A silly text killed this boy, and it was in your hands to avoid this all.

Again, you need to visit the family, and when walking into the home and seeing all the pictures of this precious boy, you feel once again as though your life is over.

The pain is too much. You don't want to live.

The guilt and shame are too overpowering. You can't function.

You feel that G‑d doesn't want to listen to a murderer. You can't pray.

Your head is simply not cooperating. You can't work.

Your thoughts of suicide become stronger and louder. Not because you want to die but because you can't deal with the pain.

All you can think is why. Why did you have to read that text? That guilt eats at you for days, weeks and then months until you can bear it no longer.

We victims have had our lives robbed from us at a young and vulnerable age. We lost our innocence. We lost our trust in people. In adults. In love. In humanity. In society. We lost our self-esteem. We were killed but forced to remain alive. We were maimed again and again, and after each attack, we were put back together in order to be broken again.

Sexual abuse gets into our minds, bodies and souls. It's a three-tier attack that hurts us on every level.

Our minds were robbed and we are convinced that it was our fault. We feel guilt and shame over what has happened. All the guilt that belongs to the abuser is thrown onto us in a cunning way by our horrible monsters. We are therefore stuck with debilitating feelings of self-blame and hatred.

We keep asking ourselves: Why did we let it happen? Why did we go back for more? Why were we so weak? Why didn't we realize? Why didn't we stop it? Dozens of years after the actual abuse is over, these and so many more questions continue to plague us.

On a spiritual level, we feel disgusting and disconnected from G‑d and religion. We are taught how wrong these behaviors are, and at the same time, we know we participated in these very same acts.

We feel like a failure to G‑d, our parents and to our religion. We may feel unwanted by G‑d. Perhaps even hated by Him. We feel unloved and uncared for. Many of us feel so much anger toward G‑d, as we prayed so hard for the abuse to stop, but it did not.

We struggle with much of religion. For Torah-observant Jews, so much of our lives is based on religion, we may feel we have a choice to make: We can either throw away life or throw away religion, and the simpler and easier of the two is to throw away religion. Not because we want to, but because we have no choice.

Additionally, some of our abusers used religion to groom us. Religion becomes interwoven with trauma, abuse, and pain.

On a physical body level, we hate our bodies for what has been done to them. We hate them for possibly enjoying the abuse to some extent. We hate them for responding to the abuse. We hate them for “allowing” it to happen. We hate them because we are afraid that our bodies were the cause of this all. Cutting is a punishment to our bodies. Self harm is a way of hurting ourselves because our bodies “deserve” this pain and punishment. It's also a way to feel some sort of physical pain in order to relieve us of some of our extreme emotional turmoil.

Shabbat, a day of rest, is a day of extreme inner battles and pain. We don't have distractions to keep our brains occupied. Holidays are difficult because of the many triggers and flashbacks that family time and communal gatherings bring.

While everyone is dancing, singing and rejoicing, we are dying inside. All alone. Alone. Alone. Alone.

Praying, going to synagogue and doing certain mitzvot are nearly, or in some cases fully, impossible.

Being a teenager is almost impossible. We want to be like everyone else: happy-go-lucky and careless young people, but we are stuck in a whirlwind of intense pain and struggles.

Living a healthy married life can be brutally difficult as we are participating in acts similar to what was done to us in the most horrible and disgusting ways.

Parenting is so difficult as we have so many responsibilities despite feeling so awful and wounded internally.

Going to a wedding or a party is impossible for so many reasons.

Seeing a doctor or going to the dentist is brutally difficult. How can we allow someone to touch us wherever they need to?

Holding down a job is so hard when our self-esteem is so shot.

Abuse can result in a life of pain and extreme guilt, shame, self-blame, self-hatred and a host of other emotional conditions.

Everything becomes something.

Everything reminds us of him, her or them.

Everything is a challenge.

Sleeping, when we can, is usually laden with horrific and vivid nightmares from our past, and we wake up feeling physically and emotionally sick and depleted.

We hate ourselves.

Our lives.

Our bodies.

Our religion.

We hate being.

We hate living.

We want to die because the constant pain is too much to bear.

We want to kill ourselves because we are so angry at our bodies.

We want to scream, cry and yell, but so many of us keep our pain a secret. The tremendous shame of abuse seals our secrets with the strongest of lids, and we are forced to live a life of pain all alone.

Yet we still remain alive.

We are still around.

We fight every day to be.

We fight through darkness strong enough to paralyze us.

We push through pain heavy enough to drown us.

We fight and try, and try and fight, and we usually make it through somehow.

We sit through years and years of therapy in which we face our hardest and most painful memories.

We live with severe anxiety, depression, PTSD, BPD, nightmares, flashbacks, triggers and so much more.

My message to my fellow survivors is that I hear you. Even though we never met, I feel your pain. I am unfortunately all too familiar with it as well. I feel deep within my heart that you and I are among the strongest people around. You fight through battles that are almost impossible. You are stronger and braver than you think and feel.

Additionally, although sexual abuse can be a lifelong battle, it gets easier over time. We learn to lower the intensity of the pain. We learn how to live through a flashback. Through many years of self-work, we become stronger, better and more resilient people. We see beauty in a deeper way. We feel deeper. We live deeper.

I am not yet able to say it was all worth it, and I don’t think I will ever be able to say that. However, I do see the fruits of my years of labor. I see how I am able to give to my children love, safety and connection on a level so deep.

I bless you all that although the journey is tough with many many pitfalls, you should have the strength to continue fighting. You should one day be able to appreciate all the brutal work you are doing and see how much richer and deeper your life has become.

One more thought in regard to your relationship with G‑d: Think of your best friend (or your child, if you were blessed with children). If they would be going through an enormous crisis, would you judge them for slipping up? Would you be upset at them if they can’t do what everyone else is doing? Would you be mad at them for doing what it takes to survive? On the contrary, I would assume that you would be filled with love, admiration, and awe over their extreme resilience and strength.

You would perhaps love them even more. Your heart would melt when you watch the desire and compassion they pour into what they do—even if it is not perfect.

G‑d is our father, and I can safely say that He loves me at least as much as I love my children or friends. I don’t know why He put us through this all, but I do know that He still loves me and wants me despite my “shortcomings”—and perhaps even more because of them.

And my message to the rest of the world, the parents, spouses, siblings, and others: Although I don't think it's ever possible for others to understand our pain, I ask you to trust us.

You hold the power to help us heal. We’ve lost our trust in people. When you show us safe love and compassion, you are helping us rebuild what was destroyed. By showing us support and accepting us for who we are, you are giving us that eternal gift of trust.

Trust us that we're hurting.

Trust us that we are trying our best.

Trust us that we don't want to be “bad.”

Trust us if we say we are not up to it.

Trust us that the abuse happened. Abusers can look very innocent and loving which can confuse you. I beg you to trust us that it happened.

And lastly, trust us that if we could, we would, and many times we simply can't.

Have you suffered abuse as a child? Read: If You Were Sexually Abused as a Child, Here Are 8 Things to Know