The Australian Child Maltreatment Study confirmed data many of us have been aware of for some time. We learned that 28.5% of Australians have experienced child sexual abuse (CSA) and that 78% of children experience abuse more than once. We also learned that 2 in 5 Australians have experienced 2 or more types of maltreatment.

This co-occurrence, especially in childhood, can set the foundation for re-victimisation for survivors, who are more likely to go on to experience family, domestic and intimate partner sexual violence as adults.

But there is a blind spot when it comes to this knowledge within the general survivor community. Survivors are often heavily focused on surviving the abuse itself or navigating the psychological, economic or legal minefield that accompanies the abuse, preventing them from gaining a deeper understanding of why what happened to them as a child, may play a significant factor in their relationships as an adult.

As a lived experience survivor, I had that exact blind spot. I was aware of the childhood sexual abuse, incest and trauma that I had experienced but I had not realised that I had also experienced family violence and coercive control.

Focused solely on surviving and healing, I was blindsided as a young adult when I entered a family violence-filled relationship and was subconsciously met with the trauma raised at the intersection of this violence and my childhood abuse.

I believe that re-victimisation can be reduced with education around this intersection, by providing survivors with accessible information to unpack their lived experiences and tools to identify when current relationships pose a risk of additional victimisation.

With a focus on education, trauma-informed support groups and accessible lived experience case studies we can begin to reduce the re-victimisation of survivors and commence to break the generational cycles of trauma.