Grace Tame has issued a powerful, lengthy “open letter” regarding the “demons” she’s battled, after an old photo made headlines this week.
Grace Tame has issued a powerful, lengthy “open letter” regarding the “demons” she’s battled in aftermath of the sexual abuse she suffered as a teenager, after an old photo circulated this week showing her sitting next to a bong.
The Daily Mail published the now-deleted image of Ms Tame on Monday, showing the former Australian of the Year and advocate for childhood sexual abuse sitting on a couch back in 2014 with a water pipe used for smoking marijuana, as a friend next to her appears to be rolling a joint.
The publication claimed the picture of a 19-year-old Ms Tame had been “unearthed” by her “critics” who had delved into her Instagram timeline, in the wake of the Prime Minister’s wife Jenny Morrison’s criticism of her manners on Sunday’s 60 Minutes.
Ms Tame – who, aside from one cheeky nod to Scott Morrison’s cringe-worthy ukulele performance on the current affairs show, had not commented on the photo’s publication – took to Twitter this afternoon with an important reminder.
“To every media outlet who sought to discredit me by publishing THAT photo. Although my humour and strength remain intact, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t let me down,” she wrote.
“At every point – on the national stage, I might add – I’ve been completely transparent about all the demons I’ve battled in the aftermath of child sexual abuse; drug addiction, self-harm, anorexia and PTSD, among others. You just clearly haven’t been listening.”
On Thursday, child psychologist Dr Michael Carr-Gregg told 3AW it was likely the photo was circulated in an attempt to “discredit” Ms Tame, adding that he doesn’t believe it is a reflection of her now.
But, chatting to talkback radio host Neil Mitchell, Dr Carr-Gregg said he hoped Ms Tame would “come out as the former Australian of the Year and send a message to young people on cannabis use, particularly given the devastating toll it has on their mental health”.
“I think for some young people it could normalise, glamorise and potentially sanitise the use of marijuana and that is not, obviously, the intention of Grace Tame … but I think that could be a side effect,” he said.
Seeming to address this rhetoric, Ms Tame wrote that “we must acknowledge the harm that drugs can cause”.
“[But] if we want to have an OPEN and HONEST discussion about child sexual abuse in this country, we must also have an open and honest discussion about trauma and what that can look like,” she wrote.
“It can be ugly. It can look like drugs. Like self-harm, skipping school, getting impulsive tattoos and all kinds of other unconscious, self-destructive, maladaptive coping mechanisms.
“Whilst I do not seek to glorify, sanitise or normalise any of these things, I also do not seek to shame or judge survivors for ANY of their choices. For anyone who needs to hear this: it is NOT YOUR FAULT.”
Ms Tame pointed out that substances, in many cases of childhood sexual abuse, “are PART of the crime”.
“When the man who abused me first tried to rape me, he used alcohol to stupefy me. I’d only been drunk twice in my life before that,” she wrote.
“Perpetrators often use substances in grooming and offending, first to lower inhibitions, and second to build a conspiracy with the target which prevents them from reporting.
“Survivors fear authorities will zero in on the substance use instead of the wider complexities of psychological manipulation – which are much harder to prove and explain.
“Drugs feature in the broader story of abuse, during and after. They feed into and compound the many layers of guilt and confusion. Later they become a familiar, go-to means of escape.”
The 26-year-old, who was groomed and repeatedly raped by her 58-year-old maths teacher from the age of 15, said that she “blamed” herself for what he’d done to her, because the experience of child sexual abuse “for many survivors … remains shrouded in mystery long after the contact offending stops”.
“In the years that followed, I beat myself up relentlessly. I thought everyone else around me blamed me too. To cope, I engaged in activities I deemed befitting of a person as worthless as I deemed myself to be,” she wrote.
Ms Tame thanked “the legions of strangers and friends alike from all over Australia who showed up and showed out for survivors by calling out the unnecessary shaming stunt on Monday”.
“I have never seen anything quite like it … It means a lot to me, and I know it means a lot to many other survivors as well,” she added.
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