It Took Me 30 Years to Remember My Childhood Sexual Abuse

In an exclusive excerpt from her new book Happy Days, best-selling author, speaker, and, per Oprah Winfrey, “next-generation thought leader” Gabrielle Bernstein shares the life-changing experience that taught her how to heal.

- Gabrielle Bernstein

I was lying on the sofa in my therapist's office staring up at the ceiling. We'd discovered that I was more likely to open up when I wasn't looking at her. It felt less vulnerable. And for the first time in more than a decade of therapy, I started to talk about feelings I'd never shared. I told her that for my entire life, I'd had a sense that I was being taken advantage of. Then out of nowhere, I said, “Even when I'm intimate.

Then she said words that would change me forever: The way you're describing your feelings sounds like there may be a history of sexual abuse.

I screamed as Ileaped off the sofa. At that moment, I remembered. An exiled memory that had impacted every area of my life. The memory that I was running from: childhood sexual abuse.

I froze. My palms were sweaty. It felt like my soul had left my body. The sounds in the room became so loud that I couldn't focus. I went numb.

We had only a few more minutes left in our session. This was one of those moments when my therapist had to break the physical boundary between patient and provider. She held me by the shoulders, looked me in the eye, and said, “I will call you as soon as I'm out of session. You are not alone in this. I am here.

I walked out of the lobby and into the crowded New York City streets. Overwhelmed, I rushed into a clothing store a few doors over and straight into a dressing room. There I began to cry. Then I grabbed my phone to call my friend Elisa, who worked and specialized in trauma and addiction. I knew she could help.

Elisa, I remembered being sexually abused as a child, I said. She replied, “Gabby, I always suspected. For a moment, I felt a sense of relief. This is why I was a drug addict. This is why I'm a workaholic. This is why I'm terrified of true vulnerable connection.