Author and advocate Romecca Sawers on how healing generational trauma can help child abuse survivors

A child abuse survivor and sexual assault support advocate has spoken out about how healing personal and generational trauma is key to ending the cycles of abuse and helping victims come forward with their stories.

Meant to Rise founder Romecca Sawers

A child abuse survivor and sexual assault support advocate has spoken out about how healing personal and generational trauma is key to ending the cycles of abuse and helping victims come forward with their stories.

Author, advocate and motivational speaker Romecca Sawers has shared how her pathway to healing informed her approach to prevention and advocating for survivors of sexual offences and abuse through her organisation Meant to Rise.

The Caboolture-based woman has survived an extraordinary amount of hardship in her life, from being abused as a child to dealing with the ongoing trauma and the self-harm, alcoholism, addiction, eating disorder, depression and suicidal thoughts which stemmed from it.

Today, Ms Sawers is using her experiences to help other heal their trauma and learn that it’s okay to talk about their experiences, that they aren’t dirty, guilty or taboo.

Author, child abuse advocate and Meant to Rise founder Romecca Sawers.

Ahead of the release of second book ‘Rebuilding Hope’, Ms Sawers said she found that the “justice is in the healing” and she aims to educate people on generational trauma and the ramifications it can have.

“My background is being sexually from the age of five years old to when I was 17 … experiencing physical violence, constantly being beaten purely for the fact that my mother was abused herself,” she said.

Ms Sawers said her mother would tell her she wasn’t wanted and that she “loved boys more.”

“She had her own child at 13 from her father, previous to that my grandmother.

“There was that generational trauma from the beginning that wasn’t healed.”

In her teenage years and early adulthood Ms Sawers experienced homeless and at times “exchanged her body for a place to sleep.”

Following her abuse she also became an alcoholic, was a drug user and developed bulimia and mental health issues.

“There’s that spiral,” she said.

Ms Sawers, who was born in Guam and later moved to Australia, said before she discovered the power of healing her generational trauma she tried to internalise her feelings and experiences.

“(I was) thinking if I move to a different country I will be okay, everything will be fine.

“I held jobs in management, I wore the suits, putting on the facade that everything is okay.

“If I hold the roles in society that are respectful, no one will know what I believed was dirty.

“Unfortunately the perpetrators carry none of this.

“We carry this on our own, the act that was done unto us, we carry that dirtiness, we think we are the one who is dirty, in the wrong, to blame, that we instigated it somehow.”

Ms Sawers said there was a self-blame that survivors carry and internalising their pain and experiences leads to a “heavy, dark mental place”.

Romecca Sawers' second book 'Rebuilding Hope' is due to be released later this year.

She said she began her healing process when after one attempt to take her own life she became aware of the reality that she allowing the abuse and cycle to continue.

“Justice is in the healing … it’s not in the courtroom, it’s not in the amount of money we will get paid out, it’s not in the fact that yes, these people need to go to jail, they need to serve the time, there has to be repercussions because it’s not okay … justice is in healing.

“I truly say those words with passion because I’ve walked that walk, I walked into my psychologist office and it was time to heal.

“I needed to change and I needed to change my habits, I was angry, I would lash out.”

Now, Ms Sawers said she believes that she can use her experiences to help other survivors on their journey to healing and help them to speak out about child abuse in society.

“We can’t control the next perpetrator, I can’t control the next paedophile but I can control my healing and I can then go ahead and use that to help others.

“I started Meant to Rise on the foundation of anything is possible, to encourage others to speak up and tell their stories, to be okay to go through the healing journey and be who they truly are.

“We need to teach the generations to come how to be safe, but also that those who have experienced trauma themselves need to get healing because that’s healing that cycle … trauma impacts six generations so when we think about that it’s not just myself but my daughter and my son that are carrying it.”

She said the abuse she suffered from her mother stemmed from her own unhealed trauma.

“Her carrying that, and I guess taking it out on me and her not being healed.

“I got the backlash of it.

“Her hate for me could have been associated with her hate for herself and that shame and that guilty and that hurt and everything that comes with that.

“Without healing there is ongoing suffering.”

Ms Sawers said when it comes to child abuse prevention there was power in teaching people about generational trauma and what it looks like.

“We don’t talk about it, we aren’t encouraged in society to talk about if this happens to you that you should talk about it, that you should tell someone and that you will be believed and supported.

“Realistically, change doesn’t take a lot it just takes action, simple, sustainable actions.

“I do what I can do, and (if others) don’t take action I can still take action, in using my experience for good to help others heal.”

Ms Sawers new book ‘Rebuilding Hope’ is due to be released later this year.