Survivors Find Their Voices and Healing From MDSA Through TikTok Videos and Communities

Content Warning: This article contains descriptions and discussions of topics that may be very difficult for some readers, including child sexual assault, incest, and other topics.

For most people, home means "safe." Your parents are the people who protected and nurtured you, and they helped you grow a foundation from which you could start your life.

But not for everyone.

For some, their parents are their abusers. Whether the abuse is physical, emotional, mental, or sexual assault, a parent abusing their child adds an extra layer of betrayal and trauma, because of all the people in the world, they should have been their child's protectors.

On TikTok, survivors of something called "MDSA" are finding their voices and community. Here's the meaning behind the unthinkable phrase, and how discussing it has helped open avenues of healing.

The phrase "MDSA" stands for "mother/daughter sexual assault." It's an unthinkable abuse, and yet there are many survivors out there, with a lot of them suffering in silence because the topic is so taboo and avoided.

TikTok creators are trying to change that.

TikTok creator @cptsd.n.me launched a series describing the meaning and definition of MDSA, sharing their experience as a survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of their own mother.

@Cptsd.n.me shares, "It's sexual assault defined specifically through the mother/daughter relationship," adding that there are many forms that this might come in.

The TikTok user adds that MDSA can look like inappropriate touching, or compelling the child to touch them inappropriately, sexualizing their child, or many other boundary-destroying actions that create sexual trauma for children.

While it's unthinkable for many, we already know that at least 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys experienced child sexual assault (CSA) before the age of 18. And for the vast majority of those children, around three-quarters, the abuse was perpetuated by a caregiver or someone close to them (via the National Child Traumatic Stress Network).

However, because the topic is so uncomfortable for people to discuss, it is treated like a taboo topic, despite the fact that survivors need and deserve for their stories to be heard, validated, and for them to receive healing and support.

On TikTok, a community of survivors is coming together to provide that safe space, helping one another come to terms with the unimaginable and find healing in the wilderness of trauma.

Under a series of videos uploaded by @cptsd.n.me and other MDSA survivors, users are asking questions about things they experienced at the hands of their mothers or fathers and learning how they can receive support for what they went through.

In one comment section, a user shares, "I grew up physically and emotionally abused, but always felt something was wrong elsewhere. So many of these examples apply to me." Another added, "Thank you for talking about this so openly."

One user wrote, "Welp... that was my childhood," while another said, "Oh, so that's what that was."

It's an eye-opening revelation that so many survivors likely didn't have a word for what was happening to them in the moment, and it's possible they were gaslit by their caregivers into accepting it as normal.

But now that the discussion is out in the open and people know that they weren't crazy and that what they experienced was both real and traumatic, they can begin to heal.

And hold people accountable.