IT CAN take decades for people who have experienced sexual abuse in a school, church or sporting group to share their secret.
Feelings of trauma, grief, shame and fear can stop people confiding in anyone, let alone those in authority.
The Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse started hearing submissions in 2013 and is slated to run until December 2017.
Counsellors at the Caringbah Interrelate office are providing support for those who have been directly and indirectly affected by sexual or physical abuse in an institution.
Interrelate Royal Commission community-based support services manager Lisa Moloney said abuse survivors were the ones who had been directly affected, while the family of victims fell into the indirectly-abused category.
"There has been a number of clients that have held their story until now at the royal commission — it varies why from person to person," Mrs Moloney said.
"A lot is to do with the shame that is behind the abuse; it has been too traumatising to tell someone about the abuse."
She said some clients suffer depression, mental health issues or eating disorders years later.
Mrs Moloney said the organisation provided support for people who wanted to go to the commission, but also helped those who had no desire to attend the hearings.
"It is all about the client's choices; what they need and empowering them," she said.
"They don't have to go into their story, they can just come and be supported. When they feel supported they can tell their story to a counsellor."
She said it often took many attempts before people felt they could unburden themselves.
