When we talk with our children about sexual abuse, we are not only taking a proactive step toward protecting them, we are building our relationship with them–grounded in honesty and trust. It’s a win-win situation.

See, the thing is, I had a little misunderstanding with Trent Gibson in Pre-Calculus earlier. I dropped my textbook on his face—accidentally, while we were discussing some…equations—and he thought I was trying to brain him....

One hundred twenty-nine women with previously documented histories of sexual victimization in childhood were interviewed and asked detailed questions about their abuse histories to answer the question “Do people actually forget traumatic events such as...

Many deeply hidden memories have come flooding back. The important message here though is that it is possible to heal and survive. Everyone has survived their own kind of emotional or mental trauma. We all...

You cannot make yourself have a flashback, nor will you have one unless you are emotionally ready to remember something. Once remembered, the memory can help you to face more of the truth. You can...

It’s hard to feel supported when you can’t tell people everything. People haven’t really got a clue what it’s like. It’s hard to trust anyone. It’s hard to believe people won’t let you down. I’m...

Being Scared-off by EvilLastly, we deny the presence of evil because we are terrified by the horrendously hurtful, cruel, and bloody kinds of evil people tell us about—if we are willing to listen. This was...

The vast majority of incest begins years before the earliest conceivable age of consent. p4

Just one person. It really honestly just takes one positive person. One positive person can help you. And that can go a long, long way. – Alexis

I should meet many people who do not know anyone personally who has been raped or molested as a child. But I can’t remember seeing a newspaper without a rape or molestation charge in it...

But protest that priests are ‘no worse’ than other groups or than men in general is a dire indictment of the profession. It is surprising that this attitude is championed by the Church authorities. Although...

Hiding my pain and acting strong, afraid to cry and show my tears, I struggle with all this years later.

I have to find a place to hideAn island in the seaSurrounded by a racing tideWhere I can live with me

Adults need to teach the children they love about sexual abuse so they know what to do if they encounter it. We need to prepare them so they know who to tell, should a violation...

There are two types of memory frequently experienced by individuals who have had overwhelming trauma that has been suppressed psychologically or chemically. The first is general memory, experienced as an adult, in which there is...

Move on.” But it’s usually simply not that easy.

Children who are victimized through sexual abuse often begin to develop deeply held tenets that shape their sense of self: ‘My worth is my sexuality. I’m dirty and shameful. I have no right to my...

In addition to reaching out for help, you will also need to reach within yourself. Your biggest ally will be your emotions. Through them, you will learn more about what really happened to you, how...

Just as sometimes I wondered if Grandpa had ever existed, sometimes I wondered if I truly existed myself. As I was running, I could see myself from outside myself: a skinny girl with the flapping...

I assumed he knew that your coach was abusing you. I realized in the limo that he didn’t.”For a moment, there is only silence. When Damien speaks, his words are ice cold. “He knew.

We may also discover that sexual abuse helps to explain the high prevalence rates of eating disorders among women and may lend some insight into why we are starting to see more documentation of eating...

a quick turn around a cornerand my planet becomes sandon the shore of a dying Universe

I am disgusted that I was often taken into their bed and told to do things to both of them. The things a decent parent wouldn’t think of. I didn’t know that having sex with...

Religion has the capacity to silence critical thinking and create blindness in entire groups of people. It can infect the minds of followers so completely as to allow the most egregious sexual acts against children...

Though no longer living in silence, I continued to carry pain and memories.

Unfortunately, there’s no surefire way to prevent sexual assault.

And Ana remembered her father’s words, “Say no! Run! Tell me!

The government researchers,aware of the information in the professional journals, decided to reverse the process (of healing from hysteric dissociation). They decided to use selective trauma on healthy children to create personalities capable of committing...

It’s estimated that $55 million dollars is spent on aftercare in Kenya alone every year. This model is not practical or sustainable and does nothing to address the growing epidemic of sexual violence. It’s crucial...

By the Middles Ages it was a sin to have sex with a child. If an adult were guilty of such a sin, one remedy was to declare the child a witch. The child thus...

The more you face the truth, the angrier you will probably become. You have a right to be angry about being sexually abused. You have a right to be angry with the perpetrator, regardless of...

Weird? Absurd? That’s how it seemed to me. I had these forces, these compunctions, these alternative personalities inside me, driving me. It was like being a jack-in-the-box and I was unsure which personality was going...

In court the next morning I sat at a table in the judge’s chambers. On the other side of the table, close enough for me to reach across and touch him, sat Ted Bundy. He’s...

Eating disorders are prevalent among women who were sexually abused as children. They seem to have components of other symptoms such as obsessions, compulsions, avoidance of food, and anxiety, and they primarily include a distorted...

One is that if women’s sexuality in Africa wasn’t under assault, if women were able to say no, if women weren’t subject to predatory attacks by men, or predatory behavior generally, then you would have...

In all the interviews I have done, I cannot remember one offender who did not admit privately to more victims than those for whom he had been caught. On the contrary, most offenders had been...

The church may update its techniques and methods, but it is always in service of the institutional organism. This is one of the reasons why the pedophile priest issue is and will remain an endemic...

As in so many cases of sexual abuse within the family, it is much more complicated than had it been done by a stranger.

Oedipus complex,” which became the foundation of modern psychology. According to this theory any young girl actually desires sexual contact with her father, because she wants to compete with her mother to be the most...

Don’t put your child at risk. Limit unsupervised one-on-one time between your child & another adult or another child.

Cheryl’s growing awareness of her emotional difficulties was leading her to research multiple personality. As she had learned more about dissociation, she realised just how severe the abuse had been and how much she had...

…in my wildest, most indulgent dreams, we only hear about sexual assault & abuse in history books.

Young girls frequently report that their early sexual experiences were coerced. In a study in South Africa, 30 percent of girls report that their first sexual intercourse was forced. In rural Malawi, 55 percent of...

The asylum, and later the national health service, warehoused thousands of patients made mad by the intrusions of a sexual predator. But these institutions had been dominated by the discredited Freudian fantasy that sexual abuse...

The odd sensation I had while cooking would often last through the meal, then dissolve as I climbed the stairs. I would enter my room and discover the homework books I had left on the...

The thought had occurred to me as I was flying to Salt Lake City earlier that day that Ted Bundy might offer to let me stay in his apartment” (p. 74).(Loftus testified as a defense...

Culture alone cannot explain the phenomena of such high rates of eating disorders. Eating disorders are complex, but what they all seem to have in common is the ability to distract women from the memories,...

I was about thirteen when I started letting boys feel me up.

Are Child Molesters Really Just Victims Themselves? “All victims are offenders,” one professional challenged me at a conference, “and all offenders are victims. How does your work address that?”My work doesn’t address that because I...

Violators cannot live with the truth: survivors cannot live without it. There are those who still, once again, are poised to invalidate and deny us. If we don’t assert our truth, it may again be...