Connie Lee 8th Grade 

    One day I felt sick and didn't want to make the weekly trip to his parent’s house to eat Sunday dinner and watch wrestling. Usually when he returned home on those days, he would have to try the wrestling moves on momma. Still now, I hate wrestling. I was in my room, when I heard James tell momma to go on and he would stay with me. As the car was leaving, I could hear all of the doors being locked; so I locked my bedroom door. I didn’t like where this was headed. There was only a small square window, so I had no way of getting out. I sat curled up in the corner of my room. He came to the door, banging and yelling for me to open the door. When I refused, He said, "You know what I will do to you and your momma if you don't". Yeah, I knew well. Even at eleven, I knew he could kill us both and no one would ever find us. My trembling fingers opened the door. James ordered me to lie down. After watching him draw out his uncircumcised penis, I don't remember much of anything else until he was through. He said, “Now, don't you feel better"? I thought I was going to puke. I pulled up my bloody soiled panties, put my clothes back on, I locked the door behind him, crawled back into my corner, wondering what to do. If I told the police, who would they believe? God knows, I can't go through anymore of this. I didn't want to go to a foster home. Momma would probably take his side. It would bring shame and rejection to my family. What does an eleven year old do? I sat in a fetal position for what felt like days. I was curled so tight, nothing could come between me and me. I vowed to tell no one. I felt like the lowest rock I could have crawled under, wouldn’t have been low enough. I felt dirty and ashamed. I kept asking myself, what had I done to deserve this? What had I done to provoke him? My God, help me please!!!!!! 

   Later, in the following week, he threw one of my brothers against the wall, saying, " If ya'll don't like it, ya'll can leave". We grabbed some things and walked across town to our dad's. Yee Hah!!!! I remember looking back down the road, at the trailer, wondering why our mother didn’t fight for us. Why didn’t she just leave him? Was she afraid he would kill her? Didn’t she know he would if she stayed?  We walked a few blocks to our dad’s house. Can you imagine living through years of hell, and your dad you never saw, lived less than five blocks from your house?

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Carl Hart

A still photo of the Oprah 200 Men Show that aired last November.   (You can see my blue shirt near the top/left of the photo)

WE ALL NEED TO STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT, TO RAISE AWARENESS.   Carl

Comment by FACSA Foundation on September 26, 2011 at 11:11pm

I know that was a moment to remember. Thank you for posting Carl. BTW: We are getting interest from Canada, U.K., Pakistan, Russia, and Australia. I am about to post some art for an sexual assault and justice org. in the UK; the art is made by Pakistani families and children. Have a great night! Connie

. Comment by Fawn Volkert on September 27, 2011 at 8:35am

Thanks Carl for saying ALL! I find that this is a national and worldwide epidemic that is the responsibility of all to stop - not just the victims. Oprah did a lot to get that ball rolling for us but it's up to us to keep breaking the silence

Comment by FACSA Foundation on October 27, 2011 at 4:30pm

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Comment by FACSA Foundation on October 27, 2011 at 4:31pm

Dr. Jaimie Romo 8th Grade

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 Tara Lacuente

Comment by FACSA Foundation on November 2, 2011 at 12:18pm

Our Little Secret. Original Poem by myself.

• Posted by Tara C Laracuente on October 29, 2011 at 9:09pm

We both walk around as if nothing happen as if you didnt do anything to me. As i look in the eyes of my abuser who i call my stepdad and he looks at me, his eyes seem to tell me a story. Its our little secret. No one will ever know. No one will believe you. And he smiles. Fear grows inside me and disgust just runs through my veins. I cringe at the sight at him. Why does he have to be like that? Why cant i do anything else to stop him? Those were the questions that ran through my mind after the abuse had occur. But he doesnt know that i have broken the silence and the vow of that secret. He will no longer have control of me. He can look me in the eye and think that no ones know but hes wrong. Thats my little secret. No more silence. Original poem i just came up with.

Comment by FACSA Foundation on November 2, 2011 at 12:19pm

the stranger i knew

The stranger i knew was a family member. Always treated me kind and showed alot of love towards me. But i didnt know that the love he showed would deceive me. He made me feel like a prisoner. He brought me to a dark and dreary place. A place only seen in a nightmare. The way he touched me paralyzed me and made it difficult to escape. He made me feel like a helpless child without a mother. His lips touched mine as if there was some type of magnetic force pulling us together. I wanted to scream for help but i couldnt allow myself to do so. He stayed close to me as if he was protecting me from harm. But he was the one harming me. I allowed everything to go on for weeks because i was trembling from fear. In the end the stranger i knew was my uncle.

Comment by Tara C Laracuente on November 2, 2011 at 12:25pm

Thank you for using my poems. :)) I appreciate it.

Comment by FACSA Foundation on November 2, 2011 at 12:25pm

Well ill share a story instead. Here it is. 

Thankful...

I first want to start off by saying that i am thankful to all those who started following my blog and who are also getting healed through reading my blog. I want to continue to encourage you all to speak out against abuse. I know i may have already said this but i can't stress this enough the reason why i couldn't speak out and seek justice. Yes i am speaking out online and such but i cant do it pubically because of my mother. If you look through all my post, i cant remember which one, i had written that i couldn't tell my mother because she wouldn't believe me and she loves her husband dearly. She also suffers from heart problems so i dare not tell her now what her precious husband had done to me. I never sought justice because she didnt believe that he could do such thing. The worse part of it all is that his family even told her not to marry him because he had a history of molesting girls from his previous relationship but she ignored everyone and still married him. It makes me sick to hear that and know that she still chose him after being told something like that. What mother in the right mind would chose a man like that and who had a history like that. I promised myself that i would never do such thing and i would believe my child if they told me something like that. I hate that she is in denial about everything. There has been times that i wanted to tell her about it but i couldnt work up the courage to tell her. I wish i could go back in time and stop this from ever happening. I know this may sound wrong but in ways what i been through made me the person i am today. I am stronger. I am wiser. I am a survivor and through my story and through my blog i know that someone out there will see this and have the courage the speak out and tell someone. Please dont make the same mistake i made and not tell when it first happens. Get the help you need. I chose to be quiet because i was ashamed of myself for allowing it to happen. I felt it was my fault. But you know what IT WASNT MY FAULT!!!!!!! Same goes to you!!! ITS NOT YOUR FAULT. YOU DID NOTHING WRONG!!!!!!! We never asked for this to happen to us. We never wanted this. DO NOT ALLOW those who harmed you say that you asked for this. We never did nor will ever ask for something like this to happen. Its not our fault.No matter who you felt, no matter who your body felt during the abuse its not your fault. Please believe that. There are people who are standing by and who will support you and stand by your side like myself. I have chosen to use my voice and share my story with the world. I have chosen to be a voice to those who have kept silent for many years. You are not alone. I am here. Please SPEAK OUT!!!! NO MORE SILENCE!!!!

Comment by Tara C Laracuente on November 2, 2011 at 12:30pm

Thank you for sharing my post. I appreciate it. You guys are awesome.

Tara C Laracuente:

Here is my full story I grew up in a home where i was always being told to get over it or suck it up. Every time i was upset about something that happen and went to my mom she would tell me to get over it. So by that i was always holding in my emotions. I was hit a few times when i was younger. Ive been involved with the department of child and family services. It was very hard. Thats why now i hide my emotions. So when i was around 10 or so my uncle molested me. It went on for a while. It was hard to say anything. When i was around 14 my step-dad molested me too. It was worse than the first. He pinned me against the wall and moved his body back and forth on me. When i was in 7th grade i was so depressed that i told a teacher that i wanted to kill myself. She called the school therapist or social worker and they called my parents. When i got home my mom was so upset she yelled at me. Anyway we i had to go to therapy for about two months. It really didnt help much but i manage to get out of it. So once i got to high school i was still feeling depressed. I put myself on a no food diet. Which didnt work really. Now i just barely eat or dont eat healthy. Anyway it was pretty hard. I way in and out of the guidance office reason being was because i had some much bottled up that i needed to tell someone. After high school i took a year off because deciding if i wanted to go to college. My second job that i had was pretty good. But i was still feeling depressed. I started cutting myself then. I dont know why i did it but at the time it was convenient. But after a while i stopped. Now i say that after i joined the joyful heart foundation facebook page i met survivors who helped me and gave me courage to speak out and to continue to share my story of sexual abuse. And also i thank Mariska hargitay for her role as det. Benson on svu who helped me speak out. I'm still in the healing process. Its hard sometimes when i think about it but i know i am healing. I am also using my voice through my blog to help others speak out. I refuse to remain silent. If i can help some one else receive the justice i couldn't receive that would be amazing. I am using my story to help shed light on the issue of silence.

Comment by FACSA Foundation on December 9, 2011 at 12:00pm

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Keith Smith, for the Holocaust of Innocence Wall

Keith Smith

Stranger Abduction Sexual Assault Survivor and Keynote Speaker on the topic of Childhood Sexual Abuse.

My name is Keith Smith. I was abducted, beaten and raped by a stranger. It wasn’t a neighbor, a coach, a relative, a family friend or teacher. It was a recidivist pedophile predator who spent time in prison for previous sex crimes; an animal hunting for victims in the quiet, bucolic, suburban neighborhoods of Lincoln, Rhode Island.

I was able to identify the guy and the car he was driving. Although he was arrested that night and indicted a few months later, he never went to trial. His trial never took place because he was brutally beaten to death in Providence before his court date. 36 years later, no one has ever been charged with the crime.

In the time between the night of my assault and the night he was murdered, I lived in fear. I was afraid he was still around town. Afraid he was looking for me. Afraid he would track me down and kill me. The fear didn’t go away when he was murdered. Although he was no longer a threat, the simple life and innocence of a 14-year-old boy was gone forever. Carefree childhood thoughts replaced with the unrelenting realization that my world wasn’t a safe place. My peace shattered by a horrific criminal act of sexual violence.

Over the past 36 years, I’ve been haunted by horrible, recurring memories of what he did to me. He visits me in my sleep. There have been dreams–nightmares actually–dozens of them, sweat inducing, yelling-in-my-sleep nightmares filled with images and emotions as real as they were when it actually happened. It doesn’t get easier over time. Long dead, he still visits me, silently sneaking up from out of nowhere when I least expect it. From the grave, he sits by my side on the couch every time the evening news reports a child abduction or sex crime. I don’t watch America’s Most Wanted or Law and Order SVU, because the stories are a catalyst, triggering long suppressed emotions, feelings, memories, fear and horror. Real life horror stories rip painful suppressed memories out from where they hide, from that recessed place in my brain that stores dark, dangerous, horrible memories. It happened when William Bonin confessed to abducting, raping and murdering 14 boys in California; when Jesse Timmendequas raped and murdered Megan Kanka in New Jersey; when Ben Ownby, missing for four days, and Shawn Hornbeck, missing for four years, were recovered in Missouri.

Despite what happened that night and the constant reminders that continue to haunt me years later, I wouldn’t change what happened. The animal that attacked me was a serial predator, a violent pedophile trolling my neighborhood in Lincoln, Rhode Island looking for young boys. He beat me, raped me, and I stayed alive. I lived to see him arrested, indicted and murdered. It might not have turned out this way if he had grabbed one of my friends or another kid from my neighborhood. Perhaps he’d still be alive. Perhaps there would be dozens of more victims and perhaps he would have progressed to the point of silencing his victims by murdering them.

Out of fear, shame and guilt, I’ve been silent for over three decades, sharing with very few people the story of what happened to me. No more. The silence has to end. The fear, the shame, the guilt have to go. It’s time to stop keeping this secret from the people closest to me, people I care about, people I love, my long-time friends and my family.  It’s time to speak out to raise public awareness of male sexual assault, to let other victims know that they’re not alone and to help victims of sexual violence understand that the emotion, fear and memories that may still haunt them are not uncommon to those of us who have shared a similar experience.

For those who suffer in silence, I hope my story brings some comfort, strength, peace and hope.

Comment by FACSA Foundation on December 6, 2011 at 5:47pm 

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Child Sex Abuse & The Most Powerful Suicide Note Ever

Published

by

Mike Tikkanen

on January 8, 2011

in Health and Mental Health and Invisible Children

10 Comments

Two of my friends have killed themselves this year and I want badly to know how to help others deal with suicidal thoughts and depression with more than psychotropic medications.

When I wrote INVISIBLE CHILDREN in 2005, a 70 year old friend asked me out to lunch. After the meal he explained how he told no one of his abuse at the hands of a priest when he was a twelve year old boy and how finally at 45, after 2 failed marriages and several failed business partnerships, he sought out a therapist.

He was still seeing that therapist 25 years later.

Of the children I’ve worked with as a guardian ad-Litem, a high percentage of them have been sexually abused. I have seen the horror of child sex abuse and how 10 or 25 years later, a troubled being still fighting the darkness every day.

Child sex abuse may be the most under-reported crime in America. It could also be the most under-treated horror in America. As a guardian ad-Litem, my first visit to a hospital suicide ward to visit a four year old girl that had been horribly abused was never made public, or when I worked with the seven year old that had been prostituted, or any of the family members that practiced child sex abuse.

There are successful sex abuse recovery programs, but our local governments and state agencies don’t support them in a large scale, and the under-reporting of abuse means most children do not receive the help they need. As these children age, the damage from abuse does not disappear – it is often magnified and becomes a serious behavioral problem.

The medical people at http://www.avahealth.org/ are working to make the discovery and treatment of child abuse a normal part of medical examinations (support them). This would be a big first step in identifying the scope and scale of the problem and making treatment available to those that need it.

This is the longest and most powerful and articulate suicide note I’ve ever read and it has great meaning to me for its power to relate these two incomprehensible sorrows (abuse & suicide).

I could not read Bill Zeller’s last letter without feeling the terror, physical and mental impediments, and daily reminders of his childhood nightmares, adult confusion and suicide.

From the Huffington Post; http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/07/bill-zeller-dead-princeto_n_805689.html

Bill Zeller, Princeton Grad Student And ‘Brilliant’ Programmer, Dies In Apparent Suicide

First Posted: 01- 7-11 08:40 AM | Updated: 01- 7-11 03:16 PM

Bill Zeller, a Princeton Ph.D candidate and renowned internet programmer, died Wednesday from injuries sustained in a suicide attempt. He was 27.

Zeller stunned the programming community with a 4,000-word suicide note detailing a childhood of physical and sexual abuse, which he had never before disclosed to anyone.

“I’ve never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this hampered my social interactions,” Zeller wrote. “… I wondered what it would be like to take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better able to mask.”

According to the Daily Princetonian, Zeller posted the note on his website and e-mailed it to friends before taking his own life. The note in full can be seen below.

Zeller was a programming whiz kid, responsible for creating applications such as Graph Your Inbox, which visualizes Gmail use over time, and myTunes, which enables users to download others’ iTunes music. Zeller made the latter program while an undergraduate at Trinity College.

Zeller’s death has prompted an outpouring of grief on the internet, from those who knew him and those who didn’t.

“I’d first encountered Bill online years ago when he made a blog posting app, and then re-meeting him at a Princeton event last year, he’d begun by saying, ‘You probably don’t remember…,’” One user wrote on MetaFilter. “But we immediately reconnected about the cool project he’d done back then. More amazingly, he was doing super, super brilliant work at Princeton, which I found really inspiring and was so excited to see how far this young guy had come from such promising roots.”

Zeller’s note:

I have the urge to declare my sanity and justify my actions, but I assume I’ll never be able to convince anyone that this was the right decision. Maybe it’s true that anyone who does this is insane by definition, but I can at least explain my reasoning.

I considered not writing any of this because of how personal it is, but I like tying up loose ends and don’t want people to wonder why I did this. Since I’ve never spoken to anyone about what happened to me, people would likely draw the wrong conclusions.

My first memories as a child are of being raped, repeatedly. This has affected every aspect of my life. This darkness, which is the only way I can describe it, has followed me like a fog, but at times intensified and overwhelmed me, usually triggered by a distinct situation. In kindergarten I couldn’t use the bathroom and would stand petrified whenever I needed to, which started a trend of awkward and unexplained social behavior.

The damage that was done to my body still prevents me from using the bathroom normally, but now it’s less of a physical impediment than a daily reminder of what was done to me.

This darkness followed me as I grew up. I remember spending hours playing with legos, having my world consist of me and a box of cold, plastic blocks. Just waiting for everything to end. It’s the same thing I do now, but instead of legos it’s surfing the web or reading or listening to a baseball game. Most of my life has been spent feeling dead inside, waiting for my body to catch up.

At times growing up I would feel inconsolable rage, but I never connected this to what happened until puberty. I was able to keep the darkness at bay for a few hours at a time by doing things that required intense concentration, but it would always come back. Programming appealed to me for this reason. I was never particularly fond of computers or mathematically inclined, but the temporary peace it would provide was like a drug.

But the darkness always returned and built up something like a tolerance, because programming has become less and less of a refuge. The darkness is with me nearly every time I wake up. I feel like a grime is covering me.

I feel like I’m trapped in a contimated body that no amount of washing will clean. Whenever I think about what happened I feel manic and itchy and can’t concentrate on anything else. It manifests itself in hours of eating or staying up for days at a time or sleeping for sixteen hours straight or week long programming binges or constantly going to the gym. I’m exhausted from feeling like this every hour of every day.

Three to four nights a week I have nightmares about what happened. It makes me avoid sleep and constantly tired, because sleeping with what feels like hours of nightmares is not restful. I wake up sweaty and furious. I’m reminded every morning of what was done to me and the control it has over my life.

I’ve never been able to stop thinking about what happened to me and this hampered my social interactions. I would be angry and lost in thought and then be interrupted by someone saying “Hi” or making small talk, unable to understand why I seemed cold and distant. I walked around, viewing the outside world from a distant portal behind my eyes, unable to perform normal human niceties.

I wondered what it would be like to take to other people without what happened constantly on my mind, and I wondered if other people had similar experiences that they were better able to mask.

Alcohol was also something that let me escape the darkness. It would always find me later, though, and it was always angry that I managed to escape and it made me pay. Many of the irresponsible things I did were the result of the darkness. Obviously I’m responsible for every decision and action, including this one, but there are reasons why things happen the way they do.

Alcohol and other drugs provided a way to ignore the realities of my situation. It was easy to spend the night drinking and forget that I had no future to look forward to. I never liked what alcohol did to me, but it was better than facing my existence honestly. I haven’t touched alcohol or any other drug in over seven months (and no drugs or alcohol will be involved when I do this) and this has forced me to evaluate my life in an honest and clear way. There’s no future here. The darkness will always be with me.

I used to think if I solved some problem or achieved some goal, maybe he would leave. It was comforting to identify tangible issues as the source of my problems instead of something that I’ll never be able to change.

I thought that if I got into to a good college, or a good grad school, or lost weight, or went to the gym nearly every day for a year, or created programs that millions of people used, or spent a summer or California or New York or published papers that I was proud of, then maybe I would feel some peace and not be constantly haunted and unhappy. But nothing I did made a dent in how depressed I was on a daily basis and nothing was in any way fulfilling. I’m not sure why I ever thought that would change anything.

I didn’t realize how deep a hold he had on me and my life until my first relationship. I stupidly assumed that no matter how the darkness affected me personally, my romantic relationships would somehow be separated and protected. Growing up I viewed my future relationships as a possible escape from this thing that haunts me every day, but I began to realize how entangled it was with every aspect of my life and how it is never going to release me.

Instead of being an escape, relationships and romantic contact with other people only intensified everything about him that I couldn’t stand. I will never be able to have a relationship in which he is not the focus, affecting every aspect of my romantic interactions.

Relationships always started out fine and I’d be able to ignore him for a few weeks. But as we got closer emotionally the darkness would return and every night it’d be me, her and the darkness in a black and gruesome threesome. He would surround me and penetrate me and the more we did the more intense it became. It made me hate being touched, because as long as we were separated I could view her like an outsider viewing something good and kind and untainted. Once we touched, the darkness would envelope her too and take her over and the evil inside me would surround her. I always felt like I was infecting anyone I was with.

Relationships didn’t work. No one I dated was the right match, and I thought that maybe if I found the right person it would overwhelm him. Part of me knew that finding the right person wouldn’t help, so I became interested in girls who obviously had no interest in me. For a while I thought I was gay.

I convinced myself that it wasn’t the darkness at all, but rather my orientation, because this would give me control over why things didn’t feel “right”. The fact that the darkness affected sexual matters most intensely made this idea make some sense and I convinced myself of this for a number of years, starting in college after my first relationship ended. I told people I was gay (at Trinity, not at Princeton), even though I wasn’t attracted to men and kept finding myself interested in girls.

Because if being gay wasn’t the answer, then what was? People thought I was avoiding my orientation, but I was actually avoiding the truth, which is that while I’m straight, I will never be content with anyone. I know now that the darkness will never leave. Last spring I met someone who was unlike anyone else I’d ever met. Someone who showed me just how well two people could get along and how much I could care about another human being. Someone I know I could be with and love for the rest of my life, if I weren’t so fucked up. Amazingly, she liked me. She liked the shell of the man the darkness had left behind. But it didn’t matter because I couldn’t be alone with her.

It was never just the two of us, it was always the three of us: her, me and the darkness. The closer we got, the more intensely I’d feel the darkness, like some evil mirror of my emotions. All the closeness we had and I loved was complemented by agony that I couldn’t stand, from him. I realized that I would never be able to give her, or anyone, all of me or only me. She could never have me without the darkness and evil inside me. I could never have just her, without the darkness being a part of all of our interactions.

I will never be able to be at peace or content or in a healthy relationship. I realized the futility of the romantic part of my life. If I had never met her, I would have realized this as soon as I met someone else who I meshed similarly well with. It’s likely that things wouldn’t have worked out with her and we would have broken up (with our relationship ending, like the majority of relationships do) even if I didn’t have this problem, since we only dated for a short time. But I will face exactly the same problems with the darkness with anyone else. Despite my hopes, love and compatability is not enough. Nothing is enough.

There’s no way I can fix this or even push the darkness down far enough to make a relationship or any type of intimacy feasible. So I watched as things fell apart between us. I had put an explicit time limit on our relationship, since I knew it couldn’t last because of the darkness and didn’t want to hold her back, and this caused a variety of problems. She was put in an unnatural situation that she never should have been a part of. It must have been very hard for her, not knowing what was actually going on with me, but this is not something I’ve ever been able to talk about with anyone.

Losing her was very hard for me as well. Not because of her (I got over our relationship relatively quickly), but because of the realization that I would never have another relationship and because it signified the last true, exclusive personal connection I could ever have. This wasn’t apparent to other people, because I could never talk about the real reasons for my sadness. I was very sad in the summer and fall, but it was not because of her, it was because I will never escape the darkness with anyone.

She was so loving and kind to me and gave me everything I could have asked for under the circumstances. I’ll never forget how much happiness she brought me in those briefs moments when I could ignore the darkness. I had originally planned to kill myself last winter but never got around to it. (Parts of this letter were written over a year ago, other parts days before doing this.) It was wrong of me to involve myself in her life if this were a possibility and I should have just left her alone, even though we only dated for a few months and things ended a long time ago. She’s just one more person in a long list of people I’ve hurt.

I could spend pages talking about the other relationships I’ve had that were ruined because of my problems and my confusion related to the darkness. I’ve hurt so many great people because of who I am and my inability to experience what needs to be experienced. All I can say is that I tried to be honest with people about what I thought was true.

I’ve spent my life hurting people. Today will be the last time. I’ve told different people a lot of things, but I’ve never told anyone about what happened to me, ever, for obvious reasons. It took me a while to realize that no matter how close you are to someone or how much they claim to love you, people simply cannot keep secrets. I learned this a few years ago when I thought I was gay and told people.

The more harmful the secret, the juicier the gossip and the more likely you are to be betrayed. People don’t care about their word or what they’ve promised, they just do whatever the fuck they want and justify it later. It feels incredibly lonely to realize you can never share something with someone and have it be between just the two of you.

I don’t blame anyone in particular, I guess it’s just how people are. Even if I felt like this is something I could have shared, I have no interest in being part of a friendship or relationship where the other person views me as the damaged and contaminated person that I am. So even if I were able to trust someone, I probably would not have told them about what happened to me. At this point I simply don’t care who knows.

I feel an evil inside me. An evil that makes me want to end life. I need to stop this. I need to make sure I don’t kill someone, which is not something that can be easily undone. I don’t know if this is related to what happened to me or something different. I recognize the irony of killing myself to prevent myself from killing someone else, but this decision should indicate what I’m capable of. So I’ve realized I will never escape the darkness or misery associated with it and I have a responsibility to stop myself from physically harming others.

I’m just a broken, miserable shell of a human being. Being molested has defined me as a person and shaped me as a human being and it has made me the monster I am and there’s nothing I can do to escape it. I don’t know any other existence. I don’t know what life feels like where I’m apart from any of this. I actively despise the person I am. I just feel fundamentally broken, almost non-human. I feel like an animal that woke up one day in a human body, trying to make sense of a foreign world, living among creatures it doesn’t understand and can’t connect with.

I have accepted that the darkness will never allow me to be in a relationship. I will never go to sleep with someone in my arms, feeling the comfort of their hands around me. I will never know what uncontimated intimacy is like. I will never have an exclusive bond with someone, someone who can be the recipient of all the love I have to give.

I will never have children, and I wanted to be a father so badly. I think I would have made a good dad. And even if I had fought through the darkness and married and had children all while being unable to feel intimacy, I could have never done that if suicide were a possibility. I did try to minimize pain, although I know that this decision will hurt many of you. If this hurts you, I hope that you can at least forget about me quickly.

There’s no point in identifying who molested me, so I’m just going to leave it at that. I doubt the word of a dead guy with no evidence about something that happened over twenty years ago would have much sway.

You may wonder why I didn’t just talk to a professional about this. I’ve seen a number of doctors since I was a teenager to talk about other issues and I’m positive that another doctor would not have helped. I was never given one piece of actionable advice, ever. More than a few spent a large part of the session reading their notes to remember who I was.

And I have no interest in talking about being raped as a child, both because I know it wouldn’t help and because I have no confidence it would remain secret. I know the legal and practical limits of doctor/patient confidentiality, growing up in a house where we’d hear stories about the various mental illnesses of famous people, stories that were passed down through generations.

All it takes is one doctor who thinks my story is interesting enough to share or a doctor who thinks it’s her right or responsibility to contact the authorities and have me identify the molestor (justifying her decision by telling herself that someone else might be in danger). All it takes is a single doctor who violates my trust, just like the “friends” who I told I was gay did, and everything would be made public and I’d be forced to live in a world where people would know how fucked up I am.

And yes, I realize this indicates that I have severe trust issues, but they’re based on a large number of experiences with people who have shown a profound disrepect for their word and the privacy of others.

People say suicide is selfish. I think it’s selfish to ask people to continue living painful and miserable lives, just so you possibly won’t feel sad for a week or two. Suicide may be a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but it’s also a permanent solution to a ~23 year-old problem that grows more intense and overwhelming every day.

Some people are just dealt bad hands in this life. I know many people have it worse than I do, and maybe I’m just not a strong person, but I really did try to deal with this. I’ve tried to deal with this every day for the last 23 years and I just can’t fucking take it anymore.

I often wonder what life must be like for other people. People who can feel the love from others and give it back unadulterated, people who can experience sex as an intimate and joyous experience, people who can experience the colors and happenings of this world without constant misery. I wonder who I’d be if things had been different or if I were a stronger person. It sounds pretty great.

I’m prepared for death. I’m prepared for the pain and I am ready to no longer exist. Thanks to the strictness of New Jersey gun laws this will probably be much more painful than it needs to be, but what can you do. My only fear at this point is messing something up and surviving. — I’d also like to address my family, if you can call them that. I despise everything they stand for and I truly hate them, in a non-emotional, dispassionate and what I believe is a healthy way. The world will be a better place when they’re dead–one with less hatred and intolerance. If you’re unfamiliar with the situation, my parents are fundamentalist Christians who kicked me out of their house and cut me off financially when I was 19 because I refused to attend seven hours of church a week.

They live in a black and white reality they’ve constructed for themselves. They partition the world into good and evil and survive by hating everything they fear or misunderstand and calling it love. They don’t understand that good and decent people exist all around us, “saved” or not, and that evil and cruel people occupy a large percentage of their church. They take advantage of people looking for hope by teaching them to practice the same hatred they practice. A random example: “I am personally convinced that if a Muslim truly believes and obeys the Koran, he will be a terrorist.” – George Zeller, August 24, 2010.

If you choose to follow a religion where, for example, devout Catholics who are trying to be good people are all going to Hell but child molestors go to Heaven (as long as they were “saved” at some point), that’s your choice, but it’s fucked up. Maybe a God who operates by those rules does exist. If so, fuck Him.

Their church was always more important than the members of their family and they happily sacrificed whatever necessary in order to satisfy their contrived beliefs about who they should be.

I grew up in a house where love was proxied through a God I could never believe in. A house where the love of music with any sort of a beat was literally beaten out of me. A house full of hatred and intolerance, run by two people who were experts at appearing kind and warm when others were around. Parents who tell an eight year old that his grandmother is going to Hell because she’s Catholic. Parents who claim not to be racist but then talk about the horrors of miscegenation.

I could list hundreds of other examples, but it’s tiring. Since being kicked out, I’ve interacted with them in relatively normal ways. I talk to them on the phone like nothing happened. I’m not sure why. Maybe because I like pretending I have a family. Maybe I like having people I can talk to about what’s been going on in my life. Whatever the reason, it’s not real and it feels like a sham. I should have never allowed this reconnection to happen.

I wrote the above a while ago, and I do feel like that much of the time. At other times, though, I feel less hateful. I know my parents honestly believe the crap they believe in. I know that my mom, at least, loved me very much and tried her best.

One reason I put this off for so long is because I know how much pain it will cause her. She has been sad since she found out I wasn’t “saved”, since she believes I’m going to Hell, which is not a sadness for which I am responsible. That was never going to change, and presumably she believes the state of my physical body is much less important than the state of my soul. Still, I cannot intellectually justify this decision, knowing how much it will hurt her. Maybe my ability to take my own life, knowing how much pain it will cause, shows that I am a monster who doesn’t deserve to live.

All I know is that I can’t deal with this pain any longer and I’m am truly sorry I couldn’t wait until my family and everyone I knew died so this could be done without hurting anyone. For years I’ve wished that I’d be hit by a bus or die while saving a baby from drowning so my death might be more acceptable, but I was never so lucky. — To those of you who have shown me love, thank you for putting up with all my shittiness and moodiness and arbitrariness. I was never the person I wanted to be. Maybe without the darkness I would have been a better person, maybe not. I did try to be a good person, but I realize I never got very far.

I’m sorry for the pain this causes. I really do wish I had another option. I hope this letter explains why I needed to do this. If you can’t understand this decision, I hope you can at least forgive me. Bill Zeller — Please save this letter and repost it if gets deleted. I don’t want people to wonder why I did this. I disseminated it more widely than I might have otherwise because I’m worried that my family might try to restrict access to it. I don’t mind if this letter is made public. In fact, I’d prefer it be made public to people being unable to read it and drawing their own conclusions.

Feel free to republish this letter, but only if it is reproduced in its entirety.

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10 Responses to “Child Sex Abuse & The Most Powerful Suicide Note Ever”

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1. 1 PatricParamedic

January 8, 2011 at 5:38 pm

This subject is a true American tragedy, no question. It is, however, heartening to note the energy devoted to the ugliness of child sexual abuse, by the many hundreds of decent professionals who focus on this very important issue. And I tip my cap to you all.

As a physician misbehavior investigator, my perspective is a bit different. My focus is the absolutely ridiculous manner in which sexual-predator doctors are allowed to continue their scourge on society’s most vulnerable citizens – oftentimes for decades – before the legal system finally plods its way to the forgone conclusion – namely, that these monsters in lab coats belong in a cage as quickly as they are discovered.

For those unaware, well over 1000 physicians have been found guilty of egregious sexual abuse of patients and others, just over the course of the last decade. As nearly as we can determine, about 600 of these are behind bars, with another 41 awaiting trial outcomes.

The worst child rapists in United States history? Three different pediatricians, in Ohio and Delaware.

For reasons that are unfathomable to me, predator doctors are customarily allowed to continue their ways unabated, until whatever authority they fall under, decides they have enough irrefutable “proof” of the ugliness.

I – for one – see no reason why the same level of common sense – and common human decency – cannot be applied to practicing physicians, as is applied to airline pilots.

Does it not make rudimentary sense to ground the pilot BEFORE the crash?

It does, and we do.

2. 2 Kim Wygant

January 9, 2011 at 11:39 am

In regards to Patricparamedic…. what an outstanding reply to the “Suicide Note”. I very much enjoyed your comment and I’m sure you have enlightened many readers who might not of been aware of the “monsters” in the lab coats. Kudos to you!!! Kim Wygant

3. 3 Kim Wygant

January 9, 2011 at 11:58 am

Thank you so much Mike for sharing this emotionally powerful suicide note. I believe I will never forget it.. I had to tell myself to…breathe. Kim

4. 4 Linda Kelley

January 9, 2011 at 6:29 pm

Powerful note. So sad as abuse is too common and the impact follows into adulthood. However, it is too bad that he did not receive counseling as it could have helped him deal with his unresolved feelings. He definitely was very depressed and the rage is evident. Depression is anger turned inward. There is always hope and healing for those who have been abused. My concern about the note is that he is giving a distorted view of Christianity. Josh McDowell states it perfectly rules w/o relationship leads to rebellion. Too strict rules w/o grace is not christianity. sounds like he grew up in a legalistic home, which is not grace. Vengeance is the Lords and he will repay. If anyone harms a child it says it would have been better if a millstone was tied around his neck. I am sorry that this talented man resorted to suicide. So sad.

5. 5 Laura Reagan

January 9, 2011 at 9:26 pm

This was so tragic. It appears from the note that he believed relief to his suffering was impossible. However, countless numbers of people have found healing through therapy with a therapist who has specific training in helping people who have been sexually abused. What a senseless loss. I have worked with survivors of sexual abuse and have seen firsthand the amazing difference that can happen, even with short-term counseling.

I hope the publicity surrounding the suicide note leads to awareness that help IS available for individuals who have experienced sexual abuse, and that they do not have to suffer in silence. I fear that some may read it and become convinced that their situations are equally hopeless, but I hope that isn’t the case.

6. 6 PatricParamedic

January 12, 2011 at 1:51 am

To Kim Wygant -

Thank you so much for your comments. It’s gratifying to know some folks really pay attention.

And for the record, how depressing is this?

In the 76 hours since I wrote my note up above, another 36 doctors have been found guilty of serious misbehavior.

It just never stops.

7. 7 Melinda Marshall

January 12, 2011 at 2:39 am

Although psychotropic drugs are often times, the first choice to treatment for victims, these drugs are a short-term remedy. This form of treatment by itself is like placing a band-aid over wound without pressure to the stop the internal bleeding. After the sedation wear off, victims still have to deal with nightmare of their reality of sexual abuse.

In spite of sexual abuse, a child will continue the course of growth and development trying to survive in a world; they no longer trust. Sexual abuse is probably one of the worse violations against human privacy. I cannot begin to imagine the deep emotional suffering of these victims day in and day out… not have answering to their questions. Sexually abuse victims’ tears are invisible to us because these victims learn to cope by remaining silent. Victims of sexual abuse probably find it easier to cope in silence whether to deal people who do not probably know how to show compassion and understanding.

Unfortunately, suicide becomes an irresistible option….a choice to relieve years of internal anger, shame, and hurt. If we are not willingly to talk openly about such sensitive issues as this one, how can we begin to learn how to address the sorrowful pain that affects the lives of these victims even unto dead? A long-term plan would be useful to facilitate open discussions and support at the community level with appropriate psychotherapy.

8. 8 DeMecia Wooten-Irizarry

January 18, 2011 at 5:56 pm

Thank you for sharing this note. I am hoping it will have a great deal of influence with psychotherapist who wish to treat individuals who have experienced such trauma. As a consumer & professional who has had to deal with this issue on both levels, I cannot begin to explain the many therapist who have been unprepared to deal with the complexities of. childhood sexual abuse. I was. Once told that my experience of early childhood sexual abuse was not trauma-after all-I “wasn’t tortured.” This from a licensed psychologist specializing in trauma. People like that do more harm than good. Despite my training, it is difficult to believe, especially when trauma therapy’s goal (at least when I was in MH) was to bring the individual to state before he/she was traumatized.

9. 9 Mari Nosal

January 20, 2011 at 10:15 pm

This was so tragic. One point I would like to make. Many individuals mentioned the fact that counseling would have helped. I would like to remind people that not everyone has the means to pay for counseling. Yes – there are free clinics. Unfortunately, the majority of the population that would access them is not educated on the availability or alternate soloutions for assistance. Another issue may be long waiting periods to see a professional at a free clinic, lack of transportation, or availability of a telephone to make or go to an appointment, or a myriad of factors. We must remember that accessibility to health care, cars, even electronics that we take for granted is an unnatainable luxury for some individuals.

10. 10 Puberty 101

September 3, 2011 at 4:18 pm

This is such a shame! I am from India and I am glad such child abuse does not happen widely in here. However, women are ill treated though which is yet again a shame… not on the country but on the Human race.

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Crystal Trujillo

I'm a Arizona Native, and a survivor of child abuse and neglect. I spent most of my childhood on the streets, but when we did have a home, we bounced from one little run down shack, to the next. My mom tried giving me up for adoption after birth, but drunk Grandpa didn't like that idea at all. From the time I was born, up to age sixteen, I suffered neglect, abuse and disfunction, as did all the other children from my Generation. It's a normal thing to go through where I come from, only one of the eight siblings born to GPA & GMA lived a "normal" life style. At least it seemed normal from the outside, I can assure it was anything but that. There were three girls and two boys in my Aunts home. She was married and her husbands brother was living with them. The brother was molesting the girls. Even though it should have been obvious......no one noticed. Then my Uncle was released from prison after thirty years, and allowed to move in with this same Aunt and he got her fifteen year old daughter prgnant. She was blamed and called names, then forced to get a secret abortion. This is just the beginning of my story, unfortunatey it goes on and on. I continued to get involved in abusive, and disfunctional relationships well into my adult life. In 2008, I made a commitment to God, and have been doing his WILL since then. I made the commitment through a Pastor named Joel Osteen, from Houston, Texas. Since then, I have been in communication with God, and I have agreed to help him take a stand against the abuse being inflicted on HIS children. I feel God is calling on me to take a stand against child abuse, but I'm not sure how. I come from a Family stricken by abuse, neglect and disfunction, that seems to be a type of disease, infecting ones mind. It's been being passed down for Generations, and if we do not get control of the cause, it will devastate OUR experience. Over 90% of my Family members lack the life skills necessary, to be contributing members of society. Most of them spend a majority of their lives in and out of the jail,and prison system. Everything from prostitution to drug addicts, alcoholics, gang members, child molesters, and I could go on for a while "but do I really need to?" I need to come up with a good plan, but I have no friends, or family and not much of an education to figure it all out. Truth is, I’ve been trying to get this now for over a year, and I don’t seem to be getting any where...I have a story that is incredible, fascinating and without proof un-believable>>>WILL U help? Thank you God Bless & Millions of Blessings to U>>>Crystal Trujillo...

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Picturing yourself as a young child did you ever imagine yourself being exposed to things that you shouldn’t have? At the age of 6 I was doing things that some adults don’t even do. I was exposed to things that I should never have done as a child. I was scared that they were going to blame it on me.  At the age of five and six I was being raped by my brother Joseph, and my next door neighbor Charlie. The abuse with my next door neighbor started when I was 5 and the abuse with my brother started when I was about six.

Charlie told me that he would protect me from my parents and for some reason I believed him. Charlie would take me on trips to Boston and if I said no my parents would make me go. He would take me to a warehouse and shut the door behind us so he could rape me. He told me that if I screamed he would kill me and then go back and kill my family. I was so embarrassed that it was happening to me that I tried to keep it a secret. When I was eleven almost twelve I told my best friend what was going on with Charlie and she told her mother. Her mother had hot lined it and he was arrested the same day after I had talked to the investigators and told them what was happening. He went straight to prison for 25 years to life. When my mother found out all she did was look at me and ask if I told the investigators that she knew.

Both Charlie and my brother, Joseph brought nothing along but pain and suffering. I was ashamed of myself and I thought that maybe it was something that I had done to make them want to hurt me

My brother promised that he would protect me; he told me that he loved me and he told me that I was safe when I was with him. I was young and naïve and I believed it. Joseph being the oldest child always had to watch me no matter how hard I cried and told my parents not to leave me with him they still would. My brother would force me to stay home with him so he could get his pleasure. That’s what he always told me. He would call his friends to ask them if they wanted to come over and have some fun. My brother allowed all of his friends to take advantage of me no matter how much I cried and screamed. When it was time for his friends to leave they would tell me how good I was and how much fun they had. Before they left they would ask my brother when the next time was that they could come over and have fun and my brothers response would be next time I’m going to charge you.

Three months later I finally built up the courage to tell my guidance counselor about what my brother was doing. My brother was too young to go to jail so they placed him back in the house until they could find him somewhere to go. He was finally moved in with a family friend but the rape continued. I went to the shelter and a couple of other places before returning back to what I was supposed to call my home. He was finally in placement but even that didn’t prevent the rape. When he came on home visits that were supposed to be with his friend he would still come over and rape me. The rape didn’t stop until I was thirteen and left my house permanently.

Both my parents were to busy drinking and doing drugs to care about what was going on. My mother knew about everything and still didn’t care. She still made me go over with my next door neighbor and stay home with my brother. My mom walked in on my brother as he was raping me, she looked at me and said that I was getting what I deserve and she started laughing. My parents always told me that I was to blame for everything that happened and for the longest time I actually believed them. I was always the target for things. If either one of my parents were mad, my siblings and I were beat. We were homeless for a while because my parents refused to pay the rent because they wanted the money for drugs and alcohol.

The assault affected me in many ways. It started by me not trusting people and building a wall so that people couldn’t get through. I felt alone and I didn’t know what to do or how to feel. By the age of 11 I had already tried to kill myself. I started cutting and burning and eventually I started with my eating disorder. I had been hospitalized numerous times and no one knew how to help me because I wouldn’t talk to any one. I couldn’t sleep at night because I was having nightmares. I would find myself waking up in the middle of the night crying. I remember wishing everyday that it would be my last. I couldn’t be near certain people or smells because I would find myself having flashbacks and crying. I developed major anxiety and I just wanted to be shut out from the world. I was falling behind in school because I couldn’t concentrate and I was getting in trouble all the time.

    Years later I’ve learned to not only over come what has happened but to not let it consume my life. Therapy has been a major part in helping me overcome what has happened. I went through a good amount of therapists but I have finally found one who has helped me in the process to over come everything. With out Erin as my therapist I don’t think that I would have made so much progress. I have learned to use my coping skills and to talk to people when I’m feeling upset. I now use writing as a way to manage my flashbacks and stress. I also find it helpful to go for walks when I’m having a difficult time dealing with something.  Another thing that has really helped me is having people who I can trust. I finally learned to trust people and let them help me. It was a slow process, but by being around people and getting to know their personality, I have found that not everyone in this world is going to hurt me. I was sick of being the victim and I wanted my life back. I wanted my life back and I wasn’t going to let everything that has happened bring me down. I took my life back and now I am living my child hood that I should have lived years ago.

    My message to everyone who has been through similar things is to find someone you can talk to and tell them what is going on. No one can handle it on their own! Take back what you deserve. Don’t let anyone take away your happiness or your self respect. You’re better than that.  Don’t let it happen to someone you know. Be an advocate not only for yourself but for all the children, young adults and adults that you are surrounded by not only today but every day.

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Neil Brick

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Tamela Burckhardt

http://www.facebook.com/?ref=tn_tnmn#!/groups/SpeakAndThrive/

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Innocents Shattered By Tamela Monroe- Burckhardt

Innocents shattered, life came crashing down

Still this world, just kept turning round

Spinning, and twirling

The pain kept whirling

Will this pain ever stop

Or am I just life’s cruel prop

Life moves on, I'm no longer that child

My life as a teen, proves to be quite wild

As a wild child, drug and drink

Can not cover the pain of the way I think

It sure can not protect me

From the pain and abuse dealt me

Time moves forward yet I still sat and cowered

From a new one that would gladly abuse, in abundance it was showered

Life came crashing down

With barely a whisper of sound

I wished myself dead

But I chose to live instead

I moved forward

I refused to be lowered

Life could be good

Be as it should

Now with all of my heart, I strive

Just to Thrive

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Ann-Marie Stapp

19 GOING ON 8 ( 22 Feb 1995) Topic: Professional Abuse

• Posted by Ann-Marie Stapp on January 1, 2012 at 7:21pm

Dehlia Miller 

Mirror (written in August 2011)

I look in the mirror, I swear it's not me.

In my head, that's not who I see.

But then again can I trust my head?

After all, it's the one that wants me dead

or maybe that's my heart

it's tired of being torn apart.

I sit and wonder, trying to figure it out.

It makes me crazy, makes me want to shout.

I stare into my own eyes

wondering how I even got this awful disguise.

They fill with tears

as I think about all the years.

But even the tears don't make me see myself

as I look in the mirror.

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A STRANGER: BY Nyrie Mann

Dressing in black clothing was my only way to show grief. I walked out of my dorm room, pushed the front door open and started to run. One step after the other, one heart beat after the other. It seemed as if they had the same rhythm. It was like the beating of drums faster and faster, and suddenly the beating stopped. Behind me there was a never ending darkness. But in front of me, there was a black glass lake. The moonlight reflected onto the lake just enough to show that there was light and not total darkness.

Suddenly I was 13 years old again. Sitting on the corner of my bed waiting for the night to be over, I heard the limbs from the mango tree outside knocking against the cracked window pane. The wind seeped through the crack, woo woo. I thought it was a ghost. The ghostly sound was broken by the screeching of the wooden floors beneath my dangling feet. I quickly scrambled back under the covers, pulling them over my face. As I lay there, waiting in fear, a long shadow smeared across my bedroom wall. Peeking through my very thin blue and purple covers, I saw him. It's going to happen again, oh no! Maybe I should get up and run away, I thought.

The tall dark shadow, not a stranger but a familiar face, sat next me. As he sat down, the bed sunk downward causing me to roll towards him. The man I wished were a stranger sat there watching me, waiting for some sign of acceptance. He grabbed my covers and threw them to the wall in rage. I could imagine his eyes squinted together and his eyebrows leaning forward towards each other. I could hear heavy breathing in my ear and the pounding of a heartbeat so hard that I could see it beating through his chest. My heart seemed as if it wanted to burst out of my chest, crying for freedom. But, I didn't open my eyes to see. I couldn't open my eyes to see and part of me, didn’t want to. Maybe its a dream.

My eyes were closed so tight that I could feel the tension run from my eyelids causing my blood vessels to tighten, depriving my brain of oxygen. I cannot breathe. 10, 9 8, breathe, 7, 6, 5, 4, breathe, 3, 2 and breathe, 1. What people said about counting backwards and how it helps to calm you down, well it didn’t help me to calm down that night. My body shivered with fear. It was as if I was lying naked in the white snow. Trees all around me, "I'm free!" I am always free in my dreams, just don’t wake up. Waking up every day, was simply waking up to fall into the depths of nightmare, a never ending nightmare.

The fear ran through my body, like a cold wind on a winter day. I hope he doesn't feel me shivering. But if he did he didn't pay it much attention; maybe he did notice and just didn’t care. My fear turned him on, it made his blood rush faster and faster. His stare was like fire burning a hole through paper. Still with my eyes closed as tightly as possible, I prayed. Dear God, help me to be strong. Stop him from doing what he is about to. Help me to be strong. God, please¦!.

Suddenly, I felt my cotton soft night gown slide over my face. There was total darkness. I simply lay there. It was like I was waiting for something to happen. Something I knew deep inside I could not have stopped, but wished I did.

My underwear came off and the dark shadow came over me. He covered my entire body, physically and emotionally, in every defining term of the word. He had me where he wanted me and I did nothing. I wanted him to stop so badly. Help me! Stop him! Please God! I'm sorry God if I did something wrong. I promise I'll be a better person. I promise. Please. The dark shadow pushed my legs open, placed his hands on my childlike waist and pulled me towards him. I gasped for air as if I was drowning, and my prayer was broken. I inhaled and held it for a few seconds. Part of me hoped that I would stop breathing all together. As I exhaled a build of tears ran down my face and blood ran down my thighs. I grew up that night. (take a moment of silence)

The shadow that was once a familiar face to me was now a total stranger. He stood up and threw the covers over me, as if I was his BITCH! I lay there, scared to get up. My heart was pounding, and my lungs bursting as if I had forgotten how to breathe.

Every Fucking night, every night, until I was 16, I relived that night over and over again. Every night I felt a hand squeezed my heart relentlessly without mercy. I felt more anger than hurt. I became numb to the pain. I hid it from the world at least to those in denial.
I even started to fool myself. I walked around for years, deceiving myself, pretending that life was all good, and that I had the best father, loving and protecting. He wasn't any of these things. But I was the only person that saw that.

Years of stabbing myself with a dagger covered in blood, depression, hurt and death, had come back to finally kill me. I had a choice to make, to be defeated him or to be defeated by him. Reality hit, it wasn’t a dream, I didn’t actually believe my lies, and no one would take the first step for me, I had to do it myself. I'm 22 years old now, I chose to defeat him with everything in my soul.

By Nyrie Mann.

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Garrett Flagg

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Part One I didn’t even know it was rape the first time I experienced it; I was 19 and living with a man called Adrian, he came across me when I was an addict sleeping on the streets and doing whatever I could to get enough money to feed my habit including performing sexual acts with men for money from time to time which if not rape was certainly exploitation. Adrian was about the same age then as I am now and according to him had once been a teacher and had been dismissed for some reason he never elaborated upon, he was very well spoken and quite intelligent certainly but he never told me about much about himself and I soon learnt not to ask. He could be quite kind and I still think his only reason for taking me back to his place initially was that he liked me, certainly the first thing he did when we got there was to make me something to eat as I was dangerously thin at that point and had eaten little for some time spending all my money on heroin or whatever I could get when I couldn’t get that and then he shared some of his own heroin with me and then we went to bed and he held me while I fell asleep and I slept well like I hadn’t slept in a long time as you can’t sleep properly on the streets as you are too scared you may not wake up again., many wished for that but I never did. I soon fell in love with Adrian and it was quite easy to fall in love with him to be honest as he was strong and quite protective, his heroin abuse hadn’t had any effect on his figure at all and though I still went out and begged for money and still went out to find men Adrian always stayed nearby and he gave me a mobile phone he had stolen from somewhere (they were quite rare then) and told me to ring him if I was in a situation I couldn’t handle. I never actually used it as if there was money on offer I usually just closed my eyes and did whatever they wanted, occasionally I had bad dreams over it but when you wake up and have someone there to hold you kiss you and tell you it is alright bad dreams aren’t so bad. The first indication of Adrian’s bad side came when one man refused to pay me and when I argued just hit me and walked away, I went home and told Adrian about it and he was furious, screaming that we had no money to get any “stuff” with and he really needed some and then he hit me so hard in the stomach it hurt for days and he told me if I ever saw the man again to call me and he would show them not to rip his boyfriend off. A few days later I did see the man in a park and called Adrian who was there in half an hour while the man was still hanging around the public toilets hoping to pick someone up, Adrian went in the public toilets and then came out a few minutes later, he showed me a bundle of notes and told me not to let it happen again. After he had gone I went in the toilets and the man was lying there unconscious and bleeding, I phoned an ambulance from a public call box but have no idea of what happened to him as we never read papers and had no television but I know that police were all around the park for a long time afterwards and I had to try other places as did the people who wanted my services. My attitude towards Adrian changed then and though I still loved him I was scared and didn’t want to be on my own again but one night when we went to bed I just wanted to sleep like the first night we had spent together as I had had an encounter with a man that day who had been very rough and had hurt me but when I said no to Adrian he was furious an asked “who the fuck I thought I was” and hit me again hard before going ahead and doing it anyway, I told him it was hurting but he just laughed. Things changed a lot after that, at times it was like before and we would laugh and just hold each other but at times, particularly when there was no money, he would get frustrated and angry, a heroin addict who can’t get their fix is not a pleasant sight, though I got angry too I preferred to vent my frustration in other ways but Adrian would vent it on me using sex as violence, one common side effect of heroin abuse is failure to get an errection but it never affected me like that nor did it affect him or I would have been spared that. Though I still loved Adrian I no longer wanted to have sex with him and used to hope for him to pass out after a fix but it rarely happened as he had the constitution of an ox and was never short of energy. I never said anything to disagree with him as he would fly into a violent rage if his authority was challenged. He made a mistake once and hit me in the face badly bruising me and this meant my worth as a sex object was lessened and sure enough for several days anyone I approached simply walked away at sight of my bruised lip and eye, I was too scared to go home without money so broke into a car which someone had left a handbag in with money in and I didn’t get hit that night. I should say here that it was only much later that I thought of this as rape, Adrian was my partner and I loved him and therefore how could sex with him be rape? At the time the legal age of consent for homosexual males was 21 in the UK so an offence was being committed certainly but the fact that it was rape never once occurred to me, at that time too a husband could not in law in the UK rape his wife. Adrian was easily aroused to anger, if I spoke to other men or to girls even (though Adrian was gay I am bisexual and was later married for several years and had a child), he would become insanely jealous and would often resort to violence against me or the other people so I learnt to speak to no one as I did not want to have anyone else hurt on my account. Adrian’s attitude was simple; when he wanted sex he wanted it and no one had a right to say no to him and if they did they would get badly hurt and still get it anyway so what was the point in resisting? I did resist the first time though he was far stronger than me, I said no several times, even screamed it but he put his hand around my throat and squeezed so hard that I thought I was going to die and I was so scared of feeling like that again that I just let it happen the next time and the time after that and the time after that? What was the point? He was too strong and I didn’t want to die but I have often despised myself for it since. People may ask was it so bad? after all that’s how I was earning my money wasn’t it? For my sordid habit? Letting dirty perverted old men do things to me for money? What was the difference? The difference was I loved Adrian? The difference was I trusted him. As for how it all ended? One day I came home after a “good “day in a nearby park in which I had made plenty of money and was looking forward to the two of us buying some drugs, getting a fix and then relaxing; there would be sex of course later but if he was in a good mood it wouldn’t be too bad and he would fall asleep quickly. I found him lying there on the bed; I knew he was dead straight away. Out of his arm was stuck a needle. I remember thinking he had got money from somewhere and had gone out and bought heroin and instead of waiting for me so we could share it he had taken it himself, I remember staring at the needle and thinking that was the needle I would have shared. Addicts are a selfish lot of course and if I wasn’t scared of him would have done the same thing myself; all that matters is the fix. It must have been an accident; the stuff wasn’t cut right perhaps? Adrian was not the suicidal type at all. I remember checking him though I knew he was dead and then kissing him and then crying my eyes out covering his body with tears. I am ashamed to remember seeing if all the heroin was gone (it was) and then I left. I didn’t have any stuff and there was nothing of his I wanted. Part Two It was September 27th 2009 and I was depressed and drinking again. It was approaching the first anniversary of the death of my daughter Hayley who died from meningitis in October 2008. I was feeling very lonely and couldn’t rely on help or support form anyone. I did something I hadn’t done in a long time and went out for a night out to a gay club and went dressed in female clothing. I had been there only a short time when I realised I had made a mistake and that a casual encounter was not going to make me feel any better and so left the club fairly drunk as I had been drinking before I went out. I didn’t get a taxi as would have been wise as I believed I had a perfect right to walk through the streets dressed as I wished and wasn’t frightened at all. I took a short cut down an alleyway and there they were eight of them. I should have turned and gone back but I wasn’t scared of them, I have been beaten up plenty of times and if that was what they were going to do they wouldn’t escape without being hurt too. They stopped me and called me the usual names which are water off a ducks back and complimented me sarcastically on my clothes while I kept trying to push past never once thinking what they really had in mind. Even when they grabbed hold of me and pushed me against a rubbish bin I didn’t realise, I fought back but their combined strength was too much. It was when one of them said that “I know how you queers like it” that I realised and then when one of them grabbed my head and held it and two others held my arms that I realised, I kicked out with my legs but they held them too as there were so many of them. I screamed when the first one started to do it, screamed for him to stop and then begged him to please stop as it was hurting, it hurt a lot. I was crying when he ejaculated inside me. I only realised the second one was going to do it when he started and I thought at first it was the same one again until I heard the first man say “put some effort into it Mikey” and I realised it was another one of them, I closed my eyes and wished it to end trying to block it out. When he stopped I prayed to God that that was the end but I heard the first one say “come on Jimmy it’s your go now.” I don’t think Jimmy wanted to do it but he did but it was half hearted and he didn’t hurt as much and he didn’t ejaculate for which he was laughed at by the others. There was a pause then and I prayed it was over. Then I heard new voices and footsteps and drunken laughter and a girl’s voice. I shouted “HELP “in a pathetic whining voice and there was more drunken laughter and a mans voice said something about “gayboys "I couldn’t make out and then a giggle from the girl who said “Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it. I love watching a man getting fucked that way. Nice arse.” At this the first rapists voice said “Watch if you want love we don’t mind. Your turn Nobby.” At this I screamed again and shouted no but it began again and I tried my best to block it out.The girl then said "I'm gonna film this. "Everyone" will love to see this."  After Nobby finished another one took over almost without a break and without needing to be told, it was during that I felt something tear inside and I remember as if from a long way away the mans voice saying “ We’ll miss the train if we don’t go now.” I heard the girls voice saying “spoilsport .“  I heard heels clacking towards me and then a hand grabbed my penis and squeezed it, the girl gilggled and said" no doubt he's enjoying it" I suppose she was referring to the fact I had an errection. They walked away then and I heard their voices recede into the distance. I didn’t say anything more from then till it was over. I think I heard others go past but I didn’t say anything for what was the point? After the last one had finished they let go of me and I fell on the ground and just lay there, I knew I was bleeding and I was in a lot of pain. The first one said “I need a piss.” Then I felt him begin to urinate on me, I just lay there, things couldn’t get any worse. There was no lower to sink. Afterwards they walked off laughing and I just lay there for what seemed a long time, I know people walked past for I heard some laughter, some expressions of disgust and someone kicked me. Eventually I got up and I set off walking the 15 miles home which I did in just under 4 hours. When I got in I ripped the clothes off me and got in the shower, I was in there for over an hour scrubbing my skin hard and trying to get myself clean. I scrubbed so hard my skin bled but still I couldn’t get clean. After I had had the shower I took all of my clothes into the back garden and burnt them, the shoes I had left in the alleyway as I couldn’t walk fast in them. I have told myself many times I shouldn’t have been there, shouldn’t have been dressed how I was, shouldn’t have been drinking(that part is true as I am an alcoholic), should have fought harder, shouldn’t be bisexual, shouldn’t be a cross dresser, shouldn’t be alive! All of this is blaming the wrong people. With rape the only person to blame is the rapist. There is no excuse and no justification. If you read this and think I was to blame then you are playing into the hands of the rapists and if you were raped and think you were to blame you aren’t! Don’t play their game.

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Summer Hawk

Summer Hawk-  LOST INNOCENCE

BATHED IN THE LIGHT OF INNOCENCE

SHE STANDS ON THE BREATH OF HOPE

TO BE TOUCHED

IN LOVE IS ALL SHE CRAVES

BUT AS NIGHT CLOSES IN ...

DARKNESS SWEEPS INTO HER SOUL

FOREBODING FOOTFALLS DRAW EVER CLOSER

HE STOMACH BEGINS TO CHURN

IN THE AGONY OF WHAT WILL FOLLOW

THE LIGHT CREEPS ACROSS HER ROOM

FOLLOWED BY THE SICKLY SWEET SMELL OF HIM

HE ROBS HER OF HER INNOCENCE TIME N AGAIN

HER SILENT SCREAMS ECHO THROUGH HER MIND

WITHDRAWING INTO HERSELF

TERRIFIED TO UTTER A SOUND

AS TO BRING ON HIS WRATH

WOULD ONLY PROVOKE MORE PAIN

ONCE HE HAS HAD HIS FILL OF HER

HE LEAVES TAKING THE LIGHT WITH HIM

SILENTLY SHAKING

BROKEN AND ALONE SHE WEEPS

WONDERING WHY SHE MUST ENDURE HIS "LOVE"

SHE LONGS FOR THE FREEDOM

TO LAUGH

TO PLAY

TO LIVE

IF ONLY SHE COULD THE COURAGE TO SPEAK

WHO COULD SHE TURN TO?

WHO COULD SHE TRUST?

WHO WOULD BELIEVE?

HER MIND REELS

AS SHE DRIFTS TO DREAM

KNOWING

THERE MUST BE MORE TO LIFE

THAN THIS

~♥SummerHawk♥~

EVERY CHILD DESERVES LOVE EVERY CHILD DESERVES THE CHANCE TO LIVE WITHOUT FEAR FOR EVERY CHILD IS SACRED ~♥HUGZZZZZZZZnLUVZZZZZZZ♥~

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DRIFTING IN THOUGHT

TRAILS OF BROKEN PROMISES

BLEEDING SCARS

PALE REMINDERS

OF DAYS GONE BY ...

HER SPIRIT HUNGRY

TIRED OF LIFE'S TRIALS

AWAITING LIFE'S JOY

WONDERING

WANDERING THROUGH THE SPACES

IN HER MIND

TO KNOW THE TOUCH OF LOVE

INSTEAD OF HURT

TO KNOW THE TRUTH OF WORDS

BEYOND LIES

TO TRUST IN ANOTHER

TO FIND SAFETY

WRAPPED IN LOVES EMBRACE

SOMEONE TO WALK IN THIS LIFE

WHO SEES HER VALUE

HER TRUTH

HER LIGHT

SOMEONE TO GIFT HER HEART FREELY TO

AND KNOW IT IS TREASURED ABOVE ALL

THE WINDS WHISPER TO HER SOUL

AWAKENING WITHIN

THE TRUTH OF THE RARE GEM SHE IS

KNOWING EACH HEARTBREAK

WAS PREPARING HER

FOR THAT ONE WHO WOULD SEE HER

WHO WOULD TAKE HER HEART

HOLDING IT CLOSE

GUARDING AND PROTECTING

FOR LOVE IS A SACRED GIFT

~♥SummerHAWK♥~ ~♥HUGZZZZZZZnLUVZZZZZZ♥~

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• Summer Hawk

WANTING ACCEPTANCE OF FAMILY

FINDING ONLY CLOSED DOORS

WHISPERS BEHIND WALLS

DROWNING IN MY THOUGHTS

THE CRUELTY OF THEIR WORDS

DANCE BEFORE ME

TAUNTING ME

SLOWLY IGNITING A FIRE

THAT BURNS DEEP WITHIN

I WILL NOT BECOME

WHAT THEY CHOSE ME TO BE

THEY WILL NOT DEFINE THE ME

WITHIN ME I WILL SHED THEIR THOUGHTS

LIKE THE BUTTERFLY EMERGING

I WILL BREAK FREE

CUTTING THE TIES THAT BIND

FOR THEY NO LONGER HOLD ME~♥SummerHawk♥~

 

DONT ALLOW ANYONE TO EVER MAKE YOU FEEL LESS THAN WHAT YOU ARE

STAND STRONG IN THE BEAUTY OF YOU

ABUSE WHETHER IT BE PHYSICAL OR MENTAL IS STILL ABUSE

BE THE VOICE FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT HAVE THE STRENGTH

SHARE YOUR STORIES SO THAT OTHERS MAY FIND THEIR

VOICE IN THIS WE ARE ALL HEALED

BY SHEDDING LIGHT INTO THE SHADOWS

WE CAN HOPE TO END THIS CYCLE

BLESSINGS TO ALL ~♥HUGZZZZZZZZZnLUVZZZZZZZ♥~See More

 

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ART BY: RAE LUSKIN

PAIN

HEALING

Young Child

Lead With Your Heart (wonderful art book for all ages, teaching the expression and healing process of creative art and creative thinking.

Rae Luskin

Art and Soul Connection

www.RaeLuskin.net

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Elsie McGraw

I am a 67 year old Survivor of Childhood Sexual Abuse. I want everyone to know that you are never too old to find the personal healing and peace that comes with speaking your truth and telling your story. I was sexually abused by my dad from the age of 6 until I was 17. To the outside world I was just like any other. I taught elementary school for 34 years. During this time I was married and divorced twice. I drank heavily as I needed to numb myself out in order to get any sleep. I sought help from mental health organisations, group sessions, psychologists and counsellors in an effort to deal with my anxiety and panic attacks. In my day, as it still is today, one never spoke of sexual abuse and much as I tried to "get over it" the stress caused my body to react by having debilitating panic attacks. I lived in constant fear, anxiety and negativity for most of my life. The SECRET always plagued me. The SECRET perpetuated my feelings of guilt and shame. The abuser being my dad created an even greater element of shame and secrecy as my siblings and close relatives live in this city and some still don't want to hear of their brother, dad, grandfather or uncle being a child abuser. Shame has replaced any feelings of compassion which they have. It was only in April 2010 when I became co-founder of a support group that I noticed a dramatic change in my thinking and healing. The Saint John Support group for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse gave my life meaning and purpose. Where I always thought I was alone and crazy I discovered that I was only one of many. I hid behind the anonymity of group for a while. I don't know if it is the aging process but I soon became passionate about getting the word in public and trying to remove the stigma of shame and guilt which had invaded every cell in my body. I didn't realize how invasive the shame was until a friend suggested I start a Face Book page. Well I had started one. It is called the Saint John Support Group for Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse. I was afraid to write as it had that name" Saint John" and I knew people would know who I was. My "coming out" has been a slow process. With each step I have slowly released the baggage I had carried for most of my life. I use to think that my inner child was murdered. I have said that quite often. Now I know that my inner candle was always there. It was just covered and left smouldering by all the guilt and shame I had carried for so long. I have heard that 1 in 3 women and 1 in 5 men have been sexually abused as children. I feel the numbers are much higher than that. Compound this with childhood physical and emotional abuse and we can understand why childhood abuse costs the Canadian government 15 billion dollars a year in health, justice, education and social expenses. Yet childhood sexual abuse is not in the mandate of our mental health organisations. I do believe there is a power greater than myself who is guiding me. In fact I can see where my 34 years teaching in mostly inner city schools has led me to this wonderful place. I have more courage and tenacity than I ever dreamed possible. I have found love in my heart for all members of our support group that I didn't know I had. I have one brother Mike, who has supported me every step of the way and continues to do so. He has shown me love in a way I never thought existed. I didn't know I had the capacity to love this much but I love him more than he'll ever know. Most of all I love my Higher Power, my God who is master of the universe. Yes I still fall back to my old ways. My ego pushes God out quite often. But to have lived long enough to find a love and passion for life is the greatest gift. I know that gift is there for every survivor.  You are not alone. You are not responsible for the abuse and trauma exerted on you in childhood. It takes work but eventually your inner light will shine. I know this to be true because it happened to me. Hugs  

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Michal Madison

Art by Michal Madison

Broken Heart

Just A Baby

WHY?

Secrets

Stop The Abuse

Thoughtful

Journey

WOW

IMAGINE

MY BANDAID

TRUST

SHE TRUSTS YOU

DARK NIGHT

INNOCENCE

ERIN'S LAW

ENOUGH ALREADY

Tears

Bruised

Absolutely Not

Escaping The Chaos

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Michal Madison

in my beginning...

• Posted by michal madison on March 18, 2012 at 10:09pm
• Send Message View Blog

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Off the Beaten Path: Violence, Women, & Art online exhibition. View here!

• Posted by Art Works for Change on March 16, 2012 at 2:32pm
• Send Message   View Blog

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I’m Telling

By Donna Jenson

March 2012

My father told me, after every rape, “You tell anyone and I’ll kill you.” For a long time it worked. And then it didn’t. The progression of my telling began with a tearful whispered confession to a close and trusted friend twenty years after the abuse ended. Within a decade it had morphed into a telling that was like a dark woolen cloak I wore everywhere. I found myself telling almost anyone, anywhere, something to the tune of, ‘Hi, my name is Donna and I’m an incest survivor’.

Eventually my voyage from the maze of silence to the wide-open freedom of voice got me to transform my experience into a work of art. I took my muddy, stinky, slimy mountain of pain and confusion and turned it into a bold, sparkling offering of my evolution and clarity. I’ve written a one-woman play about surviving incest and my journey toward wholeness. Not only did I write it – I’m performing it every chance I get.  I’m telling like crazy. And boy oh boy does it feel good.

Once I decided to tell, by writing a play, words began flowing out of my pen like a mountain creek at the break of spring – fast and fresh. Some mornings I’d wake up an hour earlier than usual- no alarm clock, just my itchy fingers stirring me.  

It took me seven years to complete. Through this long creative process it helped tremendously to have supportive people around to tell me that what I was doing was brave, smart and needed. But all the well wishes in the world can’t eliminate all the fears. As fears emerged I wrote them out in my journal, like this one:

 Once I get it all written and blocked and rehearsed then one of two things is going to happen. Either no one will show up or plenty will and none of them will be moved. They’ll leave the performance, heads slanted into each other talking about how they hope I didn’t quit my day job.

After the play was written I decided I wanted musical accompaniment. I found a remarkable master guitarist, John Sheldon. The soundtrack he wrote and performs with me weaves the play together with atmospheric sounds, bluesy tuneful melodies and his two powerful original songs, “A Way Through” and “It Wasn’t Your Fault” open and close the play

To begin and guide this journey of creation I wrote out my vision for the play in my journal before I actually started writing it:

I see the play describing some of the pivotal moments that got me going. I want to tell the audience about the things that took a long time and a lot of work to get me through all my pieces of the healing. I want to be funny and make people laugh. I want to be poignant and make people cry. I want to be inspiring and make people brave. Brave enough to speak – even if the only one they are speaking to is themselves.

I want them to consider the possibility that everyone can do something to break the silence and end the cycle of violence. I want to pick the right stories of my journey and string them together in just the right way so the audience will be uplifted by this subject instead of disturbed, or worse, more numb than when they came in the door.

I want to tell my story of surviving incest. I want the context to be more about my resurrection then his crimes. Tell all I’ve done to become my fullest self not just what he did to hurt me: to focus less on his destruction and more on my triumph.

I entitled the play What She Knows: One Woman’s Way Through Incest. I’ve been performing it since 2008 at conferences, colleges, community groups, a girls maximum security prison, and a residential school for boys, ages twenty down to eight years old who are juvenile sex offenders. Every time I perform it I heal a little bit more. The silence is breaking apart and my creation is weaving my spirit back together.

                                                For more information go to www.timetotell.org

To book a performance e-mail djenson@crocker.com

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The Rape – By Samantha Nelson – Copyright © 1999

Which one do I describe?

There were two. Two terrible times.

Do I describe both?

The pain and the shame each time?

It was cold and raining.

We were on a dark country road.

There were two of them and me.

Friends, going for a drive.

The car stops, and Billy gets out.

David starts touching me and undressing me.

I fight, but it’s no use.

I can’t seem to move.

He’s mean and cruel and rude.

He hurts me. I don’t know what he’s doing.

What is he doing? Is this sex?

I’ve never had it before, this is the first time.

He’s mad I’m not more cooperative.

He finishes and gets out of the car.

Billy gets in. He sees the pain on my face.

He’s to start it too, but he doesn’t.

He tells David to get back in.

David says to leave me.

Alone, in a puddle, on a dark country road.

I beg them to take me home. They give in.

Sore, hurt, ashamed and humiliated.

What happened to me? I’m 16.

I cannot tell. There’s no one to tell.

I’m not supposed to ride with any boys.

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Time goes by, though not much I think.

A week or two, or maybe three?

An invitation to a party.

That should be fun, maybe.

Far from town, out in the woods,

Parents gone and home alone.

A party starts with three of them.

When I arrive I am the one.

How was I to know the party was me?

That no one else was coming, no one to save me?

Alcohol and music loud,

A dance or two they plead.

Some say I’m stupid, I don’t know.

Naïve, I think at worst.

Trusting in others with all my heart,

Not knowing their evil intent.

I drink a little, I’m too scared.

The party is no fun.

The dancing stops and one by one

They surround me in the room.

Come on, they say, let’s have some fun.

No, I really don’t think I should.

I should go now, really I should.

But let me go they won’t.

It is no fun – the three of them and me.

I struggle and plead and say no I don’t want to.

They say someone else liked it.

I don’t care, I don’t.

They won’t let me go.

They keep tugging and pulling on me.

A little tight? Grab the Vaseline.

That will make it right.

No, no, I say. I can’t believe it.

Why is this happening to me?

I’m not made to be this way.

Why is this they cannot see?

One, then the other, then the other.

No, I plead. Please stop.

They call it fun and one by one

They have their way with me.

I think it will stop, soon I hope.

But no, they are not through.

They all want to be inside of me.

And all at the same time, too.

How can this be? It is not possible.

My body cannot take it.

One in my mouth, the other there,

The third in a place I cannot tell.

I choke, I cry, I ask them why.

So-and-so likes it, you will too.

No, I don’t. Please stop it now.

No, we’ll just try another way.

On the bed, then in a chair.

They push and pull and drag.

Somehow they do it, I don’t believe it.

Finally they stop, I guess they’re through.

Come on, I’ll take you home.

That’s very kind of you.

No one to tell the story to,

No one to help me with the pain.

I hurt, I ache, I am ashamed.

Then the pain begins.

In school I double over.

Too much pain to bear.

No one knows what’s wrong.

My mom, she doesn’t care.

Bleeding, bleeding everywhere.

And I’ve hardly had a period.

My periods stopped when the weight came off.

I am only 75 pounds.

Pregnant? No. I never was.

Just destroyed inside myself.

A ruined life, no chance for more.

Children I can’t have.

Since the age of 16 I have known,

This is the life I have.

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Please send personal stories/pics/art/words of your sexual assault expierence for Holocaust of Innocence Wall facsasavethechildren@html.com We will launch the FACSA Foundation Virtual EXPO at a later date. If you would like your personal story, pic, art, etc. expressing your sexual assault expeirence to be entered on a national and global platform, to advocate awareness and education of child sexual assault and prevention, email information to facsasavethechildren@hotmail.com FACSAFoundation thanks you for following us on this incredible journey. I look forward to getting to know you. http://youtu.be/pwA8n1v99zo

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