I am going to share with you not quite a crisis but maybe it is. It is a one of immense importance. That is the topic of sexual abuse of children.
Let me share with you just a couple of victims, adults now, and their stories of abuse that brings tears. Her initial is just Z. She was seven to eight years old. Both parents participated. Dressed in children's dresses, short. Z was passed around to family members. Again, parents witnessing the abuse. What happened to Z? Marriages all ended. Depressed. Sought therapy and stuck with it.
Here's another. Her initial is Y. Cheerleader. Abused at home by her minister father. She self abused, cutting herself. What happened to Y? The adult world was not good to her. Difficulties with drugs, alcohol and relationships only cover just a few of the affects of the adult that was abused when young.
You see, the child looks up to adults and that special uncle, so revered, but oh so sexually attracted to the small child, usually a girl. The statistics of those reported cases are one in three girls and one in six boys.
Children that have abused pasts do grow up and many "forget" what happened to them. Many manifest the very cruelty to that victim by living adult lives more in turmoil then in peace. The memories haunt the victim but again so often the memory is blocked but the behaviors of the adult tell their own story. Drinking, drugs, promiscuity or worse, an abuser as an adult.
The women in the Judge Moore case presented great courage coming forth sharing their abuse. The victims, now scorned, "Why did you wait so long?" Easy answer, memories of that horrid part of their lives get "stuffed" attempting to hide what was. Memories, however, can be triggered by an event that reminds them, painfully, what happened.
My granddaughter said something to me in 2010 that triggered my abuse, nearly 50 years after it happened. The persons around us all could have stories to tell and tell they would if they felt safe. What if ....... finds out I told?
Chattanooga and area has probably hundreds of victims walking around trying to be okay and content. Enjoying that special employment, good friends but that ever present past. Can't we talk?
Robert Brooks