Breaking the Silence: Startling Facts

***WARNING Blog Post Contains Child Sexual Abuse Information***

There is no amount of preparation a person can do to handle their child telling them that they have been sexually violated. My son’s outcry plays like a movie in my mind, there are moments where I am in my body and others where I am watching from a completely different angle. As I type now in a coffee shop 2.5 years later I am holding back tears because it is still all to real and raw. Part of me hopes it always stays like this; that I never become numb to the gravity of the situation, that I will always be able to connect to this event with very real emotions. In the past I have shoved down the pain, minimized, explained away and haven’t allowed my self to stay in a place of feeling but for this I think it is critical so I can help be a voice of comfort and change.

You see, child sexual abuse is not uncommon. Typing that out makes me sick, knowing that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will experience some form of sexual mishandling before the age of 18 is astonishing. (https://www.nsvrc.org/statistics) 

It is also not uncommon for the abuser to be a minor themselves!

This was the case in our situation; the boy who abused my 2 and 3 yr old was only 12 at the time. What is terrifying is he completely groomed even me. He would tell me how he had helped potty train kids before which had made me less leery of seeing him around my potty training aged boys. I feel so foolish on one hand but on the other how in a million years would I expect a 12-year-old kid to do something so awful? 

I don’t say these things to scare you into trusting no one with your kids but I do say it in hopes to shed a light on a very hidden but still common occurrence in our society. I long to use our tragedy to empower as many parents around the world on protecting from and walking through childhood sexual abuse. 

I am not certain on how this is all going to play out but I am hoping to write a series of blogs going over different aspects of abuse from ideas of how to handle your child’s disclosure, what filing looks like in the state of Texas, becoming your child’s advocate, working through your own anger and the ongoing conversations you may have with your children. I am going to aim for them to be relatively short and direct posts in hopes that they don’t become overwhelming.

Please take the time to read them, share them with other parents you know and I would love your feedback and I will do my best to respond.

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