It was September 25^th 1991. I will never forget the day. It was that morning that I was fighting mad. I was done being sexually abused and I was going to do something about it or at least do everything I could do at the ripe at age of 14. 

I tried to tell my mother but she refused to believe it. I have already shared her threats and comments about the whole matter in earlier posts. Needless to say she didn’t respond well. She wasn’t loving or compassionate. She was mean and hateful. (Which to be honest is really who is she was all the time unless someone was watching)

She sent me to school with a warning that I wasn’t to tell anyone what happened.

Being the incredibly stubborn and strong willed person that I am I disobeyed her with my first step into my high school that morning.

I don’t remember whom I told first. I only remember feeling compelled to tell as many people as I could. I had to find safety and safety was finding someone who would listen and help me so that I didn’t have to endure another day of hell.

I think by lunch most of my friends had called their moms. In fact I remember vaguely that at the table I usually sat at for lunch a friend telling me her mom had called DCFS.

By the end of school my mom was there because DCFS had called her and I had an appointment. I have shared before that this was when she threatened to make me disappear if I told them what was happening in our house. (My dad had become very violent and was physically abusive to the whole family – the whole house was living in hell and apparently my mom preferred hell to heaven)

The next day at school there was still a lot talk about the events the day before. By second period I was being hauled off by three of the schools English teachers to this tiny room between their classrooms.

Mrs. McGarvey grabbed my arm and pulled me close to her face. She told me that she had had enough of my antics. She said that I was scaring the girls in her class and that she wasn’t going to let me continue to do so. She told me she didn’t care what happened but that I was to keep quiet and she was to never hear another word about this from me or she would have me expelled because I was a danger to other children.

That’s another moment I have never forgotten. Everyone loved her. They probably still do. And I am sure many would come to her defense about what she said.

She was wrong. She was wrong in so many ways.

Did I have the right to talk about what happened to me? Absolutely! Was I exercising that right in the correct forum? I don't know. (which brings me to another topic - what is the right forum - the right place? when you finally find the courage to speak it's literally a verbal vomit - some people have someone to turn to - obviously I was left to turn the people I trusted at the time which were my friends)

What is ironic though is that my friends – these 14-year-old kids – were better listeners than the adults in my life. They cried with me. They wanted to help me. Some of the kids asked their moms if I could live with them.

My burden though was too heavy for them. It was too much reality for them at that age. But in defense of my 14 yr old self who else was I going to tell?

Society doesn’t want women or girls to come forward. People in general do not want to deal with the reality of sexual abuse or rape or any of it.

I have had so many people tell me that it is just too hard to hear the stories and how they don’t know what to do when they hear about it.

Do you want to know what to do? Do you want to know how to help? Or do you prefer to play the card “I don’t know what to do” so you don’t have to do anything?

I was not a very obedient 14 yr old. I was scared for a minute by what Mrs. McGarvey said but after a few days I entertained the idea of being expelled. If I was expelled I could run away and that sounded like a really great idea.

I never got expelled. Instead I had daily visits with the school counselor who was a great lady. I really liked her because she listened and validated me. In a small victory for me Mrs. McGarvey got called into the principal’s office for threatening me – I absolutely shared that with the counselor – and she had to apologize to me.

There was a better way to handle what was happening and threatening a child who was a victim of sexual abuse, among too many other things, was not the way to handle it.

Right now all over social media there are hundreds of thousands of Mrs. McGarveys trying to tell people that social media isn’t the place to share what has happened. There are hundreds of thousands of keyboard warriors deciding whether or not a woman is telling the truth and whether or not what she is saying even matters.

Right now there are hundreds of thousands of women who are working hard to bury their stories even more because to admit that you have been a victim of any form of sexual abuse or harassment feels shameful and society will imply that you did something wrong.

To you, who suffer in silence, please don’t. You don’t have share publicly, but I urge you to find someone who you can talk to, a friend, a pastor, a counselor or clinical psychologist. Talk to God. If you can’t talk to anyone right now please talk to him. He can hear you – he loves you and he can heal you.

I am sorry for what you have endured and for the deep ache that you know. Please know you are not alone. You did not do anything to deserve the abuse or warrant the abuse. Please don’t continue on your journey alone. Please find the courage to heal.

GO. FIGHT. WIN.