Shattered Trust

Shattered trust.  I was sitting in peace and quiet contemplation when this subject appeared in my mind.  I have realized that my purpose is to give children a voice, either fostering self-esteem or taking on issues that are deeply hidden.

This issue is one that is deeply hidden.  I feel compelled to write about sexual abuse committed to children by people in authority.  Namely the Jerry Sandusky trial and what it means.  Not that Jerry Sandusky is the poster child of this subject there are many poster children for this subject.

And many poster children means many children who have hidden this secret somewhere in their mind and body.  I have no idea whether or not I was ever molested myself.  None.  I don’t remember huge chunks of my childhood and that is one issue I don’t even want to bring in to my new life moving forward so if it is a secret, it is a well hidden one that will stay there.  I do know that I have a visceral reaction whenever I hear a story about one of these pedophiles, but perhaps we all have a visceral reaction.

If you look at all the priests and coaches and parents who have been accused of doing something like this for every one child you see there are probably hundreds, or thousands or even millions more.  The Catholic Church is known to have moved priests accused of child molestation from parish to parish for decades if not longer. It is a stain that they should own and seek  God’s mercy for every day of their lives.  They should have never allowed even one priest to shatter the innocence of one child and put him somewhere else where he could do it to someone else.

With coaches it’s the same thing, I guess a school or sports program does not want to tarnish the reputation of the school, so they fire the said individual and they don’t report it to the authorities and they hope it will go away.  It does go away but it ends up somewhere else, like Jerry Sandusky.  He has 8 accusers so far but how many kids did he really molest who are too ashamed to come forward and admit they are a victim.  That victimhood will follow them the rest of their lives if they don’t confront what happened to them and find a way to make peace with it. They must realize that they were a victim and get help to deal with it.  Oftentimes a child feels there is nothing they can do when this happens because first off , they believe no one will believe them and secondly, they carry a shame so deep that they cannot admit even to themselves that they did NOTHING to deserve this.

There is never a reason to abuse a child.  No child deserves to live with this stain while the person who is responsible for it just moves on along the road and does it to someone else.  Meanwhile the child never really recovers from the trauma and the shattered trust.  It takes years to deal with childhood trauma and years ago there was such a stigma about mental health issues that now many adults walk around with this private shame themselves.

I ask them to find help, find love and don’t take the burdens of a sick person into your soul.  There are thousands of mental health professionals who can help you to make peace with this violation and make you whole again. And for the child molesters among us(and they  know who they are), there is only the hope that when they die they don’t come back in another life time and pick up where they left off.    It’s up to God or the universe to decide what to do with them and hopefully he does a better job of it then the churches and schools do.

Thank you for reading it was a tough issue to deal with but I just felt called to do so. To those abused innocents, I may not know exactly what you went through but I do know how childhood trauma affected my life.  You are not alone.  Bless you and I hope you find peace in your soul.