Recently I read a moms question in a Facebook thread about sexual abuse. The comments from other moms in the thread were heartbreaking. I have heard of many various sexual assault statistics. And I have always believed them. But over time, in the back of your mind-or my mind….I start to doubt those numbers….But when I read women’s comments where they briefly share their story, my heart breaks. There were so many of us.

I was curious what are the statistics now? I had researched a lot about this topic 20 years ago, I wondered what are they currently.

According to RAINN (Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network), www.RAINN.org:

• 1 in 6 American women has been the victim on an attempted or completed rape in her life time. 
  

• 9 of every 10 rape victims were female in 2003.
  

 Children:

• 15% of sexual assault and rape victims are under age 12
  

• 29% are age 12-17
  

• 44% are under age 18
  

• Girls 16-19 are 4 times more likely than the general population to be victims of rape, attempted rape or sexual assault.
  

• 7% of girls in grades 5-8 and 12% of girls in grades 9-12 said that they have been sexually abused.
  

• 93% of juvenile sexual assault victims know their attacker
  

• 34% of attackers were family members
  

• 58% were acquaintances 
  

• Only 7% of perpetrators were strangers to the victims
  

Sourced from RAINN website: https://www.rainn.org/get-information/statistics/sexual-assault-victims

WOW! The numbers don’t surprise me. They sadden me. These statistics only represent the reported assaults; where the victim got the courage to tell someone. One of my oldest friends told me the summer after our high school graduation that I was the 10th friend to come to her that school year and tell her that they had been sexually assaulted in some way.

That last sentence should touch us. I can’t tell you how much it still makes me ache. I don’t even know who they all were; she only told me one other person’s name. I would love to know how they are now in life. Did they tell other people? Did they get help? Did they just bottle it up? Did they just tell themselves that it didn’t matter? That they didn’t matter? Do they still have contact with the person that hurt them? Have they healed? Can they talk about it without pain? How did they find healing?

In the recent Facebook thread that I read one of the women for the first time-in a closed Facebook thread admitted that she had been assaulted. She has never told. She is afraid that her family wouldn’t support her or believe her. She is a grown women…guessing with children of her own, since this was a homeschool group.

My heart broke for her. It makes me well up now as I am writing. I can’t imagine living most of my adult life and never being free to tell, to talk about it. For me talking about it was a major part of my healing process. In fact if I am in situations where that topic is not welcome, I get upset. I get frustrated with my family on occasion when I feel shushed or told to shut it down or off. (Granted I have been able to talk about it for years…there is more here –but the feeling is still there).

I always wanted and felt that I needed to join or be a part of a support group relating to this topic of sexual assault. But for many reasons that just didn’t happen. I did have lots of therapy over the years and in fact with –at least one great counselor. But he was male. And as wonderful as he is I still felt like he wasn’t going to fully understand –since he hadn’t been a victim.

So here I am. The real reason I wanted to start a blog. I have always believed that I should tell my story of what God has done in my life in spite of my situations. And what I allowed God to do in my life. I believe that I am supposed to keep talking about sexual assault and how it impacts people individually, collectively, in our families, and in our communities. I clung to the belief that God would somehow use what happened to me for His good and to help others. How exactly? I don’t know. I never really knew. I just always answered someone’s questions if they ask. I kind of believed that God was in those moments; that they were divine appointments. I believed that one day I would tell larger groups of people; maybe in churches or women’s groups. But I have been patient. I have been busy with my life; my husband, my son, jobs, moves…life.

Recently, my husband said, “Why are you not doing something about this belief? Why are you not finding a way?” I had to really think about it. As I mentioned last month in my first blog, it was fear.

So I finally started. But I didn’t know how to transition into talking about my past and how God has worked in it. Then I kept seeing topics related to sexual assault in my Facebook threads, then someone I met recently told me about some volunteer work she is doing in helping others and it is sexual assault related. It seems like I just needed a nudge.

I think about sexual assault from two perspectives now: First from my perspective; a survivor of repeated sexual assault as a teenager and secondly as a parent; as a mom, how to raise my son to truly understand what is appropriate, what is abuse and what that really means.

So I want to start with a positive. I live a very blessed life. I have a wonderful loving husband who loves the Lord, his wife and son. I have relationships with my mother, father, brother as well as step parents and in laws. My life is full and growing as a person, a mother, a wife and a child of God.

There were times I wondered if I would ever have those things. There were times I didn’t know if I would ever talk to my mother, father or brother again. There were times when I wondered if I would ever find a good man…let alone someone who loved the Lord. There were times that I wasn’t sure if I wanted to have children. There were times I wondered if I would ever stop hurting, if I would ever feel whole, if I would ever feel normal. Not set apart. I always felt different. Would I ever be able to talk about my childhood without bitterness? Would I ever be able to talk about the abuse without bitterness? Would I ever be able to talk about my mom and past hurts without bitterness and pain? Would I ever be able to talk about my dad and past hurts without bitterness and pain?

It has taken over 20 years, but yes I can! To all of those questions.

Does it mean that there are moments that something might creep up again? Yes, of course, on occasion something will and when it does I pray and remember the healing that has come and I can let it go now.

I hope and pray that those of you reading this will find some hope and healing in my sharing and share with others.

Many Blessings,

Shannon

Belief:
It has been a week since my last post and I have pondered and prayed about what to post next. In a way I get scared and excited when I think about posting again. Excited because I really want to do this and scared when I think about what I should share, the timing of what I should share, praying that my words would be God’s words and that they would fall on the right ears.

People have asked me many times over the years, “How did you end up the way you are now? How did you…?” I think they are all usually too polite to say, “How did you not end up a total screw-up or mental case?”

While I feel like it was many factors that contributed; faith and hope in the Lord was the key. I am not sure why but I have always felt and believed that there would be relief from pain, hurt and confusion. Why did I have the faith and belief? I don’t really know. I don’t remember really thinking about it specifically. The only thought I specifically remember thinking as a teenager in the midst of my pain was, “That somehow I would help others who had been hurt similarly”. That was it.

I had read enough books and knew that there were other choices I could have made, other paths I could have chosen. I know friends that have struggled with suicide and for some reason that was never a line of thinking that I stuck with me. So I think that my “hope and faith” in the future came from the simple reality that if I had no hope or faith that life could be different than my current reality –then what would be the point. I think it was, “faith and hope” or nothing at all-suicide. All that to say that I never really gave thoughts of suicide much thought.

Control and Choices:
I am sure that I am not the only person to want to control my environment in the present and the future. I often wonder if had been able to respond to my pain in a different way, if my future would be different. I never really planned to have control issues. Control started in the middle of the pain. I thought in a weird bizarre way that I could control aspects of my situations. Hah! I would even make up these little deals in my mind, “If A occurs or doesn’t occur, then I can do B or feel B”

This is an area of my life that has often been an issue. I have learned that there is an opportunity cost to our choices. I look back to the past and wonder how things would have changed if I hadn’t been afraid then. When I was playing the game of Life with my son tonight I was reminded that when I get posed with a fork in the road of life I want to know what the potential outcomes might be before I have to make the decision. Of course I know that we can’t really know or accurately predict the future. I can evaluate with best and worst case scenarios. At some point I have to act in faith and trust. 

I hope that for anyone else that is in pain or hopelessness, they remember there is always hope for a different future a different path. Just keep putting one step in front of the next in the next positive direction. Some days can feel hopeless with no end in sight, but “The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness” Lamentations 3:22-23.

Many blessings,

Shannon

Change and Matter. Continuing a theme that I have been reading a lot about and thinking a lot about: Does what we do matter? Whether it is in our jobs, our families, or our friendships...or in our communities, does what we do matter?

I say YES! So why for example did only about 25% of the possible voters -vote?

While I think it can be for many reasons, I do think that it can be narrowed down for most of us to just a couple...or maybe a few. I am sure that I am not the only one who has struggled with, "Why vote?", "My vote won't matter".

I think sometimes we get caught up thinking more individually. Somewhere over time we stop thinking about we-as in our communities or our sphere of influence and just think about our 'lone' self. Not to say that we are being selfish. Just that we have begun living in more isolation. This of course ties into our social media and technology and all of our gadgets, but while we have a couple hundred friends on Facebook we might not have very many we can really connect with.

I kind of knew that my 1 vote or that my husband’s 1 vote, would not necessarily swing the result, but I felt like we needed to vote out of the principle that we have the right to. I also felt like if more of us stepped up and decided that our vote did matter....they would start to matter.

I think somehow this relates to our life and change. I know I do this, I want something to be different in my life and then when it comes time to implement this change, I don't do it. Why?

Well, of course it depends on what the issue was and what doubts and fears it triggers for me. Most often everything stems from insecurities. Why bother, it won't work anyway. Why spend the energy, it won't matter. I feel like often it comes back to those two statements.

The real question is, "Who says", that it won't matter or that it won't work, why bother? And why should we listen to those folks....or in my case...why should I listen to my own thoughts and doubts?

I feel like I am constantly having to remind myself that what I am and what I do and what I say does matter, does impact myself and those around me. And while I am starting to get this for myself and my family, why have I not included our society? Why do most of us think that we can't make a difference in our communities?

Yet we love a feel good movie about this very thing! I think we do want to believe that what we do and say matters. We just need courage to step out and act. Even in simple things like Vote.

I have moved a lot and in the past I let that hinder me from actually getting out there and voting and recently I have felt compelled to vote-no matter the inconvenience.

To me these topics are interrelated. Change and belief that we matter. I think it comes down to hope. If I don't have hope that the future could be different then it is easy to fall back on doubt and fear: to fall back on, "Why bother", "won't matter", etc.

Have hope folks! I know that as long as I continue to look to the Lord and have faith that He is carrying me, it makes it much easier for me to step out and believe.

What are your thoughts? What areas could you step out in? I am taking a huge step in starting this Blog-and I think that there are more leaps coming!

Blessings!

Shannon