Tag: post traumatic stress

Warning ⚠️ details of abuse described. I know I have a lot of survivors following me and in no way want to trigger them reading this.

I wrote this 18 years ago. I haven’t read it since I wrote it. I found it yesterday. I have so many answers to what I wrote then. We are getting storage unit in area we are moving to and going to start moving stuff down over winter months so I am going through bins in the basement. Finding elementary-high school yearbooks, report cards, diplomas, and a whole lot of journals that I think I need to throw all in the next campfire we have and watch them burn.

He is still alive.
He never married or had kids.
2 years after writing this I finally did what he told me never to do. I reported it to authorities.
I was believed including by his sister whom he lived with all those years. He denied it all. His sister took my side and 💯 supported me and kicked him out. This was someone she loved and trusted and then to learn the ugly truth about the evil monster he is.

Back this summer I shared this video on social media. https://lnkd.in/gbGJVb-i

I share details of what my cousin and her brother did in this speech I gave in August. There was only one reason I was hesitant to put it on the internet. I wanted to protect her from watching it. She was betrayed by her brother for what he did. I didn’t want her to be reminded just how evil he was and what was going on inside her house. So I hoped it wouldn’t show up in her feed. I shared more details than I normally do in that speech.An hour after discovering this old journal entry his sister was scrolling facebook and came upon that video I hoped she wouldn’t see 2 months ago. She immediately commented after watching it.

“I some how missed this post. I am so freaking proud of you.” I sent her a message.
She wrote me back saying how she watched a cute video of Jack and then scrolled up and saw the video and clicked on it and said, “I was watching it and crying. I am so damn proud of you. So proud of you.”

I told her the timing of her watching that and coming across this journal entry from 18 years ago an hour earlier. We went back and forth in messages after that. This journal entry is perfect example of why we need Erin’s Law.

What you read below in this journal is what Hell on Earth looks like and it’s happening all the time to children. On this same day he pulled out a pocket knife as he sat next to me on his bed. He took my finger and made me feel how sharp it was. He told me this knife would hurt me a lot more than him. At 8 years old I feared I was not going to make it out alive. I will never be able to understand how someone could inflict this type of pain on a child looking down at them crying and have no care in the world. I have often wondered what could cause someone to become this evil. How did this man become such a monster?

It has crossed my mind many times how different my life would look if nobody every laid a hand on me. While I walked out of this room alive that day a part of me definitely died and changed the entire direction my life would go. Innocence stolen, a childhood scared, trust taken, and painful memories that I will never forget. Their is only one thing from that day and the other days he assaulted me that I can get back and that is the voice he had for so many years forcing me to stay silent. I took that voice back and haven’t stopped talking since. It is empowering to use my voice and raise awareness to what so many stay silent about.

A year ago I posted a photo where all this abuse discribed below occurred on this page. I used it to describe you don’t always know what is going behind closed doors. Terrible things can be happening in a house, school, or church. What I was not prepared for was the private message I got after. It was a woman that is a teacher who has folllwed me on Erin’s Law FB page for 8 years. I have never spoken to her. She said she used to play in that house in the photo I posted all the time as a child. She knows the monster uncle in that home and had her own creepy grooming encounters. She told me he would rub her shoulders or touch her hair. It happened on a few occasions and creeped her out and she would pull away from him. Then came the day she was in the room I describe in this journal entry. She said he cornered her in the bedroom and pushed himself up against her. She told me she pushed him off and quickly ran out of the house escaping what could have been a horrible situation. Much like the one below. Child predators / rapists often have multiple victims. I cannot stress that enough. If we don’t stop them they will keep doing it and find more victims.

I am asked by reporters often in interviews where do I get this drive and passion to keep fighting to pass my law in each state? The answer is simple. I know there are children experiencing this same horror I endured that I want to save. I know they keep assaulting you if they are not stopped. This man raped me on multiple occasions. Finally escaping him by moving and then discover the monster in my own family a few years later.

Sadly so many decisions I have made in my life are the result of this man’s actions. It bothers me it is this way because it is as if he still has some control over my life 30 years later. Not allowing my children sleepovers, limited the friends houses they are allowed in without me. As we get ready to move to another state immediately looking up sex offenders in the area to the address of a house we come across we like. Yet knowing at the same time we could be moving next to a monster who isn’t on any registry. It took me such a long time to get comfortable and build trust in some of our friends and kids friends we have made since moving to this neighborhood ten years ago. I am not looking forward to starting over in a new neighborhood wondering who I can trust my children around. Having to explain to other parents why my children cannot sleepover. Not wanting these moms and dads think I judge them for allowing their own children sleepovers. I have had mom friends tell me I know you probably frown upon me allowing my kids sleepovers. I don’t judge their decisions. I tell them my children would very likely be having sleepovers and playdates with everyone but I witnessed at a young age the kind of evil out there and won’t allow it.

It has been said to me more than once including by therapists who have never met me, to not allow my childhood experiences to ruin my children’s childhood by not allowing them sleepovers, play dates, etc. Really I am ruining their childhood 🙄 What you read below ruins a childhood not missing out on sleepovers. I don’t waste a second on these people and just delete the comment and block them. I don’t give a care in the world what anyone thinks about the way I am raising my kids. My favorite line I tell people is I would rather have my child in therapy one day for missing out on the birthday party sleepovers then allowing them and find them in therapy because of abuse that happened at a sleepover. It is not worth the risk for me.

This is why I will spend a lifetime fighting to get it passed in America and other countries. I try to find the silver lining in the horrendous abuse I endured. One of those things is all of the friendships I would not have had it not been for this trauma. The people that have come into my life for the positive as a result of this trauma. Some of my very best friends I would not know had I not experienced this. I would have never had trust issues and probably married much earlier in life and not have the beautiful family I now have.

The other thing I think about is how my trauma has helped put monsters behind bars because of my law. Had I never been abused this law wouldn’t exist in almost every state. That principal who molested 26 children in upstate NY who got arrested after my law was taught would very likely have a child in his office today molesting them. I can think of dozens of stories of men behind bars because of Erin’s Law. To me it’s worth it to live with this ugly past that has brought me many sleepless nights and PTSD. To know the lives that are being saved as a result. While I may have never gotten justice I know God will give me that in the end.