The Most Shocking Moments

I worked in the child welfare system.

I was ironically an advocate for other abused children.

Yeah.

Didn't see it in my own house.

So I ended up calling the hotline.

They sent the police out.

The investigator was a man named Ralph Garrett, who actually just retired this last year, 20 years later.

He told me that in 20 years at that time of having worked child sex crimes, I was only the second mother who believed their child immediately and then fell through to prosecution all the way to the end and cooperated.

That to me was shocking and horrific.

And it's one of the reasons that I decided to tell my story.

Because being the mother in a situation like this, there's so much shame.

There's so much guilt.

There's so much isolation and loneliness.

I worked as a therapist in a jail and worked with a lot of substance abuse survivors.

And in talking with them over the years, child sexual abuse is a huge part of what has driven those substance abuse issues and not being believed.

So I felt like this was really a space where I could share my experience in the hope of helping other people to get help instead of hiding.

Hiding.

My mother grew up in foster care.

Okay.

And he was a sexual abuse survivor.

And over the years, she would make comments of, I don't like that guy.

Something about him I don't like.

I think he's up to no good.

And I say, you know, come on.

This guy's got a, you know, he's a PhD.