Memories of Abuse

The article contained a lot of good information regarding child sexual abuse but I feel that the tone of the article implied that those with memories of child abuse are often fantasizing.

As a marriage, family and child counselor with special child-abuse training, I’ve worked with small children, teen-agers and adults--both individually and in groups--who have been sexually molested. Most of them want to forget about the molestation, don’t want to talk about it and prefer to pretend that it didn’t happen. Most of the cases I worked with were well-documented in police reports and had perpetrators who had admitted the acts--so there was no question that they had occurred.

However, the feelings of shame, guilt and the fear of being rejected by their mother, or whomever they might report to, keep the victim silent. And, indeed--reporting the molestation often turns the child victim’s life upside down.

But it is necessary for the child’s emotional health to talk about what happened, to understand that they had been used by an adult and were not guilty.

Adults who have been molested as children and kept silent often lead chaotic lives. Their shameful and guilty feelings make them easy targets to be victimized again.

I have not worked with satanic cult abuse or with victims of pedophiles. I believe that their dynamics are different than those of children who have been sexually molested by a family member, close adult friend or neighbor. In your article these phenomena were treated as if they were the same. Marilyn Van Derbur Atler’s courageous act in coming public about her incest experiences was equated with those who were exploited for the titillation of TV viewers. I think that this does a disservice to all incest survivors.

LORRAINE GARAFALO

Huntington Beach