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SUBJECT: An offer to help others who've suffered child abuse
FROM: Jessica Stevens, suffernomore2011@yahoo.com
FROM: NAASCA member, "Stop Child Abuse Now" (SCAN) radio talk show co-host
TO: ALL
DATE: March 7, 2011
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Hello everyone:
My name is Jessica Stevens, and I, too, am an Adult Survivor of Child Abuse.
It is my honor to have joined Bill Murray as "a regular" on the "Stop Child Abuse Now" (SCAN) talk radio show !
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EDITOR'S NOTE: Click here for our BlogTalkRadio show schedule:
- http://www.blogtalkradio.com/NAASCA -
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Our mission is to educate the public, and let people who've suffered childhood abuse know that they are not alone in their pain .. that there is help out there, the help we didn't have growing up .. that whatever happened in their young lives wasn't their fault.
Nothing that you did as a child was "wrong."
For me, the silence, the secrets and the fears I had to live with for years affected my life to the point where nothing mattered to me. I became a loner, secluded myself from others, and trusted no one.
It was the most loneliest feeling in the world.
I was always trying to always do my best, to prove to someone that I wasn't so bad. I walked through life on eggshells, my head down from shame, looking in the mirror and not liking who I saw. I beat myself up, thinking this was my fault.
Well it wasnn't my fault, and it wasn't your fault either.
In my thinking the only solution I knew was to end it all .. my pain, my thoughts, my life. Drugs and alcohol helped for a while, but I became a drifter, trying to find that safe place I so much wanted to hide in.
How wrong I was, and I learned the hard way, when I almost lost my life.
I got the help I needed, seeing a psychiatrist and counselor .. sharing my story. The more I talked, the better I felt, although it hurt me to recall such nightmares, the kind no youngster should ever have to endure.
I was afraid to have children, thinking I might become like my mother!
Or could I be a good parent, and recognize the signs if my child were to be molested by a family member or by a person they were supposed to be able to trust?
Could I be a good wife with secrets I couldn't reveal?
How would I explain the phobias I have, without exposing the dark secrets that had tormented me all my life?
Would I be able to show my children the love, the security and the protection that I grew up without?
All these questions went through my mind.
Am I ever going to be good enough?
I decided that if I ever wanted to have a family of my own I had to make a decision. Only breaking the chains that I was dragging for so long would give me at a shot at the happiness I deserved.
So I did.
I went to two years of counseling to come to terms with my childhood abuse, so I wouldn't have to follow in my mother's footsteps. Group settings helped me share my stories, too.
And, to my surprise, I wasn't alone. There were alot of people who had gone through what I had too!
I heard how it had affected their lives, of the mental destruction they went through .. the seclusion, the insecurity, the guilt, the turmoil, the depressions the pain .. I can go on and on.
I wasn't alone, and for the first time I began to feel safe, with wonderful people who'd suffered (and with others who were still suffering) from the nightmares they'd gone through.
Now I have joined Bill Murray and other NAASCA members in this cause.
We want
to help you understand that you aren't alone. We're here to help.
We'll share what we've learned,
educate you, and provide you with useful tools that'll help you deal and cope with abuse.
Please .. join us. Let us help you end the pain of abuse you had to live with all these years.
And help us stop child abuse in its tracks.
Jessica Stevens
NAASCA member, "Stop Child Abuse Now" (SCAN) radio talk show co-host
PS: I have included my email. Use it if you want to talk to me privately. You don't have to walk alone anymore. Let us walk with you.
suffernomore2011@yahoo.com
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