A lot has happened since I last posted. I am no longer in school for gerontology and I have reentered college for nursing. I begin classes next week. I found a new job at a grocery store as a cashier and I really enjoy it. I work with nice people and my work is appreciated. I get breaks and everything. Another thing that happened is not so pleasant. A person intregal to the music at church was arrested for 1st degree criminal sexual conduct with a child 13-15 years old. This person is a teacher that engaged in oral sex with a male student. The initial response of the church council, of which I am a member, was to keep this person, who is employed by the church, out of the church until the court case was decided. But...... the pastor wanted to show real "Christianity" by having us be good forgiving Christians and asking him to return to our church. My response was shock, tears and an overwhelming sense of betrayal and fear. Let me tell you a story........ I was a 13 year old girl that had never had a boyfriend and was barely past the urge to wrestle and fight with boys. My mother had recently re-married and within a year, the man she married began sexually abusing me. He stopped short of actual sex but just barely. At first I pretended that I was asleep as he visited my bedroom and touched me. Once when he caught me awake, I told him to leave me alone. He told me that if I told anyone what happened he would tell my Mom that I seduced him and that she would believe him and not me. I would be responsible for causing a problem with her 3rd marriage and she would blame me. I then began to sleep with a knife near my bed. I did tell my mom. She was blindsided and wasn't really sure what to do. I started counseling and I was told by a counselor that we could be repaired as a "family". I attended church with my abuser where he was perceived as an upstanding citizen. We didn't last long with that counselor. I was having a lot of problems at school with a male teacher that was very controlling and I was acting out. I confided in a friend that I had been being sexually abused and he did the right thing and told the school. The school called my home and and my abuser told them that I was mentally unstable and being treated my a psychiatrist. I was being treated due to his perversion! My friend was told to stop speaking to me about this. I was called into the office and told to stop lying about things and making things up about my family. Remember, this was 1979, but still no one ever spoke to my Mom, my only legal parent. They spoke to her when they decided I should be evaluated. I was tested and then they found out that I had an IQ of 142 and normal, albeit the trauma inflicted by the pervert. One day I was doing dishes when my abuser decided to if he couldn't sexually abuse me that physical abuse would do. He tried choking me when he didn't like that way I "sassed" him. I grabbed a knife, told him that if he ever touched me again I'D FUCKING KILL HIM! By now I was 14 and I packed my things and moved in with my grandma. Within a week, he left my Mom and moved in with the woman he'd been having an affair with. I was let down by every single institution that I encountered. The persistant response was "shhhhhhh, keep this quiet" and solidly reinforced that I was dirty, bad and had been abused because I asked for it. It took weekly visits to a psychologist for 4 years before I felt I was able to deal with my trauma and I then returned to church as well. I find myself unable to return to church in the presence of this person. I refuse to participate in the denial of his "alleged" treachery. I can not and will not look the other way and click my heels together waiting for the Magic Genie "God" to allow my heart to be softened and to embrace and love this "person". You know what would make me feel better? JUSTICE! I never got any but I hope this young man that was victimized will. I hope this person is never ignored and downplayed so much that he is allowed to do this again. There is such a thing as right and wrong and good and evil. For fucks sake, act like you understand that! Weekly we yammer on about the "seen and unseen" and satan, yet when we find a person that participates in evil we treat them like the victim. I am disgusted. I will seek council elsewhere until then.