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| Written By Don Shetterly |
Why didn't I publicly expose the child molesters?
First off, I didn't want to relieve everything I had been through. I was working hard at coming to terms with it and all of its impacts on my life. I was tired of dealing with it, thinking about it and talking to others about it. It was controlling so much of my life through depression and anxiety and intense fear, that I wanted nothing to do with it.
Secondly, I knew that if I tried to come forward, I would be ridiculed and threatened. I knew that they would turn my words on me as if I was lying. I knew that they would turn everyone I knew against me and then some. These were wicked and evil people that stopped at nothing to silence me. Heck, they already had done most of this so it wouldn't have been new to me. I just wanted it over.
Third, I was still coming to terms with what happened to me. It wasn't like I could say everything out loud. I was not at that point. Much of it, I had not even realized was not normal that they did to me. You can read my book if you want to know more on that subject. When you grow up with this stuff, you don't know any different. Filing a lawsuit to publicly expose the child molesters was difficult to fathom. What was right and wrong? What was normal or abnormal. None of those things were clear to me.
Fourth, I had pieces of stories and memories but not the full account. My brain was still trying to protect me. After all, I almost lost my life in the conversion disorder, and so my brain was in super protection mode. There were many holes in what I could remember. As Dr. Bessel Van Der Kolk says, our minds remember too much and too little.
The fifth reason why I didn't publicly expose the child molesters is that I wanted nothing to do with them. I was trying to stay hidden from them for the threats that had been made against my life. I had no desire to talk to them, see them or have any connection with them. I wanted absolute disconnect with the child molesters. It was not easy living this way, but for me to survive, I had to completely let them go.
It isn't easy!
It is easy for others that have not been through the circumstances you have been through to say this is what you should do or what you should not do. It is easy for others to criticize and be the judge, jury, and executioner, but until you've walked through my experiences in life, you don't know what I've had to live with every day.
To come forward and share what happened to you means you have to deal with the shame of what you went through. Even if you did nothing wrong, the child molester inflicts shame upon you. It is a shame that eats you alive and sinks you into despair. Coming forward to publicly expose the child molesters means you have to deal with all of this horror once again. It is not easy. It is not welcomed.
When I see the victims of child abuse or other abusive situations come forward and hear people rip them to shreds, I want to take a baseball bat to the loudmouths of our day. It makes me angry. Yes, I realize that some fake people that do this and they are no better than the child molesters.
It takes great courage to speak out. It takes great courage to confront these monsters in your life because they consume you. They push you into depression, anxiety, and suicide. They rob your life completely. There is nothing left for you when you decide to speak out publicly.
Another thing that happened to me and happens with many is the fear that is instilled in you. I was told many things that would happen to me if I dared tell. I saw my pets killed and shot at and beat. I witnessed many things within the family that would make you know there was no idle threat.
Why didn't I publicly expose the child molesters you ask? Well, look at what happens today when people start to speak up. They are not believed. They are ridiculed and berated and mutilated in public opinion. It isn't easy to deal with that in private. I can't imagine what it is like to deal with it in public especially when it wasn't by your choice to do this.
We should be standing in support of those who have been molested and abused, not as enemies of them. We should be standing up for the rights of all children, not just the ones that fit our narrow-minded thinking. Turning a blind eye to the issue of child abuse in a family or in your church or city or anything else should not be tolerated. It should not be the norm.
If we don't take care of our children, who will? If we spit on those that publicly expose child molesters and abusive people, what kind of society and human race are we? We gasp at the headline child abuse stories, but we turn our heads to what happens in our own backyards.
We make sacrifices out of the victims while we protect the child molesters at all costs. We are so messed up on this issue in our society on this issue. There are far too many cases for us to point the fingers at others because so much of this goes on in our backyards and family dwellings.
Why didn't I publicly expose the child molesters you ask? Isn't it obvious? Just look at what happens in the news headlines and then ask that question again. Those that abused me as a child will never pay for their crimes. They have prayed to Jesus for forgiveness and most likely are still doing what they always did.
One of the ones that abused me is at least in a VA hospital and most likely not a threat to children. The other one, God only knows! Hopefully, he is not still abusing kids in the church he goes to, but I have no way to find out.
Am I bitter and angry for what they did to me? Yes! The laws of Iowa don't protect me because of the statute of limitations. So, I'm left to pick up the pieces of my life while the child molesters roam free accusing me of being brainwashed and spreading lies.
How just is that? Unfortunately, it is the norm!
Blog Post And Images (c) 1/01/18 by Don Shetterly
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