So my stepdad and my mom got married when I was pretty young.

I would say five or six.

I remember being young enough to be the flower girl at their wedding and I was excited.

My biological father wasn't in the picture a lot.

He was in the military and was overseas for the most of most of my childhood.

And so I was really excited to be getting a father figure and getting someone into my life who who I could have a relationship with and I think it was probably when I was younger.

I don't remember a lot about our relationship leading up to the abuse, except that it was maybe more authoritarian or it seemed like he he was the breadwinner but wasn't really super active in our lives.

AS and when I say we, I had a sister too, who he ended up adopting.

So he wasn't super active as a dad.

But when I got a little older, so pre-teen age, he started taking more of an interest in me.

And I think that that was exciting for me because I was getting a father figure and someone who was really into being a dad to me.

And and I think that's something I had been wanting my whole life when I was around 12 years old.

I know my stepdad took a lot more interest in me and was having me come out to the garage to help him with things.

And so he would need my help, need me to come help hold things which kind of happened when I was younger.

I remember him being really thrilled when I would help him hook up wagons to the tractor so he didn't have to get off or I would ride on the tractor with him to go open the gate so he wouldn't have to get off the tractor, open the gate, and then get back off and close it.

So, you know, I was a real people pleaser kind of child.

And so I got really excited at the at being able to help.

And so I think knowing that he really took an interest in having me help out in the garage.

And I specifically remember that during the ice storm of 2003, it was early February.

I remember that because we had my birthday cake in the dark because we didn't have electricity and my birthday's in February that he took me out.

We were out of school for weeks because of the ice and there were a lot of downed trees.

And so we would go around and cut the trees out of the road and and he would praise me constantly about how hard I worked and how how much I took initiative and how he admired that.

And so I think that was sort of the start of really the grooming process.

And then as a part of that, he had me working in the garage and promised me we would fix up an old truck that he had.

And my favorite color was orange.

So we were going to paint it orange and we would spend a lot of time out in the garage just planning what it would look like and doing work.

And and little by little, he would even buy things for the truck with the plan that we would fix it up.

And so I got really excited thinking about like how cool I would be in high school when I had this really awesome orange truck.

And so by doing that and throughout that process, he had me doing a lot of work in the garage and I started missing a lot of school and he would take me down gravel roads and let me practice driving.

Sometimes it would be sitting on his lap and steering and then other times he would let me drive on gravel roads at night.

And that's where a lot of the the grooming and the abuse first started happening.

So one of the ways my stepdad really tried to normalize what was happening was by talking to me about how I was much more mature than my peers.

He would say that I was a leader and I was really smart and I could make decisions that other kids my age couldn't because, you know, I had this gift of being intellectual and being mature and and I wanted to feel that way.

And I had always been really high achieving in school.

And so I felt like there was some truth behind that.

What I know now, though, is that that that was a tactic to not only start the abuse, but to also make it feel like I had a choice in the situation, which ultimately then later on made me feel like it was my fault that it happened.

Other things he did was sort of created a culture of it being appropriate.

So I remember that when I was in middle school, right as the abuse was starting the song, Stacy's mom was really kind of taking off and it was getting a little popular.

It certainly was popular among some of my friends, and he had bought me the CD.

And looking back now, I think about how inappropriate I had that how inappropriate and how that song sort of fantasizes a relationship between an adult and a child.

And so I think he really leaned in to some of the cultural portrayals we have of adults and children and inappropriate relationships, other things that he would if you had ever talked to him, he would be the the biggest gay he would be the person who would really condemn any sort of violence against kids.

And and so I think he sort of minimal could minimize what he was doing by making it seem like he would never do something like that.

And so he was really good at separate ing what was happening with maybe what the media would portray is child sexual abuse.

My mom wasn't in the picture as much.

I mean, we lived with her, but she, I think, suffered from a lot of undiagnosed mental health issues and that often wasn't working.

And so we really relied on my stepdad for all of our income and for things like I remember he would be the one who would get us up and get us ready for school and have our cereal made and things like that.

And and so one of the things that was pivotal in sort of the abuse going from grooming to actual abuse was that my my mom and my stepdad both had substance use disorders and were getting different kinds of narcotics for pain issues.

And my stepdad had would take all the pills and they would sort of re-allocate them and in the course of this, my mom had convinced me that he was taking her pills and she needed them and asked me that whenever I had a chance to steal pills from him and give them to her because she was in so much pain.

And so I had done that a few times and I didn't realize, I guess he had kept such really good count of the pills.

And he had confronted me about it and I told him that I had been taking them for her.

And he then used that as leverage, saying that that if I were to have sex with him, that would help alleviate some of the pain that he was having because he didn't have his pain pills.

Yeah, there were there were many different things and tactics that he used both in grooming and to initiate the abuse and to continue the abuse.

One of the things he really was adamant about and was a I guess one of the values that he really stressed to us as kids was loyalty and the sense of we look out for each other and we have each other's backs.

And he would sometimes test that loyalty in various ways.

And so when he had confronted me about stealing pills from my mom, it was through the guise of I had betrayed him and and how hurt he was that that I had violated that loyalty.

And so throughout the abuse, he continued to to emphasize the importance of loyalty.

And I think that in large part was maybe why I went so long before I had said anything, because, you know, I loved him.

He was he was my dad.

I called him dad and I wanted him to be my dad.

And unfortunately, that came with the requirement that I have sex with him.

And so it just it seems a little ironic to me that he emphasized loyalty and and the importance of not betraying the people you love.

And ultimately, you know, he had done the ultimate betrayal.

So I think I was a kid who really was isolated.

I didn't have a father in my life.

I my mom was very negligent and would yell yell.

The time was was not working and just sort of kept to herself and had a lot of her own struggles that I think she was preoccupied with.

And I just, you know, wanted someone to pay attention to me, someone who thought I was great.

And and he he did that in a way that was manipulative and abusive.

So and exploited that.

But I didn't know that at the time.

And I think that's one of the really important things about talking about child sexual abuse is that perpetrators are really, really good at exploiting, exploiting kids, exploiting the things that kids need and isolating them.

And, you know, I mentioned earlier that I missed a lot of school as the as the grooming was starting and as the abuse occurred and so we know that teachers are the number one reporters of child abuse.

And so kids with less eyes on them are going to slip through the slip through the cracks.

And so there was that isolation.

There was a feeling of wanting that that father figure in my life, wanting to to feel and be special throughout the course of the abuse.

Well, first of all, my my stepfather was really reinforced how important it was not to talk about it and not to say anything, because people just wouldn't understand.

He had told me that this happens in lots of families.

It's just sort of taboo to have to talk about it.

And so, you know, I didn't recognize it as abuse.

I recognized it and and he portrayed it as let me teach you about sex.

And I sort of internalized that maybe it was my fault because I'd ask some questions and and those questions turned into instead of him just answering them, you know, let me show you how that's done and and what that is.

And so, yeah, at one point I got a boyfriend and I started to feel guilty.

I felt like I wanted to to end what was happening, what my stepdad was doing to me.

And and I felt guilty about it.

And I told my boyfriend a little bit about what was happening and tried to end the abuse, which was really, really difficult.

And throughout the course of my life, I had told little bits and pieces about what had happened to different people and sort of would gauge their reaction to when I would say what had happened and if they reacted positively, I might share more.

And if they reacted negatively, I would maybe pretend that's not what I meant or they misunderstood what I was saying or just just drop it.

I remember one time a family member confronted me about as they asked me if I was having an inappropriate relationship with him, and I started to tell him a little bit about what had gone on.

And they responded with, I've always suspected that you all were having an affair.

And their use of that word affair was I mean, I still remember how I felt.

It felt invalidating.

It felt like it reinforced this idea that it was my fault or or that maybe I had blame or I was at fault in some way.

And so I retracted what I said.

And I said, no, that's that's not what I meant at all.

That's not what happened.

At some point, someone had reported abuse, suspected abuse, and a social worker and a police officer came out to the house and interviewed me and I denied that anything was happening.

And this was while the abuse was ongoing.

And so they came into the house and they took me into a room down the hallway and asked me some questions.

And so I completely denied that anything was going on.

I knew what would happen if if this had come to light.

I, I didn't really identify myself as a victim at that point.

I didn't, I don't think, have the language or the words to know exactly what it was.

But I felt like my stepdad loved me and that he wouldn't do something that would hurt me.

And I also knew what would happen if I had told the truth.

He would likely be arrested.

I knew that what he was doing wasn't legal, but but I don't think I appreciated how how harmful it was at the time.

And I knew that if he were to be removed from the home, that our lives would fall into shambles.

And and that's exactly what happened when I did come forward.

He made all the money for the family.

We lived in poverty, and his absence from the home would mean a lot to the rest of us financially and in other ways.

Our mom was not in the capacity to to raise.

There were five of us kids.

And so she was just not in the capacity to do that emotionally, financially or any other way.

And we moved around a lot.

We often were at risk of our home being foreclosed on, and it did at one point get foreclosed.

And so I think the financial struggle also added a lot to the pressure of keeping things silent and and sort of complying with the with the abuse.

But I reported my stepdad to the police when my sister my middle sister was around the age that I was when the abuse started happening to me.

And I had gotten concerned and worried that something similar might happen to her.

I know she had just gone to Texas with him on a trip, and that isolation sort of triggered me in thinking about the things that led up to my abuse.

And so I felt like I had to do something in order to protect her, even though it was a hard decision, because I knew that that meant he would be absent from the picture at that point.

And and again, he was the sole breadwinner in the home and the family really relied on him financially for to meet all of our our basic needs.

And so I knew that that would be pretty devastating in a lot of ways.

But I didn't want her to go through what I had gone through growing up.

I was also in college at the time that I came forward, and I think a lot of my experiences in college really gave me the confidence and the independence to feel like I could do something.

So I had just gotten back from a study abroad trip to China and Vietnam, and so studying abroad really was exciting and the in the way that it made me feel independent and confident and capable.

And on that trip, we had read a lot of books about wars and rape, and I felt like I sort of connected to some of the stories in those in those books.

And then I had also taken a class called Feminist Political Theory and read and did research on rape trials.

And that's where I first encountered the definition of grooming.

And I just remember the moment of that, that putting a word to what happened to me, feeling so powerful and that I it started to make sense.

It started to feel less like my fault and more like what it was, which is grooming and manipulation.

After I came forward and reported what was going on to the police, I feel like that's when a lot of the trauma really I don't know if that's when it set in or when it really started to feel super traumatic because everything changed.

I then I did an interview with the police and I did a recorded phone call with the perpetrator to try and see if he would admit to anything or apologize for anything, anything that we could use in court and and everything that I thought as a kid that would happen if I said anything did happen.

You know, he was removed from the home.

He there was a protective order.

So during that recorded phone call, he really tried to guilt me because he wasn't able to talk to his kids anymore because of the protective order and told me that now all the money he had earned while he was away working in Texas, he would have to use for an attorney.

Instead of buying my mom a new computer or buying my sister a car.

And and I felt like a lot of that was my fault.

But I knew I'd done the right thing and that I had to say something because I just couldn't live with thinking that could happen to my sister.

And it was it was a really difficult process going through the legal system and and managing that.

I went to lots of counseling, which was really helpful and sort of eased some of my anxiety with that because we had moved around so much, which is also, I think one of the reasons things had gone undetected for so long it that charges were brought in two different counties.

And so I had the experience of working with two different prosecutors, two different victim advocates, and having two different judges.

And so through that process, I have to say that the first county that prosecuted did a really fantastic job.

I felt very supported.

I felt like they were very trauma informed and handled the case very well and took it very seriously.

I felt like I had a less than ideal experience in the other county, and it was really eye opening to see how the same exact thing can happen in two different places, but it can impact survivors differently just because of where it happened.

And it can be taken.

It can have totally different outcomes because of because of just how the process unfolds in that particular area.

After I came forward about what was happening to me, I was amazed by how many people came up to me privately and said, This also happened to me when I was younger and how many people this actually happens to.

And and the statistics are stark about child sexual abuse.

And I if someone were to come forward today, I would just want them to know that it's not their fault that they were a kid.

And and and those it was the adults in their life that were supposed to be looking out for them.

I think a lot of victims blame them themselves for what happened.

And I would first and foremost tell them it's not their fault.

Even doing this interview, I feel like I'm still sort of trying to convince myself that it wasn't my fault, even though I know that it wasn't sort of just like remembering the things that had happened.

I think it's it's just it's the grooming and the manipulation that goes into it is is so I don't know what the word is, but it becomes ingrained.

Yeah, sort of.

It's just really difficult to to really move forward from and to, you know I've I've read you know, I've read the research.

I know so much about child sexual abuse now and how it impacts people and how it and the grooming process.

And I know that it wasn't my fault because I was a child, but it's still it's just hard to sort of shake that feeling because, you know, that was such a huge part of my childhood in in Mason County where he was prosecuted.

First, he ended up testifying there was a trial and the jury ended up convicting him of all the charges and sentencing him to the maximum that they could.

And so we were I was fortunate to have a jury that that really believed me and and believed that this had happened.

It is also I know that that's not the experience for every survivor.

And in fact, most survivors don't come forward.

And even if they do, it's it's hard to prosecute these cases.

It's really incredibly difficult to prosecute child sexual abuse cases when there's been a delay in disclosure.

And it can be difficult.

It's I think I think that's why we have to talk about it more and we have to bring what's happening to light so that we can be more aware as future jurors and future prosecutors that these cases are happening.

Child sexual abuse is happening in many of the homes in our counties, and we have to take it seriously.

And and every survivor deserves the the opportunity to have their voice heard in a courtroom, if that's what they want.

Seeing that experience, having that experience in two different counties.

A lot of my work now as an attorney and as a professor is focusing on training prosecutors and training attorneys, how to be trauma informed and how to work with victims and empower victims through the process of prosecution and representation.

And so I do a lot of work on trauma informed advocacy and and ACS.

So adverse childhood experiences and how to help build resilience in the people.

We help.

I think one of the one of the things that brings me resilience and helps me be resilient is that I feel like I'm able to help future victims of crime by doing this training and making sure that attorneys know what to do.

I also do trainings on with organizations on recognizing the signs of child sexual abuse early.

So hopefully we can make reports earlier in the process and also how to prevent these things from happening in organizations, how to create a culture where where policies are such that reduce the chance that these things can happen in organizations.

And that's great for on many levels, because we're signaling to kids what healthy relationships look like.

And and I just trained an education class, a group of education majors on how to create a classroom environment and foster healthy relationships with kids and how important that is to model as teachers because that shows children what a healthy relationship is.

And it also shows our colleagues what what healthy relationships look like with kids and signals to anyone who may be a perpetrator that that's not something that is accepted in in that organization or in that school.

And so I think it's really important for us to to model those healthy relationships and to create and foster environments and policies where one on one interactions with kids are reduced, where where coaches are are trained to ask consent before they touch a kid or position them on how to hold a baseball bat, for example, because that empowers children.

That tells them that they are the ones that have control over their bodies.

And and I also try to to model healthy relations chips with my kids and teach them the right terms for their body parts and say, you know, penis and vagina and and know that those aren't bad words because we want kids to know the right terms for their body parts.

And so if they ever do come forward, they are believed and there's no misunderstanding anything about what what's happening.

There's not a textbook definition of what of the signs to look out for.

There's certainly victims of child sexual abuse could present with many different red flags or maybe none at all.

And so some of the red flags in my in my case were missing a lot of school.

And I had been really high achieving academically and and still maintained really good grades.

But I had gone from receiving the highest grade in almost every class the year before the abuse started to being so truant the next year that they recommended I attend summer school.

And so I would say seeing that stark difference in in a in a kid is would be a red flag and also seeing kids who maybe are more withdrawn from the things that they liked to do with me.

It was missing a lot of school.

And so it could be a sport, it could be anything that a child was interested in.

And now seems withdrawal from.

I think, though, the important thing to keep in mind is that there's there's no one thing to be on the lookout for and in fact, there may be no signs at all.

And children, I think, often don't don't see themselves as the victim of something, especially if it's someone that they love and they care about.

And you're told your whole life to respect and honor your parents and that they're going to look out for you and they're going to do what's best for you.

And so as a kid with no other lived experiences, you believe that.

And and it takes a lot of outside and interaction and perspective to to really as a kid see what's going on and know that it's not okay.

And so I think it's important to know that we're not always on the lookout for a child who is scared or is crying or is withdrawn or is afraid of the perpetrator.

The perpetrator could be the person they're running up to and huggin And so it's it's not just about stranger danger.

It's not just about looking out for who kids are nervous or intimidated around.

And that it's it's very widespread.

It's the statistics are stark.

And and we know that that this is happening to a lot of kids.

So I think the more we talk about it, the more we become comfortable talking about it and normalize these discussions, the more comfortable we are to say something.

When we see something that's concerning, the more comfortable we are to report suspicions.

And I would say, don't feel like you have to be 100% right.

But if you suspect that a child's being abused to to do something or to say something, because after I came forward and and said what had happened, there were so many people who had told me that, oh, well, I thought it was suspicious when this happened.

Or is that seemed odd that you were working in the garage so much or.

Yeah, you were missing a lot of school then and and things like that that they sort of retrospectively pointed out and, you know, I was angry about that for a long time because I was like, it just felt like, why didn't you do something?

Why didn't you say something?

Then I can see one reason someone might be intimidated about reporting suspicions of child abuse in that they wouldn't want to make a false accusation against someone.

The great thing about reporting is that you can do it anonymously and you don't have to get it right.

It's I would just say to air on the side of protecting a child, then making sure that that is correct.

So if you have that reasonable suspicion, I would just urge you to do something or make that report, because you could be what makes a difference in that child's life.

And maybe your report isn't what what changes the situation.

But like in my case, it could be years later and down the road when the child does come forward and that can be used as evidence that even way back then someone suspected something and that it's not the the now adult just making it all up.

Well, I don't think, at least speaking from my own perspective, that I will ever be healed.

I think healing is a process and and a rollercoaster at times.

So it it feels empowering to be able to do a lot of the things I'm doing and to be able to I think back to the college professors that assign the the rape trial readings to me or the, the the war books about rape to me and how impactful that was for me.

So I definitely try to incorporate in my own classes where it's relevant discussions about child abuse and and like I mentioned, talking to the education majors about their obligation to report child abuse and some signs that they may see in their classrooms.

And so it's empowering to be able to to work with the next generation of of leaders and to really think about ways we can prevent this in the future.

And I think prevention is is where we really have to focus a lot of our time and energy, because if we can prevent this from happening, we're going to prevent a lot of that trauma to to other kids.