April is Child Abuse Awareness Month

April is a month that means a great deal to me because it is child abuse awareness month and also the month in which my sister and I broke our silence at the Children Advocacy Center 11 yrs. ago.

Since April is child abuse awareness month I think I need to emphasis my purpose in going public with my life story. My number one goal is to end the stigma and shame and bring awareness to child sexual abuse. I speak on behalf of those who have not found their voice and the children living in silence. I speak on the words of forgiveness and how it changed my life and how I hope it can change others.

Over the years I have received hundreds of letters from readers and decided I am going to start posting them on here to show how my purpose in putting a face and voice on child sexual abuse is making a difference.

Dear Erin,

Hi, my name is Jill. I have literally just finished reading your book Stolen Innocence ten minutes ago. I am not quite sure why I am writing this email, but it was in hopes that it would find its way to you. I wanted to thank you. It is because of your book that I found the strength to finally report my abuser. I was a victim of sexual abuse for nine years of my life, my abuser was a family member who lived in the same house as me. I was taken out of my home only a year and a half ago and moved into a temporary home to live. The people who took me in ended up adopting me a short six months ago. Even with my completly new life I found it impossible to express the pain I was experiencing because of the abuse I lived through. No matter how hard I tried I could not get anyone around me to understand what it was like. I felt completly alone in this world. I thought i was a freak and that there was no one on the earth who could possibly understand what it was like to live how I did.
But by the grace of god I found your book three days ago. I am not sure what drew me to it, but I knew I needed to read it. It was as if you had taken entries out of my own journal. I am still amazed by some of the things which you wrote in your book, they are the same exact things I was feeling, thinking and doing. I want to thank you from the bottom of my heart. This book is beautifully written, and I can only imagine all the strenght and courage it took for you to write it. I have given the book to my adoptive parents to read because I feel this will be the best way to communicate with them the things I am going through. They have read countless books trying to understand what it must have been like for me, countless manuals on how to talk to me, but I truly believe your book is the last book they are going to need. It shows it all.

There are a million things I would like to ask, and say to you. But I think its best if I end this now, for I’m not even sure this is going to reach you. But if it does the final message I would like to send across is how much this book has helped me. Helped me in knowing that there are people out there who have survived this, helped me feel not alone, but mostly helped me in seeing that I can get through this.

Once again

Thank You

April is Child Abuse Awareness Month

Archives

Featured Videos