Cape Cod in photos

At the Podium before I spoke In the middle of my speech!
Signing books!
Some of the wonderful ladies that work at the Children’s Cove CAC
I was told Lenny was the janitor but then I was told he was the forensic interviewer… I think I will agree with the janitor roll…so kidding Lenny! 🙂 I was giving him such a hard time!
This is the lovely Cape Cod, MA weather I experienced..this is me driving 70 miles back in my rental car to the airport. Proves my point that I am driven to put this epidemic in the spotlight!
The first slide in my power point.
The room I spoke in before anyone arrived.
hmm I wonder what I did here!
Reading an entry from July 1997 out of my diary to audience
Executive director Stacey of the Children’s Cove CAC!

Once again I am blessed to say I met some wonderful people in Cape Cod, MA. I felt the presentation went wonderful and the evaluations came back with wonderful remarks….most with excellent all the way down…and this time there was no one that gave me a bad evaluation unlike the one I got back in South Carolina. There was one man and the reason I know it was a man is because he came up to me afterwards and made the same comment to my face as he did on the evaluation. He rated me excellent all the way down but he put down that my rage I express in my speech does not relate to the forgiveness I talk about. I want to make something very clear. I have rage in the fact that society ignores this epidemic. No one wants to address it we keep it hushed in society as children continue to live in silence. What kind of message do we send kids that have been sexually abused that this is something to be ashamed about and never discussed. We do not educate children in schools on sexual abuse but we drill in there heads every year how to escape a fire. In fact the high school I work at will be having one of those lovely fire drills next week. Yet I bet there are more students from there first day of school to their senior year of high school that are victims of sexual abuse then there are students escaping fires… but nooo we do not talk about sexual abuse that is that icky, shameful, taboo word no one wants to talk to students about. That is why I have RAGE! We do not do enough as a nation to prevent children from becoming that article headline we read about in the papers of a child who of course will never be identified has been a victim of a sexual assault by the daycare worker, family member, coach etc. I am just so sick of it and so disappointed in my country. A country that is suppose to protect our young yet we fail to live up to that. So to answer the man who felt I expressed rage and not forgiveness at my presentation in Cape Cod. I do not have rage towards the evil men who abused me as a child, I have rage towards an epidemic that is spiraling out of control yet everyone seems to look the other way and pretend it does not exist. What frustrates me even more is the fact that our country is in panic with the economy the way it is yet when it comes to the minds and bodies of children only the people that work in the field of protecting children seem to give a damn about keeping them safe. While the rest of the world is too concerned about there 401K. Money is more important then innocent children. I am sorry if I sound harsh I know there are people out there that are struggling financially but it angers me how much money controls our world. Honestly if I had to evaluate our world on protecting children and educating them on safe touch/unsafe touch I would give America an F because we are failing children. Now that I have ranted about this I will put it to rest at least for tonight.

I have an interview with the Daily Hearld (www.dailyherald.com) tomorrow. They are doing a story on me. I will post it on here when it is in the paper.
I am also appearing on a slide show on Oprah Thursday. It will be a piece on superwomen doing super things in the world. The piece about me appears when Alica Keys is on stage singing.
Signing off but more to come shortly! 🙂

Erin Merryn