I Am Done Hiding – Part II

You may tire of reading how I feel that the individual running and participating in family friendly greyhound events who is a lifetime registered sex offender and convicted child molester must step away from the greyhound adoption community and those adoption groups and greyhound vendors who enable this individual should also be boycotted. Some of you do not agree with me but after reading both parts 1 & 2 of the story of a fellow member of our greyhound community written in their own words, a person many of you know and have had involvement with, if you still feel the need to support/condone/embrace a registered lifetime sex offender and convicted child molester as part of the family friendly greyhound community please comment on this blog using your real name and tell the world why such a person should be celebrated in the greyhound community now that you know what far too many in the adoption community have suffered at the hands of child molesters, sex offenders and sexual deviates.

I am now an adult.

I am expected to just get over this.

I am expected to forgive and forget.

Please tell me how. Please.

How do I forget ropes digging into my wrists and being beaten until my legs bled because it was a turn on?

How am I to forget hair being yanked out of my scalp for not doing something right?

How am I to forget shirts shoved in my mouth to shut me up or choked until I passed out, only to wake up to the preacher on top of me?

How am I to forget eight grown men doing what they did for hours on end all night long as I cried and begged them to stop and begging to die?

How do you forget?

Easy.

One whole bottle of Tramadol, one whole bottle of Vicodin, a bottle of Oxycontin, a bottle of Percocet and washing them with two bottles of Jose Cuervo.

But what do you do when God says NO, YOU'RE TO LIVE. Well, that I can answer. You live. And you sit here writing this between tears. You can't forget. 

You look at other people's children, and you cry “That will never be you”. You deal with men not wanting to date you or marry you because you can't give them children.

You give up on life.

You give up.

And you're picked up. Through Christ, I've found my way.

It's not easy but I'm here. I'm here to tell my story. To tell others that they can overcome this too

That doesn't mean forgetting.

So does someone who attacked a child deserve to be forgiven? True, Christ says to forgive. However in our day we have laws and those laws say to protect. Those laws are made to protect others against those who do something so horrible that they are designated a lifelong offender. I'm a victim of someone who should have been. I'm a victim of those of you who look the other way. I'm a victim of those of you who say a person is changed and good. You don't have to live with waking up in the middle of the night screaming because you're petrified someone just woke you up choking you. You don't live with having PTSD. You don't have to live with severe anxiety. No, you don't.

You look the other way and choose to see a monster as being a wonderful person. Good for you.

But I'm supposed to “get over it”? Ok. I will.

Will you take away my memories?

Will you heal my insides and allow me to have my own children?

Will you heal the other scars on my body?

No. You can't.

I'm almost 39 years old. I still wake up screaming to this day. I can't see anything on TV  even remotely like what I endured or I have flashbacks for days on end. I'm there again. I feel the belt. I feel the preacher ripping my insides out. I feel the beating. I feel the pain... the blood…the humiliation. I hear the yelling that it was my fault. I caused this. I provoked this.

Tell me how as a six year old girl, I forced a grown man, a Baptist preacher, to tie me up, beat me until I bled and rape every part of my body until I passed out and continue doing it until he felt he was done? Explain to me how I caused this? What did I ever do?

So tell why are you standing up for someone who harmed innocent children? Are you not interested because it does not involve you? What if it were your child? You wouldn't ignore them, would you?

I am part of your world. I've walked beside many of you, talked to you and had meals with you. I've been taught to be ashamed of my past. To hide it. Never speak of it. It's taken me over thirty years to discover there are those who fight for those of us who are innocent.

I'm done hiding in the shadows. I'm done hiding behind closed doors and closed minds. I'm done with abusers getting away with it or being allowed to lie about it or having others say “he’s okay because it was years ago”.   

It's been over thirty years for me, too and I have to live with this the rest of my life.

I am done hiding behind the curtain of shame. This is me. This is my story. This is my book of life. God helped me overcome this so I can help others, and I can't do that when I still hide.

So I'm standing up. No more shame.

I am Jennifer Boswell.

I am the director of the Alabama Greyhound Rescue And Adoption Center.

I am a survivor.

I'll be here to protect others like me who didn't know where to go, what to do, or how to heal.