Childhood Abuse and Senator Scott Brown

After Lara Logan's recent sustained sexual assault in Egypt (Feb 11) and the publication of Bill Zeller's suicide note last January, I had hoped that we would have a break. If you talk about this kind of thing non-stop, it loses its shock value and nobody cares.

But today, Scott Brown, junior senator from Massachusettes, came out as a victim of childhood sexual abuse.

When respected people come out with stories of childhood abuse, the effect is to de-shame.  They're telling us: It's Okay.  Talk about it.  This is common.  Self-disclose.

Or Be aware, be proactive.  Keep an eye on children, not only your own children.  Have an ear to the ground.

Mental health professionals have known for decades that victims do better given a safe place and an opportunity to talk.  It takes courage to do this, to talk about trauma to anyone. How hard that must be, especially telling the world! Public disclosures are humbling to the millions who can not do it in any context.

We should try to create these contexts.

Maybe it is easier for public figures. They are desensitized to paparazzi and negative press. But it can't be that easy, even for them. Truthfully, we would hear a hundred stories a day if every celebrity who had been molested or raped came out and said,

It happened to me.

That won't happen, no worries, because just because a person is a celebrity, doesn't mean he or she doesn't still suffer, doesn't want privacy.  When they opt for publicity, when they do speak out, some of us are rightly jaded, a little suspicious.  As soon as an actor or a newscaster or a singer or a politician discloses childhood abuse, there is a book to follow. Or an election, or both. The public sympathizes because the public has been there.  Vote in hand.  Ka-ching at Barnes & Nobel.

The message should be that there is a better time, really, to come out as a victim of abuse. (One is only a survivor after coping with the effects of the trauma, integrating the experience into a positive sense of self.)

It's called childhood. Schools, churches, synagogues, and community centers have to address the problem, slip it into the health curriculum, the early childhood (yes, early) nursery programs and elementary schools, using language that little children understand.

Many organizations do this using language that parents understand, talking mostly to parents, avoid addressing children at all.  This is a beginning, but PTA attendance is sparse, and we're preaching to the choir.

But still.  Have the meetings with parents and tell the parents who go to the meetings regularly to invite their  friends.  And at these meetings teach parents to invite children to their tables, especially the shy ones, the fringe, to get to know them as people.  Do you see how much work we have to do?  And work on those educational efforts for children.

The kids get it. They see it on television. They hear about it in recess. And they experience it. So why not bring it to them in a way that normalizes help-seeking. Save society millions in abuse dollars.

Scott Brown? He's a survivor, an example of how some people make it through. For every Scott Brown,  there are millions who don't, who never talked to anyone, kept the "toxic" secret to themselves.

The public will get tired of hearing this stuff, these stories, already is. It is up to the educators, the community action groups and community organizations to find resources, safe contexts for kids and adults to talk about sexual abuse.  We shouldn't desensitize, not care.

Because most kids won't have a microphone and don't want one.