She was twenty four, and beautiful – magazine cover, MTV video beautiful — with long black hair and exotic features.  She was telling me about her childhood abuse, her drug abuse, and how she left childhood for pregnancy and married a husband who was in many ways more abusive than her own parents had been with her.

Although the precise details do not matter, this woman gradually revealed herself to be a victim of physical, emotional, and sexual battering so severe that that she actually looked back fondly on her time spent in a variety of foster homes.  I rarely hear this.  She told about her abuse with a certain flatness of facial expression and vocal tone, a certain acceptance.  This is not uncommon in those who have survived a lot of emotional abuse.  It is a survival mechanism; a way to put up a wall.  I could understand that.

She was actually a fairly reasonable person to interview.  She did not have many holes in her memory and managed to answer most of my questions with believable facts.  I had to ask about her education.  She had been doing well in school when she dropped out because of pregnancy.  She had not used contraception then, still didn’t.  When I asked her, she told me simply that since her family was Christian, such topics were not discussed. Read more on The Harm Done By NOT Providing Sex Education…