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I grew up in a Christian home, and went to a Christian school. I was saved at the age of thirteen. My parents were faithful church goers. They taught and instilled in me a love for God and for right. They also taught me to love my pastor and because he was the man of God and he needed to be respected. Knowing these things, I believed them and followed their advice.

As a teenager, I highly respected and revered authority. I couldn't stand to disappoint persons in positions of authority. This is where my story starts.

Between the summer of my sophomore and junior year in high school, my parents, in order to make more money, decided to have renters in the basement of our home. These renters were men. One of these renters decided to befriend me. Because of my lack of knowledge and extreme naiveness, I had no idea that the purpose of his intentions were wrong. Soon what I thought was a friendship turned into months of sexual and emotional abuse. Because I was threatened not to tell anyone and I didn't want to disappoint my pastor and parents, I kept the whole incident quiet. During the second semester of my junior year though, I had reached my emotional limit. I could no longer go through the emotional pain and anguish of keeping what had happened quiet.

I went to a teacher at the high school where I attended for help. This teacher told me that everything would be kept confidential. Well, about three weeks later, this teacher told my pastor. My parents and I were called into his office after a church service. At this time, my pastor asked me if what this teacher had said regarding what happened was true. I answered him yes, but I was not given a chance to explain exactly what happened, nor was the story as the teacher related it to the pastor repeated for me. This whole incident was taken as if I had purposely violated the school rule of no pre-martial sex. Because of that rule, I was expelled from school for the remainder of my junior year and first semester of my senior year. There is absolutely no way to describe the devastation of having the above happen in my life. I never was a student that got into trouble. All I was trying to do is get help. Instead of help, I received judgement and punishment, which only caused me to feel bewildered. I WAS, however, able to graduate with my class.

As the years went on, I became increasingly bitter toward the teacher that had betrayed my confidence, and also the person who abused me. The above incident never was discussed again and for all practical purposes, I was left to deal with it myself. It was as if it never had happened. I felt betrayal, guilt, and shame over what happened. So I thought the best way to deal with it was to put it behind me and get on with my life. I went on to college and graduated in 1988. It was there that I met my husband and we were married in July of 1990. We now have two girls who are six and eight.

As I have now found out though, incidents such as the one I had in high school have a way of haunting a person until they deal with it. Because I never dealt with what happened, I was continually plagued with feelings of betrayal due to the broken confidence and guilt because I blamed myself for what happened. I thought that surely what happened was my fault. I had been taught that someone doesn't get punished unless they do something wrong. This created mistrust in me because I never was allowed to explain what happened; and no investigation into the matter was done. Due to these factors, I no longer trusted the authority in our church. I had tried several times to get help over the years; but I never could get enough courage to tell anyone what happened.

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