What I wanted more than anything at that stage in my life, in Jr High, was an adult to notice that I was struggling with some of my issues, just growing up, and struggling within my family. That I needed some guidance and some extra attention to get through what I was going through. What I ended up with was this very selfish pedophile. He saw me as an easy target with low self esteem and I would be easy to manipulate and easily controlled; and that I would be willing to make sacrifices physically for the attention that he gave me. I became a sexual toy.

During that bo… reading that book, I guess, drew out experiences and sensations in my body that were new to me; and that was part of his plan. And he used that book many times to manipulate me into having a further full sexual relationship with him. It seems very sick to me now, but that’s the truth of how that came to be then.

I didn’t like realizing that once I established this sexual relationship with a 30 year old man at the age of 13, that a, obviously that was not a healthy, not a good choice and not a choice that a 13 year old is even capable of making for themselves. It was made for me. And I didn’t want to remain in that relationship and I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

The last time that I went to see him, I saw him at the Church in July before my freshman year of high school. I didn’t want to be his toy anymore. I just wanted somebody to talk to and somebody to listen to me. He always wanted to have sex with me. All the time.

It was the final time that I went to the church that I told him I didn’t want to have the sexual relationship anymore. But he ended up dragging me into a coat closet there in the church. I can still remember the sound of metal coat hangers crashing to the floor. I don’t use metal coat hangers to this day. And I can hear the metal chairs that slid across the floor and the back of my head banging against the tile in the room. I had a swimming suit on and a towel. And he forced himself on me.

I can remember the room was pitch black and that I tried to scream and nothing came out. I knew there was people in that building and somebody could have come and helped me, but at the same time, internally I had this fight going on with “but what if they came and found out what I’d done and they knew how evil and bad I was?”

I was scared, I was embarrassed, I was ashamed; I didn’t know what would happen to my family. I didn’t know what would happen to his family; So, I didn’t scream.

Someone came into that building, he got up off me and quickly went out and I heard him talking to someone that I figured was a coworker or a boss by the conversation. I laid in that room, shaking and crying uncontrollably and made a decision. I got up and put on my swim suit and my towel, got my bike, and rode home.

I stood in our shower till the water was cold. I grew up with a family of six, and we had a big water heater and that took a while. I got dressed and I sat at supper again, with my family, as if nothing had ever happened to me. And that’s how I proceeded to live the next several years of my life. As if nothing had ever happened to me.

I had problems from that, physically, mentally and emotionally, for a very long time. For some reason I became a bed wetter. I didn’t want to explain why I would just get up very early, change my sheets, wash my sheets, put my sheets back on my bed, what ever I had to do. Because everything to me was reinforcing the choice I had made with my teacher.

I see all of this quite differently now. I’m 40. I was 13 and 14. And I guarantee you it’s taken every one of those 26 years in between, to understand how manipulated, how used, and abused that I was by that man.

It’s very unfortunate that he remains a teacher to this day. I know that he was investigated again in another town that he worked in, I don’t guess that had an outcome that um got him out of the schools. He’s been through several different towns. It’s a crime that there is nothing I can do to stop him. Except to think about how I can impact the teachers that come into the classroom for my own son who is 10 and the generation that’s out there now. Some of your children.

I support this bill 100% and I am not afraid to tell my story even though it brought so much shame on me for so long.

For more commentary and a recording of the testimony, please visit http://www.missourinet.com

Sources:
Missouri Legislature
MissouriNet.com story