Being truth tellers

I can understand why he said it.

I know why he would want to believe it.

I can only hope, given his years of working in the field of abuse, he hasn’t actually convinced himself it’s true!

He was talking, for the press, about the sexual abuse of a 13 month old child; abuse that was orchestrated and captured on film by her mother and the sexual predator she met on line.

While that’s shocking for most of the public, I’m sad to say it isn’t for those of us in a pediatric ER.

Which isn’t to say that I’m not sickened and revolted by it; merely that I’ve seen it before and it’s not shocking, especially when you’ve seen worse.

The Detectives words that followed his disclosure were shocking however... “We hope that because she’s so young, she won’t remember what happened and she won’t be effected by it”.

WHAT?!

Are you kidding me?

You don’t really believe that, do you?

Everything I know, personally and professionally, tells me that’s simply not true!

We recently saw a 2 yr. old girl beaten by mothers boyfriend - broken arm, broken leg, hair pulled out, bruises all over, abdominal injuries so severe she had 3 feet of bowel removed...now slowly recovering from all her injuries.

Nearly a month has passed since her admission; she hasn’t seen her mother or the boyfriend in that whole time, has been showered with kisses and ‘loved on’ by staff, her father and her extended family, yet she still isn’t speaking and every time someone walks into her room, she freezes.

You can see her literally shrinking into herself...eyes, head and body not moving; no eye contact, breathing nearly suspended, playing ‘emotional ‘possum’; not as a game, but in an attempt to survive; trying desperately to make herself invisible and therefore not a target for whatever hand or steel toed boot is coming her way.

It's heartbreaking to witness.

When abuse is perpetrated on children at such an early age - before the full acquisition and expression of speech and nuance - it leaves a pain so profound and pervasive that it haunts for a lifetime. It will color how she perceives the world, her view of how it functions and her place in it for the rest of her life.

And the saddest part of all is that she won’t even have the words to give her betrayal a name; to fully describe how the hole in her soul feels; to define, and therefore begin to control, her reality.

Sergeant, just because you can’t name the source of your pain doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

I appreciate that we can skip the salacious details but, if we’re going to tell the public about the horror we see everyday, let’s, at least, be honest about the consequences.