Hello Jabber and Humlan, I am sorry for the abuse you endured. So sad that abuse exists. Statistics pertaining to child abuse, incest, date rape, domestic violence, and more, well, those statistics are not an exact science. When statistics are compiled, the researchers use REPORTED events. So for every incident that is reported, how many go unreported? And, for every one incident that is reported, how many other incidents did the victim endure before filing that ONE report? Jabber, you were listening to the interview with Dennis Griffin. He is a former detective turned crime writer turned author promoter. He would not know the statistics for child abuse, was he shocked by what I said? I don't know. He writes crime, and like I said true crime occurs in our own families. 19% might as well be 25% if we had a margin for all those unreported incidents. 25% is a quarter of our population of women. A quarter of our population of women attempts suicide after sexual assault. That does not account for those who attempt suicide after an attempted sexual assault. Phew! So it is staggering to me to understand that we are losing a quarter of our females potential to sexual violence. No wonder it took so long for women's rights. 25% of us were missing. In terms of perpetrators, they cross all socio economic groups, states of mental health (or illness) educational accomplishments (or not), use of alcohol/drugs (or not)...it does not matter. One of those who committed incest in my family was a city councilman! He was caught, but by that time his daughters and son are already ruined, oh, and his nieces too. No one knows the number of those outside his family that he molested during his many years. "Elected official charged with sex abuse of child." Another was a fireman, putting out fires in the community while abusing his own children until they were just ashes of their former selves. I don't have the notion that everyone who was abused has to talk about it openly in order to heal. I speak out so that others know they are not alone, and if that helps them heal, then, thank God. Many who were abused don't even know that it was abuse. Or, as in my case, she refuses to talk about it until it is suppressed in the memory, only to erupt like a volcano later. But speaking out publicly is not a condition of healing. It is a personal decision. Humlan, I said in the interview with Denny that I had torn up diaries as a child because I was so afraid of what I was writing, and I did not even know what I was writing was child abuse. So if I couldn't handle my own diary, I can just imagine how difficult it was for you to share here. I understand that you would delete it. Did you hear me say that it took me 2 years to tell anyone I wrote a book about surviving child abuse? How's that for deleting a post! Anyway, your spirit wants to unravel what has been all twisted up in knots so that your soul can flow, be free, and soar. That is a meaning to opening up here. I'll talk more about control in another post because this one is so long. I have a lot of extra information and education on my blog, which is attached to my site. I had to close my blog to comments because of hideous spam, but you know how to reach me. Love and Light, Lynn