Child Abuse Prevention Month - A Survivor’s Call to Action

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (00:00)
Welcome to When Not Yet Becomes Right Now, the podcast where we dive deep into the moments of transformation, the times when not yet shifts into right now and everything changes. I'm your host, Jen Guente, and this podcast is all about those pivotal moments in our life journeys. You know the ones, when the hesitation fades, when we take that first step, even if it feels like a leap. It's in these moments that growth and healing begins. Each episode will explore stories of resilience,

moments of clarity, and the sparks that ignite real change. From personal experiences to expert insights, we'll uncover how people navigate the complex journey we call life and come out stronger on the other side. Whether you're searching for that spark in your own life or just curious about how change unfolds for others, you're in the right place. We'll discuss the ups and downs, the breakthroughs and setbacks, and how to embrace the right now, even when it feels out of reach. Because sometimes,

The hardest part of the journey is realizing that the moment you've been waiting for has already arrived. So take a deep breath, settle in, and let's get started.

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (01:08)
Hello and welcome to a bonus episode of When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. I'm your host Jen Ginty and I decided to do this solo bonus episode because this month is Child Abuse Prevention Month. And that's a very important month for me because I myself had gone through terrible abuse as a child.

And I received word a few weeks ago that my abuser, who was supposed to be living 40 to 80 years in prison for unspeakable crimes against a child, got off on a technicality through the state's Supreme Court. And last year, last April,

He was set free and is now living in the same state that I live in, which is the state where he went to prison for the abuse that he did against his children over 30 years ago.

As a victim, I was not told that my abuser was now living in the same state I lived and pretty much an hour away from me. It was a serious gut punch and it made me feel like I did when I was a child. It made me feel as though I had no rights and that

the man who tortured me as a child has more rights than I do. So I'm going to bring you back to the beginning when I was a child all the way up to now so that you get a better understanding. I do this podcast so that other people don't feel so alone, that others who have gone through what I have gone through.

understand that they are not the only ones and that they have someone they can reach out to. So that's why I do this podcast and that's why I think it's really important for me to go through my story so that others can feel less alone.

Throughout my childhood, since I was very young, my father, who is my abuser,

was a tyrant and I believe that he is a very sadistic person.

I went through abuse that no child should ever go through. I went through emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse. And my childhood is not easy for me to remember. There are a lot of blank pages in that chapter of my life. And it's because my brain...

decided it needed to protect me so that I wouldn't remember the horrors that I lived as a child.

When I was 14, my older brother told an adult about what was happening in our family.

My abuser was sent away from our home, but it was really, really weird the way that it was handled by adults when I myself was just a child of 14. At first, my parents wanted to keep the family together, even though we had received horrible, horrible abuse from this man.

I think my mother was afraid to be alone, afraid that she wasn't going to be able to keep us afloat. And I think that that was her way of trying to keep everything together. But that's not what we needed as children. And that became apparent very quickly. But there were some people in my life at that time,

who wanted to try this out. They wanted to try out keeping children under the same roof as a abuser of that level.

Again, this man was sadistic, and I believe still is sadistic, and enjoyed giving pain and causing anguish. So my brothers and I didn't really understand what was happening, but eventually they got the point I think a lot of people...

think that when an abuser is taken from the home that that's it, that the children are okay now, they're safe. There are so many other traumas that come with being an abused child. And the bizarre things that can happen after a child is, quote, saved.

from their abuser. First,

My father was well known in our community. And when I used to walk to work every day, I was 15, 16 years old, I would pass by a auto shop that my father frequented, a gas station. And the owner just...

did not believe what we were saying about my father. And when I would pass, walk past this gas station, the owner would yell at me, you're a liar, you stupid bitch. He would say terrible, awful things to me as I was walking past. Back then we had walkmans and that walkman could not go high enough in the volume. He would just yell at me as I walked by.

I had to learn to take that kind of abuse from people in the community who knew about what transpired, that he was taken from the home and he was being charged with child sexual assault, child rape. And the other difficult part was that the state wanted to

put my father in prison. They wanted to charge him. But it felt like for us as kids that we were just pains in the asses. We weren't bending to what the DA wanted. They wanted us to step in line with what they wanted us to say and do. And it just wasn't the truth. And when I was 14,

I didn't have the words to talk about the abuse that happened to me. The excruciating emotional pain of a father who told their daughter every day that they were fat and ugly and no one would ever love them. That if he were to divorce my mother, that he would take me with him. You have no idea how.

incredibly frightening that is for a child who's being abused by their father.

The physical abuse that I both witnessed and had, the sexual abuse that was committed on my little body was terrifying to talk about. And at 14, I didn't have the words for that. And when I did finally have the words and I told my therapist and I told my family, the DA

didn't wanna believe it. They did not want to add another charge. Like it was just a pain in the ass to them and they didn't believe me. They felt as though I was making things up so that I could be a part of this crazy existence of trying to put my abuser in prison. What child wants to get into a mess like this?

wants to add on to this. I wasn't looking for attention. Believe me, I had enough attention as it was. I didn't want any more attention, but I had had the words at this point and I used them.

Because the charge that I had given them was going to be added to the, I think it was 14 charges already against my abuser, they made me go in front of a grand jury and talk about really, really sensitive, embarrassing abuse. And when that grand jury came back positively to add a count,

to my abusers already high count.

I felt as though I wanted to just give up. I had gone through so much as it was, but held on. My brothers and I held on. And this came out in, I believe, 1989. It didn't get to the court until 1994.

At this point, they dropped nine charges of child abuse. Let's see, I actually have the charges in front of me. Indecent assault and battery on a person 14 or over, which would be one of my brothers. Unnatural act with a child. Rape of a child.

Indecent assault and battery on child under 14.

Nine of these charges were dropped and my abuser pled guilty to five of these and that includes the indecent assault and battery under 14, above 14, and child rape.

After waiting so long for that to happen, my abuser only received four years in prison. I'd gone through all of this all my life and this man who...

did heinous, heinous things to his children. Only got four years in prison. And then he got out.

Free to roam, right? Free to go back out there to harm other children. And there was nothing I could do about it. And at this point, I was just ready to let it all go. I did not wanna think about it anymore. So that's why the name of this podcast is what it is. It's When Not Yet Becomes Right Now. Because after my abuser went to prison,

I kept saying not yet to looking at my trauma or trying to start a healing journey in some way. I was fed up. I wanted to live my life. I was in college at that point. So I was saying, not yet, I'm a college student trying to live my life. Then after that, it was not yet, I'm starting a career. And after that, not yet, I'm getting married.

And finally, not yet, I have children.

I never really looked at my trauma because I was so afraid to. I was afraid to bring up what was hidden in the back of my mind while trying to force away other memories that I did have that were so hurtful and harmful.

It is really, really hard and scary to look at your trauma.

And back then, nobody used the term complex PTSD. PTSD was for veterans, for war. People who were in the military coming back, having PTSD because of what they saw, what they did in action over in other countries. Those were the people who had PTSD. But no one really spoke about

PTSD from childhood abuse or domestic violence or homelessness, these things that cause PTSD and also cause what we call complex PTSD.

PTSD, post-traumatic stress disorder, and complex PTSD are actually pretty different. PTSD can be described as, okay, I'll give you a little understanding of it. Let's say you're in a car accident and someone really got hurt or you got hurt and you were actually afraid to get back into a car or get back into driving.

But as time goes on, those triggers start to lessen as you start to be able to move forward and get into a car, get behind a wheel, drive down the street, and you're able to better deal with that post-traumatic stress that you had. And it gets better. You may still have triggers, but it gets better. Complex PTSD is when someone has lived

in trauma, day to day for a long period of time. And that's child abuse. That's, again, domestic violence. That's homelessness. Homelessness is a very, very traumatic event. So complex PTSD changes your body chemistry, the neurons in your brain so that you're on a more hyper...

level. You're on a higher stress level than most people because it's in your body. It's in your brain. It's always there, ready. And that's why one of my biggest, the biggest qualities of my PTSD is hypervigilance. I am always on alert, always looking around for some sort of trauma to happen around me.

And when I'm in deep in depression or dealing with my symptoms that are getting much worse, this even goes into driving down the street, driving a car. When I get into a car and I'm in a deep depression or I'm feeling this PTSD symptoms more, I am constantly looking around while I'm driving and even

thinking that I'm going to get hit by another car, even when there isn't another car in sight, like looking four or five times before turning onto another street because maybe another car will come along and hit right into me. So it's that kind of hypervigilance. It's the inability to be able to sleep for long periods of time. I wake up four or five times a night and I'm on heavy sleep meds.

It's a whole part of my body chemistry, my brain chemistry. How I live my life is based around this hypervigilance. So living like that for a very long period of time, ignoring trauma, ignoring healing, it comes to a head, right?

I owned a shop in my town, a boutique. I sold jeans, I women in jeans, and I loved it. I had such a wonderful time running my shop, but I wasn't able to keep it up. There were so many things that were going on in my life and I did not have the money to keep it going. I didn't have what was necessary in the moment. I had a child who was in a lot of trauma himself.

I was a single mom. I was not able to keep my boutique and I had to go into bankruptcy. And that was the moment that changed my life. I lost an identity. I lost a community. And my brain stopped working completely. Now imagine.

someone who has a lot of trauma background and that's floating around in that brain. When your brain decides to shut down, it really shuts down. I wasn't able to concentrate. I felt tired all the time. I had trouble communicating with people in my life, with loved ones. I was a wreck. I really was.

And it's then that I realized that I had to do something about it and I had to work through my trauma. So I put together a team and, you know, after a few years, I've been working really hard on it. I created my Moody Monster and it became part of my healing journey to create this doll that helps

communicate emotions between family members, between teachers and kids, therapists and kids, a doll that can speak to our feelings and help us to get through our feelings and to learn coping skills to help us through those feelings. So that was part of my journey. Doing well.

I even started this podcast because I realized there were so many other people who could tell their stories like mine. Now, while this was all going on, I learned in 2023 that my abuser was living all the way across the country.

and he was...

brought back to the state next to mine where he had lived for a period of time. And he was put on trial for horrific abuse of another child about 10 years ago, I guess was when the abuse had occurred. And this girl, woman now, stepped up and went to court and told

her experience in front of a judge, in front of all of these people witnessing. She opened her mouth and she spoke her truth just as I had when I was 15, 16 years old going in front of that grand jury. But she did it at an extreme level. She had the ability to speak her truth in front of my...

abuser and her abuser.

The judge in that case said that my abuser was extremely, extremely dangerous. I'm going to say exactly what this judge said. The judge remarked that my abuser was one of the most dangerous offenders he had ever sentenced. My abuser received the 40 to 80 year prison sentence.

A weeks ago, after I had felt as though this is the end of it, I don't have to fear my abuser being out in the world, what he's doing to other people, where he is, who he is as a person, thought, we're all safe now. He's now in prison for the rest of his life because he was 76 when he was sentenced.

He's in prison, he's gonna rot there. He is never going to see the light of day again and hallelujah. He's gone. And I couldn't wait to hear when he died. That was my next big hope was to hear that that man died.

Unfortunately, that didn't last long. A few weeks ago, again, like I said earlier, a few weeks ago, I found out that that state's Supreme Court overturned this man's sentence because of a technicality.

And they let this dangerous offender, as the judge called him, go free. Just walk out the door after all of the disgusting things he did and the things that that woman had to say in front of him and in front of others. This terrific, horrible abuse. He got to go free.

He now lives in my state. He lived there. He was let out last April, so a year ago, during child abuse prevention month, let out to go do whatever he wanted to do. Now, when I found out about it, of course, I looked up as much as I could. I found the address he's supposedly living at in a town where he is living in a...

large house that's almost a million dollars, living the life, and I found out he was not on the sex offender registry. He's not there. He's not on there.

You wouldn't believe the anger that overcame me. The absolute

rage that bubbled up inside me. I felt murderous. I felt absolutely murderous. Why does this man who did such horrific things to children, how is he living his best life in my state, an hour away from my home and my children? How dare this man get this easy life?

I called the court to get the records from the docket of our 1994 case. And what came with it is that shortly after he got out of prison, this state also ended his probation. So now this dangerous sex offender of children is walking around

with nobody watching him, nobody knowing where he lives that they live with a dangerous sex offender who raped children.

It feels like nothing's changed. It feels as though victims aren't given anything, that these offenders seem to get more.

they get to live their lives. While someone like me with complex PTSD who lives steeped in this.

hypervigilance, the stress that comes with dealing with complex trauma, just bubbling in my brain. I live like this while he lives his best life free and no one knowing that he's a sex offender.

Why is that happening? What do we need to change to give these offenders the life they deserve?

They're dangerous. They're criminals. They do the worst kind of offense on a child. And they're free to walk around.

Something has to change. Something needs to be done.

We have no idea how many people, how many criminals, sex offenders live around us because if this man for the past year has been able to live in a town and not be on the sex offender registry, it's been over a year. How do we know that there aren't others just like him around our children, around us?

What needs to be done to make sure that these criminals get what they deserve and not get to live their best life while others suffer from what they've done to them?

I've reached out to legislatures in my state and have heard nothing back from them. I want to take a stand and see what needs to be changed in my state, in my country, because it's dangerous to be out there with these criminals who can re-offend whenever they want. And you can say that this man

He's almost 80 years old. There's no way that's not true. Offenders will re-offend no matter what age they are. They will repeat any chance that they get. And if it's not actually touching a child, harming a child, they are going to also have

child sex abuse materials, what used to be called child pornography, but they've changed that because pornography is something that people, choose to do. Whereas child sexual abuse materials is the appropriate name for it because those children don't get a choice on what happens to them in those videos.

in those photos, those things that are sent around to other sex offenders throughout the country, throughout the world. It's not safe if we don't know who these people are and they're not given the appropriate sentencing for what they've done to people.

If you know of different ways that we can get, I specifically can get into legislature to meet with senators, house representatives that I can speak with to understand how this is happening and how I can help to change this.

I would truly appreciate you reaching out to me because I want to make a difference. I am not a victim anymore. I'm a 50 year old woman who shouldn't have to worry about her abuser being an hour away from her and not known around his community as a sex offender. I want this to change so that children don't have

to feel the way that I've felt throughout my life, throughout the time that I had to live trying to put away this man who did such horrific abuse to me and my brothers. I want to make a change in this world. And I need your help to do that. If you know anyone who I could speak to about this, how I can get involved with

nonprofits, groups that will be able to work with me so that I can tell my story and help kids now, kids in the future to be protected from these awful, terrible people. Thank you for listening. And I hope that this can give you something to think about, something to look into in your own state.

is needed to keep our children safe from these people? Because when I heard that this man was living free in my state, an hour away from me, I immediately thought of my own children and feared for them. I fear for the children that may live near

my abuser now, and it needs to change. So please reach out with any information that you may have that I can use to get my story out there and to help others make a difference in this nation.

When Not Yet Becomes Right Now (33:55)
Thank you for joining us for this episode of the podcast. This show is produced by Phoenix Freed LLC, and I'm your producer, Jen Guinty. We hope you found today's conversation insightful and inspiring. If you have a story of your own about when a not yet moment became a right now, we encourage you to reach out and share it. You can find more information about being a guest on our show at whennotyetbecomesrightnow.com. Remember, you are not alone on your journey, whether it's a journey of healing,

growth or transformation. Every story matters. Thank you for listening and we'll catch you next time with another inspiring episode.