While meeting with a social worker, she asked me if I had ever been abused. I told her that I had
been abused when I was a child. I had
never told anyone about what happened.
The social worker surprised me by asking the question as I was not
meeting with her about this occurrence.
I am 48 years old and my abuse happened when I was eight or
nine years old – about 40 years ago. Despite
my repressing the memory, my body reacted with anger as I revisited the
experience.
I was a kid playing
at the Boys and Girls Club in the neighborhood of Avondale in Cincinnati, Ohio
when a man (I think late teens or early twenties) lured me away to a nearby
building where he pulled my pants down and fondled me.
Perhaps my being in Boise, Idaho – far away from Cincinnati
– when I spoke with the social worker made me feel more at ease about telling
her what had happened to me. Or maybe
the fact that no one had ever before asked me the question is why I never
opened up about the abuse.
I immediately called the Cincinnati Police after meeting
with the social worker, although I had only a faint idea of what the abuser’s name
was. An officer in the Cincinnati
Police’s Personal Crimes Division told me that the statue of limitations had
expired.
She said that if I
had forgotten that the abuse occurred and something suddenly triggered the
memory of it, they could open an investigation. However because I merely repressed the memory
of the abuse, the statue of limitations cannot be extended.
If I had went to the police years earlier, not only would
the statue of limitations not had been exceeded, but my memory of the abuser
would have been clearer, and perhaps I could have helped to prevent him from
abusing other children.
