"I won't ever trust a man again." This is what one teenage girl told me.
I volunteer teaching creative writing to incarcerated teen girls, and many of them have been abused or raped, and it often leads to some girls acting out by breaking the law.
This is exactly what happened to the beautiful young girl who confided in me. The subject for the day was to pretend you were an inventor. Write about a problem, and what would you invent to fix the problem.
I walked around the room to see if any of the girls needed help with this assignment. One young lady in the corner, was the first to finish. I asked her could I read what she wrote, as the other girls continued to write. She handed me her paper in silence. Every word she wrote rocked my soul. She was raped by her uncle. She never told her counselor, her mother, or anyone before.
One in four girls will be s*xually assaulted by the age of 18. One in six boys will be s*xually assaulted by the age of 18.
When I finished reading, I looked at her and saw tears streaming down her face. I revealed that I was inappropriately touched, but not raped, too, and that writing about it, helps relieve the pain. She couldn't stop crying. Through her tears, she told me it helped her to finally get her secret out. However she said, "I will never trust a man again."
It reminded me of how we all make decisions like this young lady in our youth. We are driven by these decisions throughout our adulthood to never fully commit in a relationship, or to be overly needy. This can result in bad relationships, or not having a love relationship at all.
