Sometimes I Just Can't Imagine

This is not going to be a fun post. In fact, if you don't want to read about the vile things vile adults do to children, probably this is a post you want to skip. I'd probably skip it myself.

I just don't understand it. I don't, and I don't want to. I have worked with a lot of small children and I know that emotional abuse and physical abuse are horrible, decimating the life of a child.  I also think that sexual abuse is the most insidious form, the effects of which change the course of the child's life forever. Many years ago I briefly worked in the psychiatric unit of a large hospital system in Arizona. With one exception, every single person admitted to the Eating Disorders unit had a history of sexual abuse. There was likely to be additional history of family dysfunction, other problems and instability but those factors were a variety. The one constant was sexual abuse. With all the girls I have worked with in the past on their "behavioral problems" it is far more the exception to see a girl who has never been raped, molested and sexually abused.

A story broke in the local news this week. A woman was arrested for using her own 3 children to create child pornography for distribution. She sent over 1000 images to a mans phone with the intention that he would put it out there on the internet. She molested her 2 year old in order to photograph it. I can only assume that her motivation was money.
Here is the link.  Police crack child po&rn operation


For some reason, even knowing as much as I have had to know and learn about sexual abuse, this particular case has struck a raw nerve. I don't know why. I usually hear these things and have a wide range of emotions. Anger, disgust, fear. Such sadness for the victims. But that initial feeling of shock, that visceral punched in the gut feeling when you first truly understand what sexual abuse consists of, that was long ago for me.  But this case, I can't get it out of my head. Maybe because the perversion of trust is so astronomical?  The children in this case will be violated for the rest of their lives. These pictures get circulated over and over thru an intricate tangle connecting the perpetrators online. They will be altered to depict even worse violations than occurred in the first place. Perp's will edit themselves into the pictures so it looks as if the crimes were occurring with themselves as the recipient. Things I can't even imagine will be depicted. Once pictures like this hit the world wide web, they are irretrievable. In circulation forever.

The other particular horror I guess must be that it is their mother who hurt them. Mostly the perpetrators of sexual abuse are men and truthfully had I heard this story about a father I would not have been surprised and would probably have forgotten the story before the news was even over. But their mother? Their mother???

This woman. I just cannot imagine.


There is a special corner in hell.