There is help -- and hope -- out there

As Gary Thompson watched his father take away his 6-year-old brother
straight into his own black past, the guilt and shame burned within him like a bonfire. "My guilt turned into absolute self-hatred."
And then, out of the divine, the car his father was driving crashed in traffic. Within two hours, his brother was back home, safe.

Gary still couldn't tell his mother, but "after that day, I never allowed my younger brother to be alone with my father."

And yet the secret only burrowed deeper within him.


•   •   •

Tim Benesh was 12 when he was sexually assaulted by his Portland (Ore.) Little League coach, Jerry Dusenberry, a youth sports supporter and U.S. Olympic boxing coach.

"My parents trusted [him]," Benesh wrote. "He in turn violated that trust and me. I, like many others, told no one."

Dusenberry, like Sandusky, worked as a volunteer with boys from low-income backgrounds. He slipped through the hands of police a couple of times before he was finally caught. In 2001, two men told police Dusenberry had molested them 20 years before, but no charges were filed.

BANNED FOR LIFE
A former Olympic gymnastics coach accused of sexually abusing two athletes in the 1980s has been banned for life by USA Gymnastics and his place in the federation's Hall of Fame revoked. Story

Finally, one boy told of more recent incidents and Dusenberry wound up pleading guilty in 2002 to four counts of child sexual abuse. He served almost nine years until he was released this May.

But it wasn't Dusenberry's conviction that freed Tim Benesh. It was a therapist.

"I have been chasing a ghost for what seems like my entire life," Benesh wrote. "I never really knew what it was, but through recent therapy I have come to realize this time in my life played a bigger role in who I am, how I viewed myself and how I viewed others, especially women. ... I was one of the lucky ones."


•   •   •

Ugliness buried within doesn't fade. It only festers and gnaws until you feel like it will consume your very soul. Years went by. Gary Thompson's shame only deepened.
"I came to a point where I could no longer run from it and I decided to end it all," he says. "But at the very moment when I was about to take my own life, the image of the face of my 2½-year-old son Ben appeared in my mind."

That's when it hit him that he would be escaping his own prison but placing his son in one all his own. "He didn't deserve it any more than I deserved what had been done to me."


•   •   •

What can you do?

1) Witnesses, speak up. The last thing childhood sexual abuse victims need is a moment of silence. They need you to tell a cop, tell the county, or tell a teacher when you see something suspicious between an adult and a child. No matter who it is. Pedophiles work hard at appearing trustworthy.

2) Parents, stop treating coaches like guardians. No kid should ever spend the night at a coach's house, no matter how sterling the coach's reputation. Sandusky was the leader of a huge Pennsylvania charity. He was married with six adopted kids. What could go wrong? And when your kids tell you an adult is being "weird" or "doing stuff," the best thing you can do is believe them.

3) Victims, find help, no matter how long ago it was. Call the Childhelp National Child Abuse Hotline at 1-800-4-A-CHILD. Or go to stopitnow.org.


•   •   •

About five years ago, Gary Thompson's 9-year-old daughter, Marissa, wanted to know why she'd never met his parents.
He explained to her that when he was a boy, "some very bad things" had happened to him.

"Why didn't you tell someone when you were little," Marissa asked,
"so they could stand up for you?"

Gary swallowed hard and answered, "I was very, very scared back then and I didn't have anyone I could turn to who could stand up for me."

And his daughter reached up, put her small hand on his arm and said,
"I'd stand up for you, Daddy."