Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 1055

Tonight's special guest is Carol Derry from Leicester, UK, a child abuse survivor and activist who was abused in almost every way, and by every generation of her own family. She struggles for more clarity even today. Carol writes that she's still having ".. repressed memories which have slowly been released as I became strong enough to face and work upon them. I hope that we can help others with such issues." As for her youth, she says, "I never truly knew that my childhood was so bad untill I had my mother tell me at 11 not to let my dad's father near me, as he had hurt my aunt when she was younger. She didn't tell me about her father abusing her till I was 17 claiming that she had forgotten." But it was too late for her, as she had already been sending Carol on solo holidays to her father. On her social networking profile she says, "I have taken an interest in children, families and communities and how abuse is looked at. I'm interested in mental health issues due to my own issues from childhood, and how I have had to go long periods of time without help from a trained professional as there is never enough resources, especially in child mental health services." She's currently half way through a program of cognitive behavioral therapy, which she hopes will enable her to seek more direct ways to educate people about the long term damage mentally and physically childhood abuse leaves behind if left unchallenged and corrected. "I would eventually like to be able to speak to people who are training to work with families about how toxic abuse in the family is," she writes, "and how long term the effects are for the child if the professionals around them do not intervene swiftly enough."