Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 2678

Tonight's special guest is Jane Epstein from San Mateo, California, an activist now whose sexual abuse began when she was six years old. "My brother, my abuser," she explains, "was 12 when it started. The sexual abuse went on and off for six years." She goes on, "I have been in and out of therapy most of my life. It started when my parents got divorced, but the sexual abuse did not come up until I was severely depressed at age 45." Negative effects still linger and she can't be intimate. Jane explains, "My father was a public-school psychologist, and my mother was an elementary school teacher. I had two older siblings, brothers. One was four years older, the other, six years older than me. I honestly did not realize I was being sexually abused. He left when I was 12. And what he left behind was a child who desired sexual touch and had nowhere to get it, so I became obsessed with having boyfriends." She continues, "One day I woke up in a pool of depression, and I did not understand why. My life looked perfect from the outside. Two kids, a stay-at-home mom in a nice neighborhood, but I wanted to die. I made a conscious decision to quit drinking alcohol and turn over everything in my life by journaling from the very beginning. It was there I discovered the answers and understood why my life was so out of order." Jane is better now. "I am healthy, no longer in therapy or depressed. I am now on a mission to be an advocate for sibling sexual abuse survivors and prevention and awareness. I am reaching out to the media any way I can to bring about awareness to this silent epidemic."