when i was 40, i saw a woman on Phil Donahue telling my word for word story. i'll never forget sitting there, thinking that she was my mirror image and "what am i going to do about this?" ....years of therapy and i got better. my husband was ashamed of "me"........

you have no idea how many lives that one molestation victim affects. no idea. and please don't start on my husband......he also worked through it.

it seems to me, that everyone who has contributed to this thread has been violated...except for Maven. i'd say majority rules on this one.

AND, if you are running a therapy group and most of the patients are either depressive or addicts. then you get a pedophile added into the mix. and he leans back in his chair and smirks and says, "as soon as i get out, i'm hitting the streets again"........

how do you think that makes you feel? i couldn't hit him. the judge ordered him into treatment. he had raped his daughter.

three days after he got out, i saw him at our local park, with his beautiful golden retriever, with a flock of small children around him. i puked. literally puked. then i went to a phone and called the police. thank god, our district attorney was a good, sharp man and he was all over him within two hours. that time, he went to jail for 15 years.

my experience may not be the be-all, know all, maven, but i know more about it than most. i worked at the psych hospital for three full years. consider running groups for a total of 8 hours a day, five days a week. how many patients do you think i saw in three years? and most of them were only in for four weeks. i burned out and took a sabbatical and never went back to it. pat

pat