No it wasn't a therapist. My public lifestyle began through a friend, a support group and a prison guard.

My first situation I did was testifying before my state governors task on rape and child sexual abuse. I had just moved into a new town by way of the domestic violence relocation program because I had planned on confronting my abuser at my therapist office and I wanted to have a safe place to go so he could not kill me because he had threatened to kill me if I told shortly before I made my decision to confront him. my abuser never showed up to the appointment and I followed through ad moved into a DV shelter in another town.

That first week was really stressful and I was angry at the fact that for my safety I had to keep moving around losing jobs, friends and so on. One day when it was really bad I went in to the crisis center where one of my friends worked. this person I had met when I was in therapy in the previous towns branch office of the one that was in the new town. Anyway I knew her work schedule for when she would be in the town I had just moved to and I went in to see her. she asked me if I wanted to put all that anger of mine to good use. I asked her how and she told me that the state governor was sending a task force around the state and that the task force was going to be talking to teachers, lawyers, doctors and so on and also survivors of rape and child sexual abuse. After they stopped in each city on their list they were going to take the testimonys given in the fogus groups and form law proposals to be sent into legislature to form new laws for the state. She said they were coming to town soon and wanted to know if I wanted to testify in the focus groups. I said tell me when and where I'll be there.

On the day the task force was in town I went in and gavve my testimony along with about 10 - 15 other survivors of rape and child sexual abuse. later I recieved the law proposals bound into a thick blue book, based on my testimony along with every one else that they talked with. Those proposals went on to legislature and became laws for the state.

I later joined in on a therapy group with this crisis center where my friend LR worked. In that group I met a woman S. S branched off and started a new group that was support oriented. I joined that group.

One night S came in to the group saying she recieved a call from a prison guard who ran an inmate offenders program and he wanted to come talk to our group. When he came that next week he said he wanted some vollunteers from our group to be his guest speakers for his group. the inmates once incarcerated do not have contact with thier victims so they really don't have to deal with what they did to their victims, and the prison guard wanted to put faces and feelings back into their crimes. I went intending to just be there for moral support of my friends in the group. I didn't stay silent very long. This A... of an inmate stood up and said his 2 year old wanted it otherwise she would not have taken off her clothes. I went off. Can't tell you today what I said but according to my friends and the prison guard I apparently and effectively (and then some) vented my anger about his ignorant comment and the next time he called for vollunteers he requested that me and another person in our group that laid it all on the line be among those that vollunteered because we made a lasting impression. I think I went back to that same prison inmate program 3-4 times.

After the first guest speaking engagement the prison guard told other prisons with in a 3 hour drive radius and we were getting calls nonstop. Very quickly word got around and colleges and schools were calling us for guest speaking engagements, churches, kwanis clubs, nuring programs you name it soon we had to divide those of us that were going public into groups of 2 because we had so many engagements. This one school had us in for two classes and then asked us to come back and spend the whole school day and talk to every one of that teachers classes that day if we could handle. it was just amazing, and then the local city child abuse protection council asked our group to be a part of the city counsel, then we were asked to help put together a workshop for teachers in the three surrounding counties, some members of the group were interviewed for a television show, a local reporter asked to come into the group and interview us.

the best way to get started would be vollunteering for your local crisis center. Crisis centers go into classrooms. That will definately get you plenty of speakeing engagements and then its just a matter of how fast those teachers and students tell others about you and then you will have more speaking engagements then you could ever imagine.

Crisis centers will also know of any other things like task forces and so on that you can work on and speak at.

Have warning - Is sounds amazing and is amazing but the being in the public eye comes with a price - once your name and phone number is out there for others to contact you for speaking engagements not only will you get the ones that want you to speak at their class group and so on but you will also get the nuts and abusers who don't want you to talk because your story, advice and so on will be reaching the victims and the victims will tell and the abusers will get caught. invest in an answering machine or voicemail with your telephone company that way you don't have to answer the calls and can call back those wanting you to speak for their class or group and you can just delete the A...'s.

Also if your abuser was a relative expect trouble. when I went public I was threatened with being killed. threatened with arrest for slander and libel, threatened with involluntary commitment to a state facilty, and this is just the tip of the iceburg. And not only from your own abusers. I helped a teen get out of her abusive home. I was grocery shopping and her abuser started in yelling and throwing things at me right there in the store. I helped an adult woman get away from her abusive husband, one day I found my dog was sick, Took him to the vet - he had been poisoned, I ended up having the vet put him down.

Making the decision to go public is not something to do on a whim because it sounds cool. It sounds cool and is cool and you will be helping more people then you can imagine but you also have to deal with abusers head on. So please take time to totally think it through.