There's nothing more powerful than finding someone safe to tell "the secret" to. No one knows how hard it is, unless they've been there. Your heart pounds, your body is rockrigid, you grind your teeth, your mouth is dry. You think of all the excuses to keep your mouth shut. They'll get mad. They'll laugh. They'll reject you. They'll treat it like it was nothing and tell you to forget about it. Or worse: they'll be polite, nod their head like they understand, leave and not ever have anything to do with you again. But you have to tell someone, and oh God, please let it be the right one!

Even then, the depth of doubt, selfhate, fear and insecurity is so strong, that even after you tell even to someone who's been through it too you leave and wonder, did I say too much? Did I do the right thing? Will they hate me? Only experience lets you know your trust wasn't for nothing.

Just getting to the point of telling fills you with mental and emotional mine fields. All the buried messages we learned to keep us quiet suddenly come to mind some placed in us by the ones who molested us:

But I've also told the right people. Women friends who showed me a much needed gentle, caring side of women than I'd experienced. My business partner whose family has "adopted" me and 100% trusts me with their children.

Rob lived in my apartment complex, and we developed a casual friendship. He was 20 and I was 32. There was an unspoken sense of connection, as there always is among victims. Rob was fragile he drank a lot. One night before I left on a business trip, he completely broke down. For him, the sense of finding a "big brother" who was safe also brought up feelings of danger and abandonment because I was leaving.

In the next few months, I felt the need to tell him where I'd been, though I wasn't sure he could handle it. He in turn shared his secret: repeat molestation. Memory blocks. Being molested by a 50 year old at an adult bookstore when he was 11.

I continued to heal; Rob continued to run. He finally (and abruptly) severed any contact with me, which was very painful for me, as I felt (my victim blame thinking) it was my fault. (I knew I shouldn't have told!) Later I found he'd done it because he was becoming dependent and it terrified him. I understood.

Four years later, I ran into him and we had a long latenight talk. He wasn't doing well, was still drinking heavy and had attempted suicide. The reason he'd tried hurt to hear: he'd had sex on his 12 year old nephew. "I just did unto others what was done unto me", he said glibly. "Turn about's fair play." So the prey had become the predator. Known for my pitbull attitude toward molesters, I now could only cry. Yeah, I was angry. But he'd been my friend. I believe it's rare for a victim to become a Wolf, but it does happen. And I saw why. He never got help. He never stopped running. And now, he was passing on the nightmare. I can only pray he gets help before he kills himself or before victimizing becomes a way of life for him.

The next time I told was not individual. I'm a youth pastor with atrisk teens, and I knew there was a good chance a lot of the kids I worked with had been molested. I remember when I was in a youth group as a kid, I was dying to find someone to trust and talk to about this but there was no one to tell. So I decided to be up front with them after a few months and tell them I was a molestation survivor. My healing was strong enough that I could talk about it without shame or fear. I wanted to make it easy for them to talk, if they needed.

Two girls did and no boys. For several years. Then, one by one, some did. It took that many years to build enough trust for it. It wasn't me they didn't trust. It was their own hearts. They were ashamed. Weren't we all, at first? One only told me after consuming enough booze to nearly kill him, and he said, "I'll tell you once, and never again." And he hasn't. Another, fragile and wary, turned to drugs & sex to kill the pain and it hurt to watch. I knew if he'd only talk, we could begin to mend his life. He told me a little and never again. Until he does start talking and facing what's there, he'll keep going until he selfdestructs.

That's one of the bestkept secrets of victims. We usually don't grow up and molest. We grow up and selfdestruct. Talkshow mentality says to rapists, "So were you molested as a child?" Of course, a convicted molester will say that. Because it's part of the rationale. And yeah, sometimes they were. But just because some molesters were molested, doesn't mean the molested grow up to molest. We just fall apart, drug and booze out and disintegrate.

Unless we tell someone. Some time ago, I had breakfast with a friend who is like a blood brother to me. He'd told a little of his secret after we first met, but kept the rest inside. Then he got married and had kids and now he confessed that he couldn't let go to it. He couldn't tell his wife. And it was complex, because he'd fondled someone a few years younger than himself when he was just barely into his teens, and he felt condemned, and evil, because he didn't understand that an 11 year old who fondles a 9 year old is just repeating an action. He wasn't a "perpetrator".

The minute I started opening my heart and experience to him, his eyes clouded and tears began to fall. It really didn't matter WHAT I said, because he was responding deeply just because he had permission to talk about it without fear...or shame. Do you relate?

Like so many of us, the relief of his telling the secret was followed by a feeling of "I'm O.K. now that I talked, so it's over." So I told my friend to talk, and keep talking, talk to ME, I understand, and talk anytime you need to for as long as it takes. Don't bury it. You just scratched the surface. Open the wound and let it begin to heal.

You'll feel scared and embarrassed and angry and unsure when you first tell the secret to someone. But do it anyway. Those who've walked in your shoes understand the need to keep talking and that there's no shame for things you were too young or too scared or too vulnerable to understand, or to stop.