The Disconnect
I’d like to call this an invitation, but considering the topic, it feels more like a challenge.
The challenge isn’t to study the headlines more closely.
It’s to study ourselves.
To notice where we flinch.
Where we twist language.
Where we rename violence.
Where we shift the focus.
Where we protect ourselves from what is right in front of us.
The challenge to come to know even what we don’t want to know.
Recently, a female U.S. senator said she was now willing to look more deeply into the Epstein case after discovering a nine-year-old victim.
Nine.
Really? Not the twelve-year-olds?
Fourteen?
Sixteen?
Twelve’s a child.
Fourteen’s a child.
Sixteen’s a child.
There’s the disconnect.
When we hear about women – adults – who were abused, we question credibility. Analyze motives. Invoke politics.
We lose sight of the truth –
When these women were abused, they were children.
Six.
Nine.
Twelve.
Fourteen.
Children.
Somewhere along the way, we see the adult and forget the girl.
So here’s the challenge.
Go home. Look at the girls in your life.
Daughters. Nieces. Granddaughters. A neighbor’s child.
Small. Dependent. Trusting.
No driver’s license.
No money.
No escape.
No voice.
When adults are sexual with children, it’s not scandal, not gossip, not partisan. It’s not political.
It’s violence against a developing human being with no way out.
It’s criminal.
It’s a crime.
Yet we hesitate.
We debate whether to “get on board.”
We disconnect.
That’s dissociation.
Because to truly absorb what child sexual abuse is means confronting something destabilizing – that adults targeted children, and other adults knew. Minimized. Socialized. Benefited. Remained silent.
It’s easier to look away.
Easier to politicize.
Easier to question.
But here’s what we don’t say –
The child can’t look away.
The child has to stay.
Accept.
Adapt.
Endure.
For a long time.
To survive what they cannot escape, children dissociate. They numb. Fragment. Blame themselves.
Because they’re trapped.
We disconnect because we’re uncomfortable.
That difference matters.
If we want to be part of a culture that protects children, we have to tolerate our discomfort about what happens to them. We have to stay grounded in reality instead of shielding ourselves from it.
We have to hold the image steady –
Nine.
Twelve.
Fourteen.
Not a woman who says she was abused.
A child who was abused.
Violence, not a violation.
This isn’t about outrage or shock.
It’s about clarity.
Truth.
When adults have sex with children, it’s violence.
When abused children grow up, they don’t magically become unharmed.
When survivors speak, the first response must be belief.
Wake up.
Not in anger.
In awareness.
See the child.
And stay with her.