Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 3200

Tonight's special guest is Nancy Dahlhauser, a child abuse survivor who was raped at the age of eight by her father who was an abusive alcoholic. "I repressed the memories of my assault until my late twenties" she says. "When my oldest daughter turned eight, I believe it triggered my recovery of the memories. At the time I was a wife, a mother, a teacher, leading a normal life. My carefully constructed world fell apart." Nancy spent several years in therapy and discovered that writing and creating artwork was very helpful on her journey of recovery. In 2008 she self-published a book, 'Fallout; memoir of a freckle face freak'. (It can be downloaded for FREE on her website at www.nancydahlhauser.com) "Writing my memoir was very upsetting to my mother and some of my siblings so I did very little to promote the book. I was also afraid that I would be judged unfairly if people knew about my past." She goes on "Within a short period of time, I lost my brother to brain cancer, my mother who essentially died of a broken heart, my husband who died of a heart attack at fifty-six, and my sister Anna who committed suicide in my home. My sister was also a survivor of childhood molestation. She didn't do "the work" it takes to heal and that resulted in her suicide." Nancy didn't handle it well. She drank too much and isolated herself from friends and family. "And then one day, I woke up and wrote 'I will not be defeated' on my bedroom wall. I slowly started to crawl through all the grief and regret and build a new life for myself. I'm braver and stronger now. I humbly pray that it can provide some hope for fellow survivors.