Telling Secrets
By Adam Ferrell of Charleston City Paper
“I was a very loud, boisterous child. I wanted attention.
But I never knew how to say I had been hurt.”
“By the time I started kindergarten, I already wanted to
commit suicide. I was smoking cigarettes and in the third
grade and drinking heavily in the sixth. I just wanted to
grow up in hurry and get out of my house. But I never
associated it with the person in my house who was abusing
me.”
Now a recovering alcoholic, Ella W. Richardson was 30 years
old before she could face the fact she had been sexually
abused. “I was in shock that I had blocked it out so
much,” she said.
Richardson and many other adult survivors of sexual abuse
living in Charleston appear in one of four locally-produced
public service announcements (PSAs) slated to be televised
across the country.
Richardson suffered sexual abuse at a very young age from a
family member. Despite growing up in an “Ozzie and Harriet
perfect family,” with most of her extended family living
on her block, she could never tell her parents about her
abuse because she didn’t think they could handle it.
From Darkness to Light, the child sexual abuse prevention
program that put together the four spots, included some
shocking data in the PSAs:
• Fifty percent of teen pregnancies, costing the country
over $7 billion per year, are caused by adult men having sex
with underage girls.
• One in four girls and one in six boys will be sexually
abused before age 18.
• Seventy-two percent of school shootings in the last two
years were perpetrated by kids who were abuse victims.
From Darkness to Light also reported that over 1,000
children were counseled for child abuse in Charleston County
in the last 12 months alone. Considering the program’s
premise that only one in 10 victimized children will report
the abuse, perhaps as many as 10,000 were so harmed.
Ann Lee, the program’s director, calls child sexual abuse
an epidemic. “The issue is to get it out on the table,”
she said. “To acknowledge it for what it is and stop it.
It doesn’t have to be a lifelong affliction.”
The program’s main goal is to create public awareness, and
the first step is a full-blown media campaign. Besides four
PSA’s, the plan includes radio, billboard, and print ads,
in addition to a web site and hotline.
Unlike most prevention programs, which target children, From
Darkness to Light aims its message at adults. It not only
offers help and counseling to survivors, but it also holds
forums to educate individuals who have frequent exposure to
children, such as educators, ministers, and medical
professionals, so they can recognize and act in a child
abuse situation.
“It’s about adults taking responsibility to ask
questions, having the knowledge to help, and not being
ashamed,” Lee said. “Forty-two percent of disclosures
are made to teachers.”
Like many abuse victims, Richardson suffered from low self
esteem, although growing up, she could never understand why
she was so unhappy since she loved her family so much —
she never made the connection to the abuse because she
blocked it out.
“Sexual abuse is a big secret and it makes a lot of people
very sick,” Richardson said. “My hope for the
commercials is that people will realize there’s help,
whether you’re the victim, the abuser, or the survivor.”
Another face appearing in the PSA is local artist John
Carroll Doyle, who has also donated a $10,000 painting to
the organization each of the last three years.
“I was sexually abused for a year by a brother-in-law, and
I had no one to talk to about it,” Doyle said. “The best
medicine against this epidemic is to talk about it.”
Also a recovering alcoholic, Doyle pointed out how victims
of abuse will focus their attention on something, for
example alcohol or drugs, in order to escape their issues.
“Alcohol saved my life — otherwise I probably would have
committed suicide,” Doyle said. “I’m not condoning
alcoholism, but it helped me not feel guilty.”
Doyle said the actual act of abuse causes only a small part
of the damage to a child. “The vast majority of damage
done to sexually abused children that they take into their
adult years is having to keep it secret,” he said.
From Darkness to Light does not aim to duplicate any
existing prevention programs, Lee said. Instead it makes
those other programs more visible to the public.
“Unlike cancer, we don’t have to raise billions to find
the cure for this disease,” Lee said. “The cure is
awareness.”
Toll free hotline: 1-866-367-5444
For information: www.darkness2light.org
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