Trapped — first comments this year on National Child Abuse Prevention Month

I became VERY afraid of being “trapped,” whether in physical spaces, social gatherings, with another person, bad or potentially bad jobs, geographic locations and more, from my childhood experiences.

One specific example.

When I was 12, after having had WAYYY too much instruction in different elements of life from two of my older brothers, one of them drove up outside a friend’s house (an acquaintance’s house, rather — I had no friends, really, until college). He, with a friend or two of his with him, said, “I’ll sneak you into the drive-in for free if you get in my trunk.”

Well, first of all, I’d heard, from the same brother, that Cheech and Chong routine about Chong getting locked in a trunk.

Second, though some of my memories from earlier childhood were already fading, or being repressed, I still didn’t trust this brother on something like this.

Third is something that I didn’t even think about until earlier this week:

As memory serves me, there was still almost two hours of daylight left. NO drive-in movie was happening.

Anyway, it’s my blog, and I’ll still blog about this (sorry, Chuck, or others) because this isn’t just about me. The various forms of child abuse, our failure as a society to take them seriously, and our refusal to admit how much of this happens at home are all serious societal issues, and this IS National Child Abuse Prevention Month.

BECOME aware.