Let the grooming begin

 This past month has been quite the eye opener. Since my last post I have seen my new therapist twice. I like him. I think he was a little shocked when I gave him the short version of my crazy life, but it was also very helpful. I'm doing two group therapy sessions each week. One is for PTSD skills and the other is for Depression. Not gonna lie, I hate online classes of any kind. It's just weird because no one has their cameras on. Feels very impersonal. My therapist recommended that I concentrate my efforts on what is being taught and not so much on the environment. Good advice!

Well enough of that, where did I leave off? Oh yeah, the neighbors moved away. They literally moved the entire mobile home out of the space and that was it, they were gone. It wasn't that long after that a new mobile home was moved into the space and a married couple moved in. They didn't have any children, but they were very friendly. The summer after they moved in, their niece came to visit. She was the same age as me and we instantly hit it off and became great friends. I started hanging out at the neighbors on a regular basis and this is when the "grooming" began.

Child grooming is defined as befriending and establishing an emotional connection with a child, and sometimes the family, to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. Let me tell you, this individual was a master!  My parents became good friends with the neighbors, so of course they trusted me going over to their house as often as I did. Because we lived in a mobile home park, there were many social activities at the clubhouse. This was the late 70's and social parties were a big part of the community. I spent a lot of time around adults and always felt a little more grown up because of it. That probably contributed to being easily manipulated. 

I want to talk more in depth about the grooming and I will in my next post, but I want to end today's post with this---these predators are skilled. They know exactly what to look for and how to manipulate situations to their advantage. They are everyday people, usually the ones you wouldn't ever expect, and because of this, so many children, myself included, are abused every single day. No one should ever feel like they didn't do enough, or that they should have known; these individuals are just that good at what they do.