Why do you run? Why are you here? I think it is because you have empathy and understanding of what is happening to millions of children each and every day. I think the vast majority of you GET IT. You know. You know about us - you know about the tragedy. You know our pain. You know me. Who am I? I am David Paulk:
- A father of three lovely girls
- A Professor
- An elder in the Presbyterian Church and a few other things
But you know what defines me - what has defined much of my life, what has dictated much, if not all of almost everything that has happened in my life? I am an "Authentic Voice" of the National Call to Action - a survivor of physical, emotional and sexual child abuse.
That makes me an expert.
What I tell you today is hard for me - but what you do for us, for all of us with your advocacy on behalf of us is also hard. I want you to know how we appreciate it. I want you to know what happened to me, so you can understand how deeply I appreciate it. I want you to hear our appreciation - all of our appreciation for the work you have yet to do.
I had my childhood robbed from me by two people in particular. I lost my self-esteem and my hope for a safe life. I lost the ability to live a life without fear.
I suffered repeated beatings with belts and switches. I suffered to the point where I had to have ointment spread upon my wounds. And here's the messed up part -
I probably would have even been okay with this - I know there are a number of people here today who understand very well this kind of (pardon me) discipline. Instead, I was sexually abused by a neighbor from the age of 8 until the age of 12 and ½. I was raped in a light green chair and I went into the nooks and crannies of that chair to escape the pain and shame of what was happening. The mustiness of the chair burned into my brain. Those rapes ended all of the innocence and turned down the fire of my childhood. Turned it down, but did not extinguish it!
And you see, no one knew, because to tell someone would label me and I was afraid of what my abuser would do, of what my family would do, of what would happen to me - so I was silent. And like a cancer, my silence grew until it manifested in failed relationships and irresponsible behavior and poor choices and thoughts I was crazy and flawed and would never ever be like other "normal" people.
His abuse, his rape of me, and the other abuse I suffered changed me. It changed me forever. This took the spark out of my eyes and the life out of my childhood!
I want you to understand that the emotional pain I suffered - we all suffered lasts a lifetime and many times - many times that lifetime is cut very short.
We know about the stats. We know of the costs. The silence of child abuse costs our country directly and indirectly more than 94 billion dollars each year. And we smoke and drink and drug more. We become suicidal, severely obese, more of us in prostitution and prisons. More of us drop out from high school and miss work and fail relationships.
But Man oh Man, this is not the real cost. The real cost is the ability to trust - anything or anyone. The real cost is our absolute inability to feel safe.
You lose the ability to ever have a truly happy thought without it being tainted by the feelings or the memories of what you are or what you went through. And don't think these costs just occur each day to children. These costs perpetuate over and over for life. Some of us are blessed enough to become survivors, but overwhelmingly we lose people every day.
So how grateful am I? How grateful are we? There were no runs for us when we were being abused. No people like you that cared for us like you do. No people that cared for the millions upon millions of victims and survivors like you do. What you folks did today was not just a run. It was another chink in the wall of silence. It was another light in that overwhelming silent darkness so many of us were - are in.
Your light joins with others so that one day we will have millions and millions of lights streaking across the dark abusive voids of this world. Your tearing down that silent wall moves me and many more survivors and victims like me closer to a day when pain and fear will not rule us. You can get rid of - really get rid of the fear developed with belts and beatings and burns and incest and rape and neglect and screaming and put-downs. The fear developed with the utter wrongness of our childhoods.
You can make the world what it should truly be. You can reach into the darkest regions of this world and shine a hopeful light that will burn forever in the lives of all children and all this world.
RFK said it best…
"Few will have the greatness to bend history itself, but each one of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation."
Please continue to help me, help us, write the history of our generation. Thank you for your kindness.
David Paulk, MS, PA-C
Authentic Voice
Assistant Professor
Academic Coordinator
Arcadia University
Department of Medical Science and Community Health
450 South Easton Road
Glenside, PA 19038
215-572-4480 - office
215-881-8746 - facsimile
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