I Was an Abuse Survivor and Nobody Knew It, Including Me
Only as an adult did I find a name for what I went through as a kid
It was spring and baseball season was about to begin. My 5-year-old would be starting t-ball, and my seven-year-old had agreed to take a crack at junior softball. Neither had ever played before, but I loved both sports growing up, and somehow I convinced them both to give it a shot.
Among the flurry of emails that came out before the first practice was an appeal for parent volunteers. If you ever plan to set foot on the field, the note said, you’ve got to take bullying and child abuse prevention training. Thinking my experience as a teacher and as a former player might benefit my kids at some point, I signed up for the online class.
There were slides, naturally, and I read and clicked through them dutifully if a bit absently. I’d been a teacher and school administrator for fifteen-something years by this point, and I had seen this information presented in various ways dozens of times before.
Definitions for, and strategies to prevent, bullying and child abuse. The different kinds of abuse that exist, and the fact that abuse rarely leaves physical marks. The signs that adults often miss. Yeah, yeah. I know all this, I thought as I scanned the literature.
