DEAR GOD: I HOPE YOU WILL ALWAYS LOVE ME AND FORGIVE ME

About the Book

One out of three adult American females has had at least one pre-pubertal experience with child molestation. This means in a country of three hundred million adults, roughly fifty million were molested! These experiences leave an indelible impression in their minds that will be with them forever. To say “just forget it and go on about your business” never works!! It is constantly a part of their daily lives, causing a major impact on their adult lives in relation to their sexuak activities and their feelings about men and/or women in general. This book is not a textbook. There is no scientific backup for its presentation or any facts or figures to authenticate these pages. It is, however, the experience of one psychiatrist of 51 years in the field treating adult women (and occasionally men) wither in an adult inpatient psychiatric facility or an outpatient mental health clinic. It is written in the first person to make it more readable. It is not a long book, but it will include observations of the author, having examined countless people in their adult life as it relates to their childhood experiences. The population I deal with is skewed and does not necessarily represent the general population. Most of these women were seen by me in public mental health clinics or an inpatient facility. Very few were in a private practice setting. Four out of five women that I see on a daily basis were molested in some form or another as children. These experiences contributed largely to their coming to me, either as inpatients in a mental health facility, or as outpatients. It does not mean molestation causes certain illnesses such as schizophrenia or bi-polar disorder, but it has certainly contributed substantially to the symptoms of their illness. It has been by observation that concern about child molesters and molested children has increased several-fold over the last several years in the press, talk shows, magazines and all methods of communication. For the most part, the examples given here of sexual perpetration were committed by family members or friends not by serial perpetrators who go from state to state, looking for victims. In other words, most of these women were molested by people who could not be considered in the strict sense as “pedophiles”. They took advantage of opportunities among their own families and friends and the majority of them were under the influence of alcohol and drugs. In the past 100 years, divorce has increased one hundred fold so that now 50% of marriages end in divorce and there is a live-in spouse who frequently is not interested in the children of the other spouse. One hundred years ago, the only drug was “alcohol”. The word “marijuana” did not exist in the average population. Now there are countless drugs, readily available in all ages that contribute to lowering of inhibitions leading frequently to molestation. I am writing this book in the sincere hope that it will help those who have been violated as children to learn how to cope (in part) with the trauma it has caused them throughout their lives. The past cannot be changes, but in the last chapter of this book we can, hopefully, put things in better perspective to understand what happened to him or her and to learn better methods of coping with the mental and emotional problems which child molestation causes. Further, I hope this book will make parents more conscious of the vulnerability of their own children to molestation and make them more aware.

About the Author

Dr. Nat T. Winston was born in the mountains of East Tennessee serving as the first psychiatrist in that mountainous country. He received his training at the prestigious Vanderbilt University and has been in practice for fifty-one years. In 1961, he was credited with opening a new 150-bed psychiatric hospital in Chattanooga, Tennessee. In 1991, he built a facility to house teenage sexual perpetrators, all of whom had been victims of childhood molestation. He served as commissioner of mental health for the state of Tennessee under two governors and is considered an authority in the treatment of childhood sexual molestation.