Collection: Justice
Est. Read Time: 10 Minutes
I filed criminal charges against the man who abused me more than ten years after the abuse occurred. I had never been in a police station before, and somehow I felt like I did something wrong. I sat down at a small table, and the detective handed me a pen and several sheets of paper. He said, “Write down everything you remember.”
I looked at the blank page and immediately thought about leaving. How was I supposed to write this down? Even after I disclosed the abuse to my mom years earlier, I hadn’t told her everything. Not even close. How was I supposed to hand the darkest parts of my life to a complete stranger?
I felt embarrassed, which is an incredible understatement. Ashamed. Exposed. Terrified. But I started writing. The officers were incredibly kind, patient, and careful. They treated me with a dignity I wasn’t expecting.
When I finished, one of them quietly explained what would happen next. They were going to arrest him. And then something unexpected happened.
I felt sorry for him.
I know how strange that sounds. The man who had abused me for over a year. The man whose choices had changed the trajectory of my life. The man I had spent years trying to escape. When I realized he was going to be arrested, I felt guilty.
Part of me didn’t want to be the reason another human being suffered. My mind immediately began minimizing what had happened. Maybe it wasn’t that bad. Maybe he’d changed. Maybe I should just forget the whole thing. Today I understand what I couldn’t understand then. I wasn’t protecting him. I was carrying responsibility that had never belonged to me.
Looking back, I think that burden started long before I walked into the police station. When I was in high school, my life had already begun falling apart. While everyone around me seemed to be moving through the normal milestones of adolescence, I was simply trying to survive another day. Getting out of bed felt difficult. Keeping up with school felt impossible. Every report card, every missed assignment, every conversation with a teacher seemed to reinforce the same belief: that something was wrong with me.
I attended a small Christian school in Charlotte, North Carolina. Our school had a close relationship with several local churches. Youth leaders regularly came onto campus. They signed students out for lunch. They attended athletic events. Parents weren’t even notified. It was simply trusted.
My abuser understood that trust better than anyone. He used it to gain access to children. The school. The church. Football games. Youth events. There wasn’t a part of my life he hadn’t managed to enter. He didn’t simply abuse me. He occupied my world.
When my parents moved to Little Rock, Arkansas after my sophomore year, I thought I had escaped him. Physically, I had. Emotionally, I couldn’t escape. When I returned to Charlotte for my senior year to graduate with my friends, I discovered he was still walking onto my high school campus. I saw him at football games, walking in the stands, talking to students. He never looked at me. But I saw him. Every week. For months.
Eventually I couldn’t carry it anymore. Near the end of my senior year, I finally told my mother. Not everything. Just enough. She immediately contacted both the church and the school. Neither one took action.
I barely graduated that year. But when I did, everyone moved on.
Except for me.
Over the next five years I found alcohol. I dropped out of college twice. I was arrested twice because of drinking. Life continued moving in the wrong direction. Then I met a girl. For reasons I still don’t completely understand, she loved being around me.
When I was twenty-four, I decided I wanted to become someone worthy of that love. I quit drinking. I quit smoking. I started exercising. I lost weight. And I decided it was finally time to report the abuse.
Looking back, I realize how naïve I was. I believed filing criminal charges would finally lift the weight I had been carrying. I thought there would be some great emotional release, like removing a splinter that had been buried beneath my skin for years. I thought justice would heal me.
The criminal case lasted eighteen months. My parents hired an attorney to help me understand the process. She contacted both the church and the school asking if they would support me. They declined.
When detectives first confronted my abuser, he admitted everything. Later, he hired an attorney and changed his story. Eventually he pleaded guilty to taking indecent liberties with a minor. He received thirty-six months of probation and was ordered to register as a sex offender. More than twenty years later, he’s still on that registry.
When the case ended, I waited. I waited for relief. I waited for peace. I waited for healing. Instead, I felt guilty. I had gone through eighteen months of criminal proceedings. A man had been convicted. His life had been permanently changed. And inside, I felt exactly the same.
Looking back now, I understand why. I had asked the criminal justice system to do something it was never designed to do. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. It investigated. It prosecuted. It held someone accountable. What it couldn’t do was heal a thirteen-year-old boy.
And I wish someone had told me that. I wish someone had sat beside me in that police station and said, “You’re doing the right thing. This matters. Accountability matters. But don’t confuse accountability with healing.”
Today, I don’t regret filing criminal charges. Not for a moment. I believe it was the right thing to do. Not because it healed me. Because it was true. It protected other children. It held one man accountable for his choices.
Today I understand something that I couldn’t back then. Filing criminal charges didn’t give me the healing I thought it would, but it was the first step along the pathway that eventually did.
If you need someone to walk beside you while you start your own journey, reach out. It’s why we exist.
Reflection: Justice can acknowledge what happened. Healing teaches us how to live after it.
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TIVI exists because no one should have to walk the road toward healing, accountability, and restoration alone.
Every story in this library was written to offer one or more of three things:
- Experience – So you know someone else has been there.
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- Hope – So you can believe healing and accountability are still possible.
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