Showing results for "DI Murphy" in Child Abuse

His name was Kevin but his keepers called him Zoo Boy. He didn't talk. He hid under tables and surrounded himself with a cage of chairs. He hadn't been out of the building in the four years since he'd come in. He was afraid of water and wouldn't take a shower. He was afraid to be naked, to change his clothes. He was nearly 16. Desperate to see change in the boy, the staff of Kevin's adolescent treatment center hired Hayden. As Hayden read to him and encouraged him to read, crawling down into his cage of chairs with him, Kevin talked.

This is a story of hope. It is my personal experience of childhood sexual abuse and its impact on me from childhood through to adulthood. It details how I used alcohol and drugs as a means of coping with the long-lasting harm of abuse and its impact on my life. It describes my journey down the destructive path of addiction until finally, with the loving support of my family, I was able to disentangle myself from the grip of alcohol and drugs and live free from the debilitating harm caused by childhood sexual abuse.