By Mike Blackwell

Jessica is 16-years-old, a popular high school student with expressive eyes and a hair-trigger sense of a humor. She greets people with a strong handshake and a bright smile. Jessica is a sister, a daughter and a girl who has already lived a long life.

She looks like a normal teenager, whatever that is, and she enjoys the normal things popular among her peers. She loves her friends, her school, her telephone. Sadly, Jessica is different from most of her peers in one way - she is a victim of child sexual abuse.

In 1998, Jessica is strong and confident. In 1988, she was a 6-year-old victim, vulnerable, weak and innocent. Jessica's abuse began when she was six and lasted approximately four years. The abuser was her stepfather. At one point, Jessica told her mother Joann about the abuse, and Joann in turn confronted Jessica's stepfather.

"He denied everything," says Joann. "He told me Jessica was lying because she wanted me to go back to her father. He turned it all around and the biggest regret in my life is that I believed him. You should always believe the child."

The stepfather used a chilling method to keep Jessica silent.

"I was threatened with my life, and he said I'd be breaking up our family if I told," says Jessica. "I figured I'd just take it."

The stepfather was brazen with his attacks, taking advantage of Jessica even while her mother was sleeping. When Joann would run errands, the stepfather would ask when she would return, and Jessica would be abused. He was a manipulative alcoholic, and Joann had no idea what was happening under her own roof.

"Abusers are very skilled," says Linda Harriss of Brownwood's Harriss Center for Counseling. "They know all the tricks of the trade."

The stepfather continued to terrorize Jessica, who still remembers the depth of her fear.

"I was scared about all that was happening, but I got used to it, I guess," Jessica said. "Even though I was scared, I didn't know what I could do about it. Now I know that victims should tell somebody and keep telling - tell a parent, tell a teacher, keep telling until someone listens."

Finally, one of her stepsisters caught the stepfather during the abuse, and that's when the four-year secret was discovered by others in the family. The confrontation between Jessica, Joann and the stepfather was dramatic. Jessica sat on the bed, with Joann looking at her and asking her if the story of abuse was true. While Joann was speaking to Jessica, the stepfather stood behind in the doorway, silently shaking his head back and forth. This was the 10-year-old Jessica's moment of truth, a moment that would change her life forever.

"I sat in my room, and when my mother came in she was raging mad," Jessica says. "All the time he was standing behind her shaking his head back and forth. She asked me if he did these things to me, and I was kind of weighing the pros and cons. It made me feel good to look right at him and say 'yeah.'

"She turned around and hit him. They went to their room and shut the door, and I could hear her throwing things. I heard him say it only happened once. He was calm, but she was in a rage."

There are times even now when Joann must fight her instincts to rage. She feels guilt, anger, sadness. Right after the discovery, anger was the most prominent of her emotions.

"The only thing that kept me from killing him right then was hearing the kids crying for me to stop," Joann says.

Jessica's abuse obviously did a life's worth of damage to her psychologically, but both of her parents have also suffered greatly. Jessica still lives with Joann, who continues to battle the storms created by her ex-husband's crime. Jessica's father, however, still has not accepted or dealt with his daughter's abuse. He is loving toward Jessica, yet lacks a true understanding of the abuse's ramifications. He chooses not to talk to Jessica about the abuse, though she vows to continue trying to talk to him about the issue.

"My dad has a problem even understanding what has happened," Jessica says. "He feels guilty, because when he would take me home I would cry because I didn't want to go back home."

Ultimately, Jessica's stepfather was given probation for his crime. And ironically, the law allows Jessica's abuser to resume visitation with her younger brother and sister.

"I worry about my brother and sister," Jessica says. "He took my childhood, so what's going to keep him from taking theirs? The system is taking the kids and putting them back into the hands of these types of people."

While Jessica seems to have regained control of her life, Joann continues to fight a daily battle with guilt and anger. And both Jessica and Joann must watch helplessly as Jessica's abuser takes her sister and brother for visitation. It is a heart-wrenching scene, a mother watching her children leave with the man who abused her oldest daughter.

"I have a really hard time with my youngest daughter going to visit her father after what has happened,"Joann says. "But she said, 'Mama, I prayed and asked God if I should go. He told my heart it was okay, and he'll take care of me.' "If she has that much faith in God, then I do too."

Jessica continued to thrive in school, and she says the meeting with her abuser when she was 12 helped calm the turmoil. As part of the victim empathy program, Jessica was able to confront her abuser in a neutral setting, and she hopes to do the same again some day. Jessica also seems to be keeping her fears and doubts in check, and she is excited about her life's future, a life which will include educating young people about the dangers of sexual
predators.

"I've had to deal with so much, I'm comfortable now," Jessica says. "I do have a hard time trusting males. I have flashbacks and nightmares of the abuse. But I am much stronger now and want to help other people. My friends call me 'mom' because I like to take care of everybody. People just need to communicate with their kids and listen to them."

Indeed, Joann says most people ignore what has become a serious sociological problem.

"There is no telling how many young people at Brownwood and Early high schools who have been abused as children," Joann says. "I certainly didn't want this to happen to Jessica, and wish I had prevented it. But people don't want to hear about sexual abuse, and that's scary. People need to open their eyes. Jessica has grown so much over the last few years. She's a survivor, and she realizes that you can't live your life as a victim. I'm very proud of her."

Jessica's relationship with her mother has never been stronger, and she believes that one day she will be able to gain a more open dialogue with her father. She also believes her life experiences are to be used positively. When asked if she feels anger toward her mother, her smile widens.

"I'm not mad at my mother at all," Jessica says. "I wish I could've stopped it earlier, but I was powerless, I was a child."

Harriss says Jessica has more than handles the chaos and cruelty of her life. "She's a fighter," Harriss said. "She's taken the tragedy and triumphed."