We Survived Sexual Abuse! You Can Too!

 In We Survived Sexual Abuse! You Can Too! Pamela K. Orgeron, the editor, a Board Certified Christian Counselor, an Advanced Christian Life Coach, and a survivor of past sexual abuse combines her educational and life experiences to compile a book that will be helpful to others struggling with sexual abuse issues and that will help in the prevention of sexual abuse in today’s world. She divided the book into six sections. In Section One, survivors of sexual abuse share their stories of overcoming past sexual abuse to become healthy, productive citizens in today’s society. In these stories names, locations, and other details have been changed to protect the survivors and any other innocent victims in the stories. Through these success stories, sexual abuse victims will find hope and strength to face the reality, pain, and the work required to recover from past abuse.

Orgeron believes that prevention is always the best medicine for any type of needed healing or pain resolved. Thus, in Section Two of this book she includes information on and suggestions for the prevention of sexual abuse. The responses and effects of sexual abuse are highlighted in Section Three. Section Four offers information on the recovery process, including the role of parents, teachers, health care workers, and the church in helping an individual recovering from sexual abuse.

With incest too often swept under the rug in families and with the depth of the brokenness resulting from this atrocity, Orgeron felt she would be amiss to not include Section Five, “Incest: Sexual Sin in the Family”. Orgeron believes that by including this section incest victims will find hope and encouragement to no longer bury these “family secrets” in the closet but have the courage to accept what is and find healing through Jesus Christ, our Lord,

Though We Survived Sexual Abuse! You Can Too! focuses more on offering help for victims of sexual abuse, with the National Center for Victims of Crime (2012) reporting “40-80% of juvenile sex offenders have themselves been victims of sexual abuse” (¶ 9), Orgeron believes information about perpetrators and how to help them also needs to be addressed. She attempts this through the last section, “Section Six: For and about Perpetrators”.