The Clinic

A failure to report

I’m really not sure where I should begin. My mother entered into a relationship with “Jack” when I was only 2 years old and married him when I was 3. The physical, mental, and verbal abuse started almost instantly. Jack worked as the Director of Client Rights and the Head of the IT department for SRS (now DCFS) and his mother was the Regional Director. The sexual abuse started happening when I was 5 years old at the time his teenage son from a previous marriage had moved in with us after sexually abusing his biological sisters in his mother’s home. He is now serving time in prison for going on to do the same things to his own children.

After I told my mother about the sexual abuse, I was taken to the pediatrician for an examination of my private parts. He found scar tissue inside and outside my vagina. My memory is not the greatest these days, so how we went from that to me becoming a patient at “The Clinic”, I do not know. I can tell you though, that the first appointment took place inside of a big house with numerous rooms inside.

These were themed rooms with two-way mirrors and cameras recording on each side. When I arrived to this place, they took me to one of these rooms, where I was shown the camcorder that was sitting on a tripod with a man in a suit sitting beside it in a small room with nothing else inside of it. Then the child psychiatrist took me to the “playroom” where I was shown an outline drawing of a gingerbread person and asked to show them where and how I was being abused at home on the drawing. The room itself was incredibly intimidating with several spotlights and cameras recording from the ceiling. I did it though, I told them EVERYTHING. I was so proud of myself for doing it. I thought to myself “This is it, I’ll finally be saved from those monsters” —

Only, that isn’t what happened. Instead, this lead to years more of abuse and exploitation. They never reported anything… instead, because of Jack’s role and his mother’s at SRS (DCFS now) they worked hand in hand with “The Clinic” to cover it all up. Soon after the initial appointment I began being seen at the “children’s campus” once a week. there they tried convincing me that the abuse ‘wasn’t that bad’ and that perhaps I was the problem. I was in 3rd grade. sure, I was the problem./s

The clinic also convinced my mother to switch me to a school that reported back to the clinic about my “progress”. That wasn’t the only thing that was reported back, anytime I would tell a teacher or school counselor what was happening, he would know about it when I got home and things only became worse, so I shut up.

to be continued…..