YOUNG INCEST VICTIM FINDS REWARD HELPING OTHERS

JACKSON -- The person Chelsea loved and trusted most in the world violated that trust and shattered her young life: Her stepfather sexually abused her for seven years.

Chelsea, now a 15-year-old student at Jackson Junior High School, has been through counseling and is now reaching out to help other incest victims. She asked to use the name Chelsea instead of her real name.

Her stepfather pleaded guilty and was sentenced to five years in prison.

The teenager said prosecuting her stepfather was the most difficult thing she's ever had to do. Now that it's over, she hopes her experience can help other children and adults confront incest.

The abuse started when Chelsea was 7 years old. She had been adopted by her stepfather when she was 2.

"My mom sat me down and told me where babies come from," she recalled. Soon after that conversation, on a family camping trip her stepfather said he was going to teach her about sex by showing her.

At first, Chelsea said, the abuse took place only occasionally. But as she got older, the abuse became more frequent.

Her mother worked nights, and that was when the abuse took place. "He would make it almost into a game," she said.

"I thought this was normal," she said. "The first of couple years I didn't know that this didn't happen to everyone.

"I knew this was what got daddy's attention," she said. "I wanted my daddy to love me, and he took advantage of that."

Chelsea and her stepfather didn't get along. "My mom couldn't understand, and when she asked me I would just say `I hate him.'"

One day mother and daughter had a fight. Chelsea's mother told her daughter, "You don't have it as bad as you think." Chelsea responded, "You don't know everything."

She then told her mother the entire story.

"I had no idea it was going on," her mother said. "I've learned that it did go on right under my nose."

On a family car trip, for example, when Chelsea and her stepfather were supposedly asleep in the back seat, she was being abused.

"Child molesters are very manipulative," her mother said. "And it's hard to recognize because this is a person you trust. This is the person who is supposed to protect this child."

Chelsea added, "Also, people don't want to believe that this could be happening."

Her mother recalled, "That night we started making plans to get the kids and get out."

Ironically, Chelsea had shared her story with two friends at school. On the day after Chelsea's revelation to her mother, her friends told the school nurse about the incest. Chelsea was called to the nurse's office

"I remember the words she said: `Chelsea, we have reason to believe you have been sexually abused by your father.'"

Chelsea said it was a shock to hear someone say out loud the secret she had been keeping for seven years. Her mother was called to school and they went to the sheriff's department to give a statement.

"I was very upset," Chelsea said. "They were asking me questions about what had happened. This was something that all my life I had been trying to blank out. I know I gave them a lot of wrong information."

As a result of the wrong information Chelsea provided, investigators believed the statute of limitations on the crimes had expired. No charges were filed.

"He started getting therapy and he got saved and started going to church," she said.

Believing that her stepfather had turned his life around, the family got back together.

"That's when those last two occurrences happened," Chelsea said. "He told me that this time it was my fault. I felt that it was my fault, but I was so scared for my sisters to be around him that I told my mom it had happened again."

Chelsea has two younger sisters.

"At first I told my mom and the caseworker that I didn't want him to go to jail; I just didn't want him to be around my sisters," Chelsea said. "But the more I thought about it, I changed my mind. He had his chance and he didn't change. I wanted to get him back for all those years he had taken from me."

After about a year of wrangling through the legal system, her stepfather pleaded guilty to one count through a plea agreement and was sentenced by Judge A.J. Seier to five years in the state penitentiary.

"I felt like he should be in prison for seven years because he messed up seven years of my life," Chelsea said. "Everyone told us to expect probation. When Judge Seier sentenced him, I was really pleased."

Her mother said: "We left the courtroom with happy tears. Our case had a good ending. He is being punished. But not everyone gets punished like that."

Chelsea said, "It was important to me that he go to prison, but not as important as he stay away from my sisters."

She added that if her stepfather had not been sentenced to jail time, the year spent prosecuting him would not have been worth it.

"I had a lot of fear that, if I told and nothing happened to him, he would come back and be mad and be after me," she said.

Chelsea has been through group therapy with other victims of incest and is working to make a new life for herself.

"I learned what it's like to be normal," she said. "This isn't a problem with the kids; it's the adult's problem. That was one thing that was real hard for me to learn. It wasn't my fault."

Chelsea said incest is a very common occurrence. Since she has begun talking about her experience, many people have confided in her that similar things have happened to them.

"You would be amazed how many people this happens to right here in Jackson," she said.

"People have to know that it's going on. People have to start talking about it. I decided, what better place to start than right here with my friends at school?"

Arranged through school counselors, Chelsea has begun meeting with two incest victims at a Jackson elementary school.

"I'm not trying to counsel them or anything," she said. "I'm just there to listen.

"Once I got into group therapy, it helped a lot to know someone else who has been through it and has been able to make something sort of good come out of it."

Listening to another child recall their experiences with incest brings back painful memories for Chelsea. "But as long as I know I'm helping them, I feel like I can keep doing this."

She is considering telling her story to larger groups of students. "This subject is so taboo. No one talks about it, but people have to know."