Goodbye, Friend

Today is the final Oprah Winfrey Show.  I have long admired Oprah for what she has done for so many people in this world.  She presented herself in an open way to the world and made many of us look at things we didn’t want to look at:  AIDs, Racism, Sexual Abuse, Family Violence, and more. 

The show she did this year with Tyler Perry still amazes me.  A whole studio audience full of men who were victims of child sexual abuse was ground-breaking. 

Oprah struggled with her own issues and let us see her struggle up-close and personally:  Weight, Child Abuse, Mistakes.  She encouraged many in this country to start reading books and helped many authors to rise from relative unknown to super-stardom. 

While I didn’t always agree with everything she said or did, I admire her.  I’ll watch her final show tonight – and I know that I’ll cry like I'm losing a friend. 

I look forward to seeing what she does next.

Did you see it?

Did you see it?

I am talking about the recent 2-part Oprah Show with 200 adult males who were victims of childhood sexual abuse.  According to Oprah, this was the first time this ever happened on television.

The show came to fruition through an interview Oprah did with her friend Tyler Perry.  Tyler was sexually abused as a young boy by several men and a woman and he had the guts to talk about it with Oprah. 

The statistics say that 1 in 4 girls was sexually abused as a child, and that 1 in 6 boys was sexually abused.

Boys just don't talk about it.  And of course many girls don't either. 

Let them talk about it.

We let them talk at Community Partners of Dallas.  Every Tuesday night we provide sexual abuse group treatment for victims and their non-offending family members.  They talk about it. 

Last night one of the teen girls told her group that with their help she had finally mustered up the courage to call in a police report on her ex-boyfriend who had repeatedly sexually assaulted her.

Talking can heal.