Conversation With a Pedophile: Chapter 14: Alan: Secrecy as a Means of Avoiding Punishment, book written by Dr. Amy Hammel-Zabin

Chapter 14 concerns Alan's commitment to pedophilia and his unlikeliness of getting caught. In his letters to Amy, he outlines his approach to his victims, and reveals he abused over 1,000 young boys before discovery.

Page 1, para. 2:

• "Point One: Determine the emotional impact on the victim."
• "Point Two: Attempt to get the victim to minimize the crime and see it as a "once-in-a-lifetime" mistake.
• "Point Three: Introduce the element of large-scale rewards for the victim's being 'such a special person'"
• "Point Four: Make the victim see that he is not the only one and that one other special friend learned to benefit from being cooperative. "

The similarities of the sequence of Alan's outline of a pedophile methods relates to my abuse:

• Emotional Impact - I was devastated by my abuse, but when I told my mother, she blamed me for the abuse. She was an enabler of my abuse.

• Minimize the crime - He backed away from abusing me for awhile, and pretended to protect me from the neighbors. He and my Mother made sure I wasn't going to tell anyone what happened to me, even my father.

• Rewards - My brother was tolerant of anything I did. He would let me hang around him and his friends and treat me like I was a princess. Once I started school, he even gave me money to buy candy every day at school. My mother gave him the money as I mentioned earlier in this blog and instructed him to keep the fact the money came from her as their secret.

• Not the only one - My mother told me she had been abused as a girl. I was not special and to basically get over myself. I was my brothers victim for 5 years, then he left home.

In closing his letter to Amy, Alan says, "There is a saying in most recovery programs to the effect that we are only as sick as our secrets and our need for secrets. Secrets destroy, and the need for the seeming excitement and importance of secrets in our lives clearly points out a very troubled and, I believe, potentially dangerous personality. Today, when I hear someone use the term 'innocent secret', I cringe, for there isn't any such entity. Innocence and secrecy are mutually exclusive states, and the only time that they seem to come together is when one is being used to destroy the other."

My innocence seemed destroyed at age 5. I remember being considered a serious child. My mother hated to be in the kitchen. When my sister was home, she cooked and cleaned with my help. She left home when I was 8 and after that I was in charge of the kitchen for the most part. By the time I was 13, I was in charge of planning, buying, and preparing the food. As long as I kept the family secret, she was in control of me and in control of protecting her sons. It wasn't until after my second husband died, through rehab and therapy that I came to realize I had to break away from my mother and brothers. No more secrets, no more control. I could begin the healing process.

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