Damaged children
Shawn Hornbeck and Ben Owenby.....the whole nation is tuned in to this miracle. Thank God that Ben endured 4 1/2 days and no longer but damage is done nonetheless. He looks less affected by this than Shawn but don't let that fool anyone. He has much horror in his soul over what he was exposed to. And who knows how long it will take for this young man to talk about it. Or who will start talking first.
Shawn's rescue was near and dear to my heart because I met his parents when volunteering on the search for another child and I came away from that 6 week experience with a profound admiration, respect and awe over who they are. And the other members of the SAR team (Search and Rescue team). These people are so self-sacrificing, dedicated, passionate, professional that it blew me away. They had me at hello. I was hooked on the vision and the work involved. We didn't find our child and she's still out there somewhere but they never give up hope and neither will we. After all...that's what kept Shawn going. Holding on thru all the horror.
I turned 13 in the early 70's. Back then pedophiles still remained underground sotospeak. No computer networks, laptops, desktops, etc. Most of their communication and transfer of information, pictures went thru the mail or hand to hand. There were kids who turned up missing but they were no where near as rampant as today. My sister and I both suffered at the hand of a pedophile who was married and he and his wife were friends of our parents. I can't help remembering how he won us over to his side to trust him, with gifts and listening and drugs. He made promises and sympathized with our childish complaints about our parents. (they had their own dysfunction going on and we were abused/neglected by them but nothing they did warranted his manipulations of us) At the age of 14 he had discussed sex with me, got me high on pot, and promised me a life of freedom if I wanted to live there with he and his wife. At 14 this sounded like a great life. I had no idea. Anyway, they talked my parents into signing over custody of me to them. And that's when the nightmare began. He sold me to men in their 20's to introduce me to sex and he secretly taped it. He was a photographer an photographed my modeling portfolio, which then progressed to more child pornographic photos. I was raped several times. I felt trapped, especially since my parents and I were not speaking and they had willingly signed me over to them. That went a long way to convincing me that I was not wanted by them. And he worked on me mentally every day, kept me secluded from my friends, to convince me that he had my best interest at heart. He put me on birth control pills before he ever mentioned the moving into his home and bought a compact which he converted to hold my pills so my mom would not find them. I got STD's and he took me to a clinic for treatment. In hindsight I can see why a kid like Shawn did not attempt to leave or contact his parents. The mind control combined with the shock and terror beat him down and broke his spirit. He was terrified of the brutality of this man much as I was. Thank God that I was not abducted as he was. I was not held for over 4 years but the mind control and shock, the drugs and the exposure to horrible sexual experiences at such a young age is so awful I have no words to express. You don't even have a clear understanding of who you are, what the world is like, what adulthood is supposed to be, what responsibility, accountability, loyalty, honesty, are really all about. You are still looking at life thru the eyes of a child, with an innocence that can never be replaced once its taken. You are so naive and trusting, of adults especially. And when one violates that trust in such a drastic and personal way you don't know what to do with that. The fear they instill in you and the shock is something I didn't know what to do with. I can only understand, in a small way, what these boys are dealing with. Talk about losing hope. That Shawn has a tremendous faith and hope in his parents and in God, despite it all. He said that is what kept him hanging on.
I don't know what else to do for him except hope for him, have faith for him and pray for him. I am a Christian and I realize that there are many who think this is pious and silly, are angry at God and think how could a god allow this to happen. God didn't allow this to happen. He made us as humans with a will of our own because He didn't want robotic people He could program to do this or that. Because of that "will" there are such perverted people out there who are filled with evil and have no conscience or remorse over their perverted ways. They act out their perversions with joy. I believe there is a special place in hell for them. Unfortunately I won't see it. The best I can hope for is to see justice done and they rot in jail, or more likely are killed in jail.
From what I know of Craig and Pam Akers I am confident that they will get the best help available for them as a family and for Shawn individually. I'd like to see the public, the media, give them their space so they can try to get back to some normalcy, a routine of family life again. That will be hard since we all have such a need to know drive within us. But what is best for them as a family and for Shawn is to have their privacy respected. I'd love to see them take a long vacation away from here to a private location. Have fun again, do normal everyday stuff, to return home so they can build their lives together anew. I'd love to see Shawn homeschooled for a while before he attempts to return to school and to get a good bit of therapy under his belt before he faces the world. He needs to be protected and I trust that Craig and Pam will do all they can do to see him come out on the other side. And maybe, just maybe, he will become an instrumental part of the SAR team. What insights he could shed, in time, to assist in the searches and I really feel that this would help to redeem the horror that happened. In a small way he can turn this around to some good.
