Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 2260

Tonight's special guest is Donna Jenson from Leverett, Massachusetts, a child abuse survivor, an author and an activist, whose story was recently published in her book, 'Healing My Life from Incest to Joy', a narrative of the choices she made and experiences she had that helped her heal from her childhood abuse. Her trauma story started in infancy. Her father, steeped in alcoholism until his mid-thirties, was first physically abusive to both Donna and her mother. The incest began at age seven and continued until she was twelve. He was emotionally and psychologically abusive until the day he died, when Donna was age 46. Donna founded 'Time To Tell' in 2009, with a mission to spark stories from lives affected by incest and sexual abuse to be told and heard. She leads three online writing circles for survivors helping them to find their voice and showing them how to use it in community with other survivors. Donna also wrote and performs her one-woman play, 'What She Knows: One Woman's Way Through Incest to Joy', which is based on her own experience of surviving incest and what she did to make her life worth living. Donna explains, “Once I had healed enough to be open about my experience of surviving incest, I knew it would add to my healing to use my voice to help shatter the silence surrounding childhood sexual abuse.” Donna will be reading a few excerpts from her book, 'Healing My Life from Incest to Joy', as fuel for our discussion.