Child of Rage Page #3

they are not boss of anything.

They have to ask to get

a drink of water,

they have to ask to

go to the bathroom,

they have to ask

to leave our sight.

Part of that is because

we cannot trust them,

because of the damage

that they've done before.

Beth, would you like

to say grace, please?

Heavenly Father, thank You

for this good day and

everybody doing good.

In Jesus name, Amen.

They believe that they are evil.

They believe they're from the devil.

They believe that they are not a person

of value. We have to change that.

We have to build that

from a child who's nothing,

who's a bad kid

in their own mind,

to a child who's

valuable and loving

and they see themselves as that.

When they do it sure well,

we can say,

"You did a good job!

You're a good worker",

and then, it just builds

a self-esteem little by little

so that they change the way

that they see themselves.

Several months into treatment in

this controlled environment,

Beth had made progress

and her therapist decided

to loosen some of the controls.

Anybody wants some more?

Beth continued to show

signs of improvement.

She began to develop a

sense of right and wrong.

She seemed to respond to affection,

she's more outgoing.

She went to public school.

Made friends of a local church, and

even sang in the choir.

- Are you gonna go into

summer school next month? - Yeah.

That's Elijah?

Yeah. That's a beard, see his beard,

and his nose, that is.

- Quite big. - Yeah. See his beard,

it's kinda floating in the wind...

Elijah's taken up in the heaven

with the fiery chariot.

who that's...

that's where that's Elisha,

that's the other prophet took

Elijah's place. He was left there's Elijah.

You know, you learned about sheep,

"the Lord is my shepherd."

March third you just

got that yesterday.

In the beginning, we couldn't

trust her with anything.

She was locked up at night.

We had alarms on the door at night,

so she wasn't sneaking around doing

things with the other children.

We don't worry about that anymore.

There is no alarm on her door at night now.

She sleeps in the same room with my

own daughter and I trust her that much.

She brushes the dogs and

I trust her that much.

Because she has

earned that trust,

she's learned that she has a heart

and she has a loving side

and she feels bad when

she does something now.

In the past, because

she didn't have a conscience,

she didn't feel anything

when she did something bad.

There was just no feeling there.

And now she does feel bad,

and it shows in her face.

I believe that Beth can make it.

She's got a really bright mind.

She's got a good heart now,

which has done a lot of healing.

She's got a really

super set of parents.

They're powerful, they're

knowledgeable, they're motivated.

She's done a lot of good work with you

in therapy, with Kennel and with myself,

she wants to heal.

And that's the number one key

and she wants to heal because she

has a family that really cares about her,

and she wants to be with them.

Do you know where

that anger came from?

That's when my birth dad...

hurt me and

I had it all inside and I remembered

it and I started doing it.

And, what did that do?

That what's inside.

It made me want to hurt

people really bad.

And, who did you hurt?

My brother, my mom and

daddy, and the animals.

- And the animals.

- Who did you hurt the most?

- My brother.

- Who did it hurt the most? - Me.

Why don't you tell me that?

- It hurt me the most.

- Why did it hurt you the most?

Because when I hurt

other people...

I'm hurting my... good self.

How do you feel

right now, Beth?

Sad...

- It's kinda tough to talk

about it, isn't it... - Yes...

Beth gave her last interview

for this film in December of 1989.

Although she had made progress,

she would still need extensive therapy.

Not all abused children are

as deeply scarred as Beth,

but all abused children

suffer a profound hurt

for the rest of their lives.

The road to recovery is long

and hard for the abused child.

There are more than one million

new victims of child abuse

in America every year.

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