I think those of you who read my ramblings every week know that I let you inside this overloaded head, and I don’t keep much from you. If you’re willing to come along on this journey, I try to be open and honest.

But there are some things in my life that I’ve never been able to tell anyone. Some things that I have tried, valiantly, to at least tell my husband. But I can’t do it. I even tried to write it down, thinking as a writer, maybe that would be the way I could get the story out of my head. No such luck. In trying to put it on paper, I got so sick and so distraught that it took me almost a week to rebound.

And so for decades I’ve carried a story inside that was never going to be told, and that has left its mark.

It’s made me incredibly empathetic to many, and not so with a limited few. And it’s what has driven me to help with anyone who has been the victim of a sexual assault, because I know from the inside the feelings they are trying to process, the struggles they are going through and will continue to go through.

But I can’t tell my story. I just can’t.

And then, one day on Facebook, I found Erin Merryn and her story.

I wrote about Erin this week when she came to speak in Kannapolis, where she shared her own story and advocated both for Child Advocacy Centers, which she credits for breaking her resistance to therapy, and for Erin’s Law, which requires schools in states that adopt it to teach a one-hour personal safety course to students.

I want to reiterate what Erin says — Erin’s Law is NOT a sex education class. Those typically fall under health curriculum and is not at all what Erin’s Law is about. And there is an option for parents to opt their child out of the Erin’s Law class even in states that adopt it, so it’s not absolute.

Erin says she learned about Stranger Danger, took DARE classes, had all kinds of education about what is healthy and how to say no to things. But she never had a class that taught her about her own safety, and the idea that it’s rarely a stranger that will sexually assault a child.

Erin suffered sexual abuse from one assailant from the age of 6-8, and from another from the age of 11-13. Neither were strangers to her.

According to a variety of studies, only about 10 percent of those who sexually abuse children are strangers to the child. That means about 90 percent are people the child knows: a relative, a favorite coach, a teacher or principal, a scout leader, a church leader or member, anyone who is in any position of authority over a child who can use that to pressure or manipulate a victim.

And even if there isn’t actual authority, they use threats to keep children quiet. They threaten to hurt or kill people the child loves, making it clear to the child that another person’s safety is entirely in their small hands. They insist no one will believe a child, promising their word is better, stronger than just a kid.

The innocence of children means they don’t understand manipulation. They don’t understand empty threats. Instead, they carry those threats, those assertions that they won’t be believed, with them, and they keep the awful secret.

Unless.

Unless somewhere along the line someone, often someone besides a parent, lets them know that they don’t have to keep the secret. Unless someone assures them they will be believed. Unless someone explains that some secrets shouldn’t be kept. And unless someone explains that what has happened to them is not their fault.

Not every child gets that. And when they don’t, they are far less likely to tell anyone what has happened to them.

In my lifetime, I have known other survivors, like me, who have never shared their story. And I know some who were only able to tell 20, 30, 40 years later. And even then, they struggled.

That’s not helping keep our children safe.

We need to let them know they are safe with us, that they can tell their stories and they will not be dismissed as the troubled child making up stories.

Forensic interviewers are trained to help children talk through their assaults, not by leading but by giving them a safe place to talk. But the child has to get to the interviewer, has to get to the Child Advocacy Center, and getting there starts with reporting.

Children are amazing at hiding things, at keeping secrets from their family in order to protect them. They are innocent, but they love with that same innocence that is pure, and they will do anything to protect those they love. Including keeping their own hurts a secret.

Sexual assault is hard enough to talk about for adults. It’s frightening, it is talking about someone invading the most intimate parts of someone’s body, the places we choose to share with a trusted and loving partner, not against our will with someone overpowering us. For a child, it is a hundred times worse. They are yanked out of childhood and forced into an adult situation that they don’t understand. They know it hurts, and they know it feels wrong, intrusive, gross, they know they feel violated. But they don’t understand like a grown-up what has been done to them.

As those children grow up, and do begin to understand, it creates other issues.

We can’t turn away just because it’s an uncomfortable topic. We can’t turn away because it is excruciating to think about a child being sexually assaulted. We can’t take the easy but cruel way out of thinking a child is making it up.

We have to be better caregivers of our children.

I can’t tell my story. I’m 60 years old and I feel like at this point, I’ll never tell it, and most days, I’ve made peace with that.

But I never, ever want another child to have to live with this the way I have. Erin uses her voice in a way I can’t, and I thank God for her and her openness. She speaks for me in ways I can’t speak for myself.

We all should add our voices, our support, our willingness to hear the children, and hold their assailants accountable.

This was not an easy column to write, and I’m going to have to send it to the files before I change my mind. But the whole idea behind it is to ask all of you to be there for the children so no one ever has to carry another story in silence for a lifetime. Give them the safe space to tell their story. Believe them. Give them the knowledge that they have value, they have rights, and they can speak and be heard.

Elisabeth Strillacci covers crime, courts, Spencer, East Spencer and Kannapolis for the Salisbury Post.