Thirty Five Percent

Posted on July 19, 2003 in Fact-Dropping Reflections

When I have participated in groups dedicated to adults who were abused as children, I have sometimes heard the statistic: 35% of those who were abused as children end up in prison for violent crimes.

At first this troubled me as I saw myself on the road to certain damnation, a life living over concrete with a drain in the floor. Then I did the math: 65% of us rise above that.

“Hey,” I’d say to folks. “Wait a minute. We’re here. In this room. We’re in the majority who rise above that. Be grateful to God, to the Universe, to your own determination. You made it.”

And some people would get it and some would not.