Column: Epstein scandal shows need to shift the conversation - The Virginian-Pilot

Getting your

Trinity Audioplayer ready...President Donald Trump recently said it was “time for the country to move on from the Epstein scandal.” Major outlets continue to dissect the Epstein files and speculate about the political fallout. While reckoning with sex crimes committed by wealthy power brokers is essential, the conversation must expand to focus on the long-term consequences of sexual abuse — for survivors and for society.

To the outside world, my family had it all: a home in Chevy Chase, Maryland; a second house in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware; private schools; and a lawyer father who advised Democratic presidents. On the same nights that Washington’s elite clinked glasses in our living room, my father crept into my bedroom and sexually abused me. It was 1963. I was 2 years old.

Because of my past, I am drawn to stories of abuse. When Virginia Giuffre’s memoir, “Nobody’s Girl,” was released, I read it as an act of solidarity. Media coverage has focused on Jeffrey Epstein’s predation, but far less on the vulnerabilities that made victims susceptible or the lifelong consequences of abuse. Giuffre wrote about being abused by her father and a close family friend — traumas that preceded Epstein. I, too, was sexually assaulted again as a teen. Neither of us is unique.

According to the CDC, 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 20 boys in the U.S. experience sexual abuse. Nearly 90% of perpetrators are known and trusted by the child, often a family member. These numbers likely underestimate the true scope.

As a child, my body rebelled: anxiety, stomach pain, bloating, weight gain. At 6, I was admitted to a children’s hospital for extensive testing. When nothing “medical” appeared, a child psychiatrist concluded my symptoms reflected a need for attention — not a response to abuse. That interpretation shifted focus away from what was happening to me.

At 11, I began a descent into addiction that usurped much of my adolescence and early adulthood. I survived by trying to numb the inner turmoil — the emotions and self-loathing that convinced me I was bad, not good enough, somehow at fault. By 24, no longer able to tolerate self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, I experienced the surfacing of long-suppressed emotions and memories. The same symptoms I’d had as a child returned. In my despair I considered suicide.

Child sexual abuse has long-term impacts on health, opportunity and well-being, including addiction, eating disorders, depression, self-harm and suicidal ideation. Someone you know likely carries this burden.

The impact of my abuse has lasted decades. Now in my 60s, I am still healing. Giuffre was not as fortunate — her life ended in death by suicide. Millions of survivors struggle decades after being victimized as children.

Early diagnosis and intervention could save millions of people years of pain, despair, impaired health and financial expense. The problem is deeper than headlines convey. Why is the national conversation not focusing more on mitigating these crimes and their consequences?

Narrative medicine expert Dr. André Lijoi says, “We must ask questions that invite the story.” Yet perpetrator-centered narratives obscure the true cost: decades of impaired health, lost opportunity and delayed treatment.

In 1966, my pediatrician suspected abuse but did not look beyond the test results. He and the psychiatrist might have uncovered the crimes behind my bedroom door — and spared me decades of brutally hard work saving my own life.

For the millions of young victims who walk among us, we must do better sooner. The first step is to raise and sustain awareness by expanding the conversation. And it needs to start with the media using its platform to go deeper on all the facets of the Epstein story, especially the incidence, prevalence and consequences of child sexual abuse. Let us take the lead, Virginia, and show the national media how it’s done.

Laura Sharon of Virginia Beach is an executive and leadership coach and an author whose debut memoir, “I Thought I Was Going to Die, and Then I Didn’t,” will be published in 2027.