Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 2208

Tonight's special guest is Tammy Shoffstall from Pompano Beach, Florida, a returning NAASCA family member and one of our most dedicated volunteers. Tammy serves as the Treasurer of NAASCA's 501(c)3 non profit organization and hosts many of the "Stop Child Abuse Now" talk radio shows. A survivor of child abuse, Tammy will re-tell her story to refresh the memory of her fellow NAASCA family members about the traumas of her youth. Tammy was the second child in an abusive marriage between a teenage mother and a soldier father who died when she was a toddler. Her mom went back home to live with her grandparents. "I was a burden to my grandmother and she often stated that this world would be better off if I had never been born," Tammy says. In this home she was physically, verbally, and emotionally abused by her maternal grandmother. "As a child and to this day, I struggle to understand why my grandmother chose to abuse me." When she was eight her mother re-married, but one night her stepfather said he was going to teach her 'about life.' Tammy reports, "I turned to stone." The same step father went on to groom and sexually abused her sister for years. Tammy's marriage was very abusive, too. She says, "My husband raped me several times." She divorced him in her early 30's and went back to school. She's currently working on a doctorate. Tammy considers her healing journey a work in progress. "I learned to stop looking for someone to love me. I made it a personal quest to find people to love and eventually people will love me back." She concludes, "One can linger in victim mode forever, but transitioning to survivor will allow healing to occur."