Stop Child Abuse Now (SCAN) - 2220

Tonight's special guest is Darlene J Clark from Pulaski, Tennessee, a survivor of severe child abuse and an author. Her book, 'Born In A Living Hell,' is about her tortuous childhood. She relates, “I had been abused, basically since birth. As a child, I had believed everyone gets abused during growing up." She explains, "From the army line-up being whipped either with a switch, belt or whip to being shot at in my dad's crazy game of hide and go seek, and worrying about whether this was going to be the day they murdered.” When she was 4, her aunt grew tired of picking up the five kids (ages 2 through 6) repeatedly abandoned by their mother at a grocery store, so her mom and dad divorced. Her father remarried, as Darlene describes, “Dad met my stepmom who I loved because we have a meal every day, a bed to sleep in, instead of having to eat raw oatmeal from a box because both parents abandoned seven of us for a week. My stepmom later was crude. She would dip my nose in manure, drag me through the house by my hair, kick me in the rump while doing dishes, and held me down while her son raped me. I even got beaten for sneaking out to worship God.” Overhearing her stepmother, stepsister and stepbrother planning to kill her and make it look like suicide, Darlene married her boyfriend before the plan could be enacted. An online support group inspired her to write her book, because the others were unable to write their own. She would be telling their stories as she told her own. The book talks about just some of the events Darlene endured as a child to 18 years old. "There are a lot of other things which happened which will be revealed soon," she shares. "I am triumphant over the abuse, so now I share my story to help others."