"I Just Dealt with It."

The eighth young man, a recent high-school graduate, was the last prosecution witness to testify in the Jerry Sandusky trial. When questioned by the defense lawyer, he said, "I just dealt with it."

I doubt it.

Or maybe he did—the way many of us dealt with our molestation. We struggled inwardly. We tried to deny it happened. We determined not to talk about it and thus we'd forget. None of those strategies worked.

So we didn't deal with it. But we tried.

And we tried.

And too many are "just dealing with it" even now.

It takes courage to speak up about our abuse and to let the world see that we were victimized by older, larger people. We didn't expect to be believed as children; why should we expect to be believed after 10 or 40 years?

But some—like that 18-year-old boy and the others who have testified in the trial—have come into the open. They've told their story.

And many of us believed them.

"I just dealt with it."

I hope I never have to hear another survivor say those words.