Losing My Trust

So here's a fun twist. I woke up this morning and checked out Facebook on my phone, as I do every morning. My cousin had posted this link to a news story.

In a nutshell, it's about a man who was arrested on charges of possessing and distributing child pornography. According to investigators, he was "considered the largest and most active trader using peer-to-peer software". Horrifying, right? Awesome that they caught him, right? Agreed. 

Although I find myself especially horrified because I know this man. He was a year behind me in our small grade school. Because we went to a small parochial school, two grades shared a classroom, so we were in the same classroom every other year. We grew up together in a sense. I can recall chasing him around the playground. I had a little bit of a crush on him for awhile. And we've been friends on Facebook for several years now. Well, until this morning.

I can't say I know him well enough to offer any kind of judgement on his character, but I can't help but be stunned by this. Of all the people that I would have even slightly thought capable of a fraction of the horrific nature of something like this, he never would have crossed my mind.

At first, I felt appropriately removed from this story. I didn't really know him that well. But the more I thought about it, the more upset I became. I started to realize I'm losing my trust in people.

I was talking about this with Aaron tonight and he would claim that I already don't trust people. I disagreed. I  told him I think I am a very trusting person, especially all things considered. He reminded me that I don't depend on people. While that's true, there is a difference between trusting people to follow through on things and trusting them to not harm me or my loved ones. What I'm talking about is the latter. 

Part of this is also brought on by the Penn State scandal coverage. Sandusky was a man people were supposed to be able to trust. No one suspected anything like that was going on. Supposedly, some people were shocked by my own story when it first came out. And the late-to-the-party icing on the cake, Aaron's dad is a pedophile too. I most certainly never suspected him of such a thing before it came out.

So who can I really trust? And how does this play out in my life? I'm not worried about myself. I'm strong. If someone tries to take advantage of me, they're not going to get far. Same goes for my husband. But I want a family someday. I want to have children. I feel ready for that, but I worry about how I'm going to live with the constant fear that they will be victimized by someone we know. But even without children, and without being frightened for my own safety, its a scary thought that we are working and living around these closet perverts. 

Wouldn't it be great if they all had some kind of symbol on their foreheads so we could identify them instantly? 

I'm so frustrated by this whole thing. I've always seen myself as someone who believes there is a lot of good in this world despite the evil I've experienced. I still want to believe that, but it's getting harder. I've struggling with my sense of self in general lately, but that's another soon-to-come post.

Please, can someone give me another perspective on any of this?

Rachel

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