All this Epstein talk has me sleepless, as it does for many of the victims of rape and sexual abuse.

You cannot go a single day without hearing about what men have been doing to children for DECADES.

I am reliving my past in ways I never thought possible.

Two months after my arrest, I was adjudicated into adult court, four months past my 17th birthday.

I thought I was an adult, the courts told me I was, but I wasn’t, I was a kid, a child, I had never even done my own laundry.

The second the court proclaimed me an “adult,” I was transferred to an adult county jail to await trial.

Because my co-defendants were already occupying the two female cellblocks in my county, I was shipped to different county jails over an 9 month period.

The FIRST time I was assaulted was during one of these transfers.

The Sheriff didn’t care much for protocol and I was transferred without female staff on several occasions.

During one transfer, it was just me and a male detective who was involved in my case.

The detective kept my handcuffs on behind my back during the drive to another county jail. When we arrived in the sallyport, a man was escorted out in handcuffs and shackles, the detective removed his handcuffs and put him into the backseat with me. I remained handcuffed and shackled. The jailers saw this and said nothing. I squished my body as close to the door as possible.

The man was, I believe, in his 40s and reeked of B.O. and cigarettes. He tried to talk to me, he was lewd, he knew who I was and asked me questions about the crime.

My attorney had been adamant that I must be on my best behavior in jail and cause no waves, so I said nothing to him.

He reached over and touched my thigh. He was belted in his seat, but he moved as close as possible to me. I stared into the rearview and was met with a smirk from the detective. The man kept rubbing up and down my legs, he leaned over and tried to lick my face. He moaned, he panted, he rubbed himself. The music in the car was loud. I tried so hard not to cry. The ride felt like it was forever. His hands never left my lap, no matter how much I tried to twist my body towards the door.

When we reached the city limits, the detective barked at him to get back on his side of the seat.

My face was hot, my wrists scratched and red in the cuffs behind my back.

When we finally reached the jail, the detective pulled the man out of the car and put his cuffs back on him in the sallyport.

When he pulled me out of the back seat, he looked at my tear streaked face and said, “If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.”

I believed him. I thought I was no better than the man who assaulted me, because we shared the same backseat.

A grown man, a cop, told me I deserved to be sexually assaulted.

I believed him.

I was 17.

This would not be the last time I would suffer sexual assaults at the hands of men during a transfer or in a county jail.

I couldn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t make waves. My visits and phone calls were monitored.

My attorney didn’t believe me. No one cared. As long as I was in jail, I was less than human.

27 years later, I thought I was okay.

I am not.

Those of us in Gen X and early Millennial generations, we were taught to suppress our feelings, rub dirt on it, ignore it, be good girls. Because that’s what our mothers were told when they were molested, what our grandmothers were told when they were raped by their husbands and what generations of women before us were told to keep them silent.

But, now, when there are thousands of others, women who were abused as girls and told it was their fault or to not talk about, I can’t help but be angry. As is my right, as it is every woman’s right.

Today, when people support rapists, shame victims and justify pedophilia, it reminds me of why I never told anyone and it feels shameful and like I am being assaulted all over again.

People, men especially, don’t believe women, children, girls, victims.

I have so many stories of men abusing me, my friends, girls I knew in school.

I don’t know how many times as teenagers we heard, “You’re so mature for your age,” from MEN who had no business being around us.

How many adults justified abuse because of where girls, and women, were at the time or what they were wearing or doing.

The misogyny and abuse endured for generations was not because “that was how it was back then.” It is because rape, child molestation and sexual abuse was normalized and justified by generations of adults who just wanted to ignore it, or excuse it, based on church affiliation, popularity, political party or “she looked 18.”

To those millions of children who suffered at the hands of men and their accomplices,

I am sorry no one protected you or believed you.

And to those generations of adults, teachers, parents, bosses, pastors, political leaders, etc. who participated, were complicit or turned a blind eye,

FUCK YOU!