title: It's OK to Tell: A Story of Hope and Recovery
author: Lauren Book
description: A memoir by a survivor of childhood sexual and physical abuse offers hope and support for victims and education for prevention. <P> Lauren Book was eleven years old when her new nanny, Waldina Flores, joined the family. For the next six years, Lauren endured daily sexual and physical abuse. "I was a people pleaser," she says. "I was beaten every day . . . Waldy was very smart, like all predators are. She hit me and bruised me where my parents wouldn't look. When you are thirteen or fourteen, parents never look at their children's stomachs or lower backs or butts or upper thighs." <P> In 2002, after being encouraged by her boyfriend, Lauren told her therapist what had been happening. The therapist called her parents and her father fired Flores, who fled to Oklahoma where she was arrested two months later. While in prison, Flores broke the terms of her probation by writing love letters to Lauren and was sentenced to an additional prison term. <P> Since then, Lauren and her father have successfully mounted a legislative onslaught against predators. The many Florida laws they are responsible for include the right of a victim to require that an accused or charged predator take an HIV test, with results guaranteed to the victim within forty eight hours, a law eliminating the statute of limitations on civil and criminal prosecutions when the victim of sexual abuse is under the age of sixteen, a ban on molesters ever contacting their victims or families, and legislation to create a statewide network of sexual-assault treatment centers. <P> Lauren's story is about hope in the face of extreme adversity. Although it deals with a tremendously sensitive and "dark" subject, It's OK to Tell carries a lasting positive impact. Lauren's story empowers us all to address abuse issues in our own lives. Her memoir moves us to understand the deep emotional matrix that results from abuse and the incredible ability of an individual to recover and embrace life.
zlib_text: BE MINE
  
  HOPE FORD
  
  CONTENTS
  1. Karly
  2. Karly
  3. Karly
  4. Karly
  5. Jason
  6. Jason
  7. Jason
  8. Jason
  9. Jason
  10. Jason
  11. Jason
  12. Jason
  13. Jason
  14. Jason
  15. Jason
  Epilogue
  Epilogue 2
  Free Books
  JOIN ME!
  About the Author
  
  Be Mine © 2020 by Hope Ford
  Editor: Kasi Alexander
  All rights reserved.
  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and
  retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
  
  1
  KARLY
  “YOU OKAY?” Jamie asks. She’s looking at me with a worried look on her face, and it’s then I
  realize that I’ve been staring at the white wall of the nurses’ station for who knows how long.
  Obviously too long since Jamie, my coworker, is looking at me as if I’m about to sprout another
  head.
  I’m working an extra shift at the hospital in the physical therapy department trying hard to catch up
  on late payments for my student loans and car. I’m 