Victim travels long road back
Published: August 25, 2005
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Of the News-Register
Christina Ulery is one of John Boersma's success stories.
When she was just a child, Ulery was molested by a family member. And it knocked her off her bearings.
She led a wild adolescence in California, fueled by marijuana, methamphetamine and alcohol. "I was out of control," she says.
She went straight at 17. In conjunction with that, she made the move up to McMinnville, where she had a stronger family support system. But it didn't take, not even after she gave birth to a baby girl.
"For two years," she says, "I was high on myself, not drugs." That led her to believe she could handle anything that came her way. After all, she had overcome so much.
"Things kind of went downhill from there," she recalls. "I just made the wrong type of friends."
Ulery's on-again, off-again boyfriend of two years was one of those wrong types. He led her back into drugs.
"He was put in my life to teach me a lesson," she says now, looking back. "He was somebody to fill the void, but he corrupted me. When I sobered up, after using with him, I realized we had nothing in common."
Ulery found her bearings again in God, but he wanted no part of that. So she wanted no part of him any longer.
During the dark days of her two-year relapse, she stole her parents' credit cards and ended up getting jailed for theft. When she went to jail, she lost her daughter.
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Now straight again, she's gotten off to a rough start in life. Her first couple of decades have been anything but smooth.
And while she accepts personal responsibility for that - she feels she has to - she traces it back to the abuse she suffered in childhood.
She figures it prevented her from having a normal childhood, a normal adolescence and a normal introduction to adulthood. It's her horrible little secret - one she seldom shares.
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, she's by no means alone in that. Almost one-third of women ending up in American prisons were sexually abused at some point during childhood, its studies show.
Research also demonstrates a strong correlation between sexual victimization and subsequent drug use.
"Sexual abuse is strongly linked with substance abuse," according to Dr. Kenneth Kendler, member of the medical school faculty at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Psychologist Nancy Faulkner, a nationally recognized expert in the sexual exploitation of children, ties it all together this way: "Long-term effects of child abuse include fear, anxiety, depression, anger, hostility, inappropriate sexual behavior, poor self-esteem, tendency toward substance abuse and difficulty with close relationships."
Ulery understands that all too well. But she is determined to overcome her past and move on.
Not all of the old scars are going to heal. She's working on it, though.
She's made amends with her family. And she's regained custody of her daughter, who will be starting kindergarten in the fall.
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The young McMinnville woman owes a lot of it to a McMinnville man who's made it his mission in life to help offenders rebuild their lives - real estate investor John Boersma.
Boersma, a devout Baptist and dedicated Gideon, saw a crying need in Yamhill County for housing and jobs to help offenders get back on their feet.
He felt a calling from God to set about it. And his real estate holdings gave him the means.
Boersma specializes in helping sex offenders like the man who sent Ulery's life spinning off track in the first place. But he also helps offenders like Ulery - people who've turned first to drugs, then to theft to keep the drugs flowing.
A Linfield grad who taught high school before getting into real estate, he's helped her regain her moorings both physically and spiritually. She sees him as her mentor and role model in rebuilding her life.
Ulery is now living in a halfway house Boersma owns and manages on his own. And she helps out there in any way she can, anxious to repay him for his kindness.
"I do it willingly, she says. "I help him keep the place and the people clean."
"John is a constant reminder of the need for sobriety. No words can say what it means to me. I could cry."
She chokes up just thinking about it.
"He is very much a father figure," she says. "He's open-minded. He tells you how he feels about things, but he's so forgiving."
Ulery feels she's reached a turning point in her life.
"I feel joy, cleansing and hope. I feel strong mentally and physically. I have more self-control."
Child sex abuse exacts a terrible price. It's something the offenders never seem to take into account, at least not at the time.
Ulery is living proof of it, but she figures she's ready, willing and able to put it all behind her now. She's ready, finally, to move on.
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