Abbie

It's amazing how well my generation - those in their late teens and early 20's - can distance themselves from topics that have everything to do with us. For example, driving fatalities and alcohol abuse. It's staggering the number of teens who die from car accidents related to substance abuse, as well as those who spend their high school and college years with a beer bottle in hand. It's even scarier to look at how many teenagers don't know BASIC FACTS about sex and sexuality. This is something I've known for a long time as a Scarleteen staff member, but it doesn't change reality.

A lot of times we think about abuse, whether it's physical or emotional, as something that goes on behind closed doors, and it's hard to change that frame of mind when, in reality, nobody sees the vast majority of abuse that occurs. Like many of the ST Staff, I've seen my share of abuse as the victim, not the witness. So it seems somewhat surprising that I was so shocked to see it, in full daylight, on a busy downtown street this past weekend.