The author, who has written both Christian fiction and non-fiction, said she also wanted to address what sexual abuse healing looked like in the context of marriage. 'I realized there is so much hurt out there and so few people are brave enough to talk about sexual abuse, let alone champion what victims have gone through and really share what it means to be healed and how it works,' said DeMuth. While DeMuth has already written a memoir about her life, she came to the conclusion she wanted to write a story specifically about sexual abuse after seeing the reaction from several blog posts she authored last year about her experiences.

Her story is the subject of her new book, ' Not Marked: Finding Hope and Healing after Sexual Abuse,' a title that the popular Christian author crowdfunded after mainstream publishers turned it down. 'I felt so very marked growing up and felt that every time there was some sort of predator somewhere, it would find me and I would run away from there somehow because I knew what they were up to and I knew how to run,' she added.ĭeMuth became a Christian at the age of 15, a move that gave her the courage to finally share her story and initiate a 30-year healing process.

'I felt like I had a mark on my forehead, 'Hey predators come and get me.'' 'I kept it silent for a decade,' DeMuth told The Christian Post. However, shockingly upon hearing the horrendous news of what was happening, her babysitter held onto DeMuth's secret and never reported the actions nor informed her mother.Įventually the nightmare ended, first because DeMuth started napping during long afternoons at the babysitter's, and second, because the family moved home at the conclusion of the school year.ĭespite being physically free from the abuse, internally, DeMuth did not feel liberated. DeMuth also worried about speaking out because the teenagers had described their actions with an obscenity, a word that she worried might get her in trouble, if she spoke it aloud.īy the time the five-year-old finally made up her mind to inform her babysitter that she was being abused, the boys had invited their friends to participate with them. The boys scared DeMuth, threatening to kill her parents if she revealed their abuse. That afternoon, the boys began inappropirately touching her - initiating an ordeal that lasted almost the entire school year. As a kindergartner, DeMuth spent the morning in class and the afternoon with her babysitter, an arrangement that seemed innocuous and safe until the day when two teenage boys dropped by the house. Mary DeMuth became a victim of sex abuse when she was five years old. Popular Christian author Mary DeMuth has written a story about her own experience being sexually abused as a child and her recovery from the ordeal in her new book 'Not Marked.' | (Photo Mary DeMuth)

Not Marked by Mary E. DeMuth