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I sat and watched the interview with Shawn Hornbeck tonight on 48 Hours Mystery, and I had all the same questions as everyone else. The one that gets to me the most, just as it gets to me about Elizabeth Smart, is how they can stand there after these crimes and just not be totally angry that this happened to them.

How can Shawn not be angry that he lost four and a half years of his childhood? He went from a 5th grader when he left to a time when he should have become a high schooler. In the year and a half since he’s been found, he somehow has gotten caught up to where he is now a junior in high school. Yet, look at all those changes you make in your life during that span. How can you not be angry about missing out on that?

Some people question why these abducted kids don’t try to escape, and confuse their lack of anger for somehow being comfortable in that situation. Shawn became friends with another boy that lived near where he was living with Michael Devlin, his abductor, and was eventually allowed to hang out with him to the point of having sleepovers and going places with this other family. They can’t figure out why he never told them the truth. At one point, seeing a news item about Shawn Hornbeck on TV, his friend’s family asked if that was him, and he denied it. Why not say yes and finally get to go home?

It’s almost as if they doubt that Shawn was being mistreated. Shawn has said of the experience since that after he was first abducted, that Devlin had the gun and therefore had all the power. For the first month, when Devlin wasn’t around, Shawn was kept tied to a a futon and gagged. For the times when Devlin was home, Shawn was physically and sexually assaulted. After awhile of this, he told Shawn he was going home, but took him out on a deserted road, trying to choke him to death. Shawn pleaded for his life and agreed to not attempt to call authorities or home, just in an agreement to live.

The situation becomes similar to the abused wives. People always ask why they choose to stay in a relationship that treats them so badly. The answer is they get broken down emotionally, thinking that they need the abusive husband in their lives and like they’re not good enough. Knowing that many times child abusers do the same thing to kids, telling them that their parents don’t want them anymore, after awhile the kids are so broken down, they’re going to believe it.

I have to think once Shawn Hornbeck and Elizabeth Smart are older that they’ll begin to realize the full impact of everything that has happened to them, and maybe then the anger will come. It’s often said that one of the reasons people can’t remember trauma is because they just aren’t equipped to handle the memory at that time. It has to be the same for these kids that are abducted. We can’t even comprehend it as adults, so how can these teenagers comprehend what happened to them and why.

Yet, at one point in the show tonight, Shawn said, “My name is Shawn Hornbeck and I’m a survivor.” He definitely is that, proving maybe he is just that strong of a character, strong enough to face all that happened and not carry around a lot of anger.

Photo courtesy of tv.yahoo.com

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