In a powerful confession, former United States Treasurer Rosario Marín described her history with violence and explained why she was too afraid to even talk about it in her FBI background check.


Her written piece appeared in BuzzFeed explained she doesn't know Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh but many friends do and see him as an honorable man. But Marín stands with Dr. Christine Blasey Ford.

"I was a victim of sexual abuse," the former George W. Bush appointee wrote. "I was 5 years old. I may not remember what color dress I was wearing or how long my hair was, but the times, the locations, and most importantly how I felt are ineradicable. They live forever in my mind."

She said it took 18 years before she could talk about it and only to the man she was about to marry. Four years later she told her mother. She never mentioned it in her FBI interviewed her for her background check in 2001.

"It wasn’t until I was 49 years old, in 2007, that I went public with that horrific episode of my life," she explained. "I wrote about it in my biography, meaning finally, after more than four decades, all my family and friends — along with the rest of the world — found out about it."

She still speaks publicly as a former official and sometimes talks about her molestation. Each time is "excruciatingly painful and ugly," she said. And each time at least one woman approaches her after, say that they too are a survivor.

"Often they tell me that they have never shared this with anyone else," she continued. "Some of these women are in their seventies and my heart shatters. I see their anguish, I cry with them, and I just wish I could take their pain away. But I know all too well that those emotions will be with them, as they are with me, for the rest of their lives."

According to Marín, there is absolutely no reason for Dr. Ford to make something like this up. She's been attacked, had to move to protect her family from threats. She was thrust into the spotlight, which she said in July she didn't want. Now she's having to relive her trauma over and over.

So when people shame Dr. Ford for not coming forward Marín understands what she's navigating. Meanwhile, the Republican party has taken a dangerous

"Even as Kavanaugh has categorically denied Ford’s claims, some of his supporters have chosen instead to say that even if they are true — that is, even if he is lying — they are they kind of youthful indiscretions that shouldn’t matter when considering a Supreme Court nominee," she said.

Read the full piece at BuzzFeed.