As the volunteer and intern program manager for Beaman Home, Tabitha Gabbard sees many victims of sexual assault and other crimes.

But at the launch Wednesday of the Start by Believing campaign by Beaman Home and the Kosciusko County Prosecutor’s Office, the 35-year-old wife and mother of two told her own story.

Start by Believing is a public awareness campaign aimed at changing the way people respond to sexual violence and developed by End Violence Against Women International.

Gabbard said she doesn’t often share her story professionally, but she did Wednesday to help attendees understand “what a sexual assault victim in our community looks like, what their life looks like, what the response or lack of a proper response looks like in someone’s life.”

She grew up in Warsaw with parents who fought often and were involved in drugs and alcohol. There also was domestic violence in the home, which she said played a key factor in the victim role she continued to play throughout her life.

“When I was 5, it was when I was first sexually assaulted. I remember when that experience occurred, the very first response that I had from that – my mother walked in and witnessed what was happening. And instead of coming forward like a mother would and care for me, she blamed me,” Gabbard said.

Her mother, who was abused by her own father, spanked Gabbard for it. The person who had assaulted her at that time was almost an adult, so as a 5-year-old she couldn’t process why it happened to her. That was the beginning of her experiences.

“By the time I was 12 years old, I had been sexually assaulted – not by strangers, they were all acquaintances or family members – about 13 times,” she said.

“That very first response that I had from my mom when I was 5 years old really dictated to me who I was as a person. It really instilled in me my value and worth as a person, and it really affected the outcome of my life,” she said.

Her parents divorced when she was 8 years old, and her mother started using drugs daily. Gabbard said she can remember being left around unscrupulous people who continued to take advantage of her, and her mother’s response didn’t change.

By the time Gabbard was 13, she was in and out of juvenile detention facilities and was a self-proclaimed “wild child.” By the time people started reaching out to her through therapy sessions or from the prosecutor’s office, she decided that it was already too late. She had been placed in foster care, but continued to be abused there, and she was put back in the home with her family, where she was physically abused.



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By the time she was 12, she started abusing cocaine. A year later, she was a daily user; a runaway staying wherever anyone would let her. The abuse cycle was perpetuated through addiction and the people she chose to be around.

“I was running from the hell I was experiencing at home and really had no one else to turn to,” she said.

She ended up at an Indiana girls’ school until she was 17. She got pregnant with her oldest daughter at 18. Three months later, she got pregnant again but got an abortion because she was a drug addict and didn’t want to quit doing drugs. She had no idea of how to cope with her pain, but then had her youngest daughter, who is now 14.

“When someone is assaulted and abused, addiction and bad relationships, and all these things, go hand in hand, they’re all working together,” she said.

She started using meth as her life continued to spiral out of control.

“I was now my mother,” she said. “What do you do with that as a parent? ... I remember thinking history is repeating itself.”

By then, her mother was doing drugs with her. Her own daughters were being neglected, and when they were 2- and 4-years old, her daughters were sexually abused. Gabbard started doing drugs intravenously.

“I was in the back getting high while my kids were being assaulted. What kind of mother does that make you?” she recalled.

Because her own abuse made her emotionally unavailable to help herself, she didn’t know how to help her children. She did end up taking her daughters to Bowen Center for counseling, which also helped her.

“The real kicker that pushed me forward was a drug arrest in 2009. I was arrested for a Class A felony, dealing methamphetamines, and I ended up in jail,” she said.

She’s never been more thankful in her life that something happened to her.

As she cleaned up in the jail, she no longer could run from her emotions and pain. She had people in there reach out to her, including officers, the prosecutor’s office, her attorney and Judge Rex Reed, who told her that she had value. Her pastor visited her in the jail and was the first man who wasn’t there to take advantage of her.

“And because of that, I am where I am today,” she said.

Gabbard has since come to see herself as a successful person, being the first person in her family to earn high school and college degrees. She’s been clean since June 16, 2009.

It was at a Beaman Home event where she shared her story that Gabbard realized what she wanted to do with her life.

She still deals with some of the scars of abuse.

“I go through crap every single day. Every relationship I have is affected by the abuse that I endured. Whether it’s the intimate relationship with my husband, or a friendship with a friend. You don’t just restore trust when every adult that has touched your life has taken advantage of you. That’s not how it happens,” Gabbard said.

Beaman Home Executive Director Tracie Hodson said the “Start by Believing” campaign was started to bring public awareness to the way people respond when a person reports a sexual assault, rape or molestation.

In Kosciusko County from 2016 to 2017, reported child sexual assault cases dropped from 41 to 26; child pornography cases dropped from 9 to 5; but adult sexual assault cases rose from 9 to 15 and adult sexual assault as a child cases went from “not collected” to 17. The statistics were provided from the county prosecutor’s office.

“For us, it’s really as important as advocates for the people who come into contact with the victim first to have that empathy. Don’t start poking holes in the story ... if we just start with that empathy, some of these stats might change,” Hodson said.

She said the vast majority of perpetrators don’t go to jail, with only 6 out of 1,000  rapes resulting in jail time. Out of 1,000 robberies, 20 are incarcerated.

She talked about where victims seek formal and informal support and how a victim receiving positive emotional support is key.

The event ended with those in attendance being asked to sign a pledge that “When someone tells me they were raped or sexually assaulted, I pledge to: Start by Believing.”

More information on the campaign can be found on Facebook by searching Start By Believing-Kosciusko County or by going to startbybelieving.org.