I am not standing before you as a statistic, a case number, or a troubled child from the system. I am standing before you as the little girl nobody believed.   I was a child who was abused, neglected, and desperate to be loved. I was told I was a liar. I was told I was not worthy. I was treated as though the things that happened to me were somehow my fault.   What do you do when you're locked in a room and not allowed to use the bathroom? What do you do when you sit in soiled clothes because no one will let you shower? What do you do when meals are withheld, when humiliation becomes normal, and when the adults responsible for your care make you believe you deserve it?   What do you do when the people who are supposed to protect you become the people you fear?   As a child, I didn't understand grooming. I didn't understand sexual abuse. I didn't understand manipulation. I thought survival meant doing whatever adults told me to do. I thought being hurt was normal because it happened so often.   Today, as an adult and a mother, I look back and see what that little girl could not. She was not bad. She was not broken. She was not a liar.   She was a child asking for help.   I am asking you to remember that every policy you vote on affects real children. Children who are scared. Children who have already experienced more pain than most adults can imagine. Children who need someone to listen when they say something is wrong.   Please do not look away from them the way so many people looked away from me.   I cannot change what happened to me. But you have the power to help make sure it happens to fewer children in the future.   Believe them. Protect them. Listen to them.   Because every child deserves at least one adult willing to say, "I see you, and you matter."    I am asking for the laws in michigan to be changed for victims that are out of that 10 year limit .. I was a child forced into a life unforseen that nobody believed we should be able to ask for help at any given time.