SURVIVING THE EPIDEMIC My name is MonaLisa Bauman, and this is the beginning of a series of epic tales of my survival of the silent epidemic; only a few report their story but every two minutes, it happens more often than what people share with the authority. The book Surviving the Epidemic is one book of many on the memory of a childs point of view of extreme abuse by her parents and the adult whom houses that MonaLisa was abandoned to. MonaLisas story takes place in three states in the 1970s that started in the care of MonaLisas unfit parents in Washington. For the first three years, MonaLisa and her brother had to watch as her Father horribly beat and rape her family members in Washington. MonaLisas mother at times became unable to care for her two children, abandoning them with her mothers side of the family in Indiana. While in Indiana, MonaLisa and her brother came to realize that they are in a world of child rape on an everyday basis. Weeks at a time, the young children would feel the pain from being hungry; the family forced the children to learn how to steal money for food. Once MonaLisa was able to return to Washington, her Father started sexually, mentally, and emotionally abusing the six-year-old child, then when the mother found out, the family is forced to move to California. MonaLisas Father promised that he would leave the child alone but continued to rape her again after a few years. The mother turned to drugs to cope with the realities of life, leaving California to return to Washington. After a year, the mother allowed her husband to come home, and the Father began to touch MonaLisa again, until she no longer can stand the abusive vicious cycle of her parents lifestyle. MonaLisa realized that she has to save herself from the sickness of the silent epidemic that plagues the worlds culture, which continues regularly every two minutes and will be strongly embedded in our culture for many millennia.