When your job is to listen to children — from tykes to teens — talk about how they’ve been sexually abused and try to help them get through the unthinkable hardship, the vibrant colors of life melt into a muddy slush.

“Obviously the work is very hard, but it is also needed,” said Sarah Hagedorn, clinical manager of the forensic medical examiner team for UCHealth’s Memorial Hospital.

“We see people oftentimes on their worst day but are able to utilize empathy and trauma-informed care so they can begin to start healing,” she said. “We’re lucky when at the end of that contact, their day is a little better, or they can take away some of their fears about their health as a result of the abuse. It’s compassion satisfaction.”

But many times, those working in the field of child sexual abuse never know how things go after they fastidiously guide kids through the criminal justice system and start them on recovery from psychological and physical wounds that have the potential to leave a lifelong scar of trauma.

So, when Emmy-nominated filmmaker Sasha Joseph Neulinger, who lives in Montana, came to Colorado Springs last week for a private showing of his documentary, “Rewind” — which relates the sexual abuse he was subject to starting at age 4 at the hand of several relatives — attendees were excited to hear his success story.

“We are in the triage phase and the early stages of what a child victim is going through, so we really don’t know entirely how things progress for kids,” said Maureen “Mo” Basenberg, executive director of Safe Passage, a nonprofit that built and operates a Children’s Advocacy Center that brings together in one building representatives from several agencies who work on cases in Colorado Springs.

“People like Sasha coming forward and talking about that helps inspire us to keep going,” Basenberg said.

The organization invited Neulinger to Colorado Springs, which he said was his first time to visit here.

Neulinger showed his documentary and participated in a question-and-answer session afterward. The following day he delivered a workshop titled, “Rediscovering the Beauty Within,” as part of Safe Passage’s 30th anniversary celebration. The presentation breaks down the steps he used to confront his past, what taking such action has done for his life and lessons he learned.

In the audience were some of the more 70 local team members who work on sexual child abuse cases, including law enforcement, medical personnel, Department of Human Services workers, Children’s Advocacy Center staff, legal prosecutors and mental health professionals.

“We were looking at ways to share the impact of one child victim’s experience and the healing afforded to them through advocacy centers, and we looked at connecting via the arts,” Basenberg said.

Neulinger’s autobiographical film examining multigenerational child abuse that included molestation relies on old photos and home videos from the 1990s, as well as present-day interviews with his family, his psychiatrist, and prosecutors and detectives who helped him obtain justice.

The telling of the story doesn’t “beat around the bush,” he said in an interview, which can be tough for some people comprehend.

“It’s bringing the conversation to the mainstream, and I was honored I had the opportunity to do it,” he said. “Every survivor has their own unique journey to make sense of what has happened to them and figure out themselves how to move forward.”

One takeaway, he said, is that healing is not a destination, it’s a path that’s different for everyone and shaped by the values, desires and choices for the kind of life a person wants to lead.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that one in four girls and one in 20 boys in the United States will be sexually abused before they reach the age of 18, yet only one in 10 children who have been abused will disclose what happened to them, he said.

“Which means 90% won’t, and that’s not OK,” Neulinger said. “For a child to overcome the trauma, they need the opportunity to disclose it, and the support of a Children’s Advocacy Center and the community to confront that trauma is needed.”

From January through July 31, the local advocacy center served 457 child victims of abuse, compared with 415 child victims served over the same period last year, Basenberg said.

When Neulinger was 23 and had graduated from film school, he took an anguishing trip into his mind’s dark memories and began questioning people who knew more than he did about his childhood because he wanted answers for the unresolved and missing pieces.

“I wanted to leave no stone unturned and share that internationally through my film, which was not only validating but also extremely cathartic,” he said. “There was a time I was scared to use my voice at all, now professionally through the film and public speaking, I’m empowered by that.”

“REWIND,” which Neulinger directed through his production company, Step 1 Films, debuted in 2019 at the Tribeca Film Festival to favorable reviews, premiered on television in 2020 and in 2021 was nominated for Emmys for Outstanding Direction, Outstanding Social Issue Documentary and Outstanding Editing.

Since then, the film has been screened internationally, and Neulinger has delivered more than 100 keynote speeches focusing on reforms in child advocacy and child abuse prevention.

While it’s no longer difficult for Neulinger to talk about his adverse upbringing, he knows it’s not a subject many people want to hear about.

“It is ultimately whether we have the stomach to confront the truth of child sexual abuse or not,” he said. “It’s happening, and if these children have the courage to come forward, we owe it to them to not only listen but do everything in our power to support them to reclaim their lives. Organizations like Safe Passage give them the opportunity to do that.”

There are about 1,000 Children’s Advocacy Centers like the one Safe Passage nationwide and each varies by county, Neulinger said.

“They are at the heart of being the first safe place in a community for disclosure,” he said, “and to figure out what’s happening with the child and how to support the child through the organizations involved.”

The center in Colorado Springs opened in 2021 as Colorado’s only such center to have co-located agencies that include representatives from law enforcement, medical and therapeutic care, and personal empowerment training.

In 2017 Neulinger founded Voice For The Kids, which bridges the experiences of abused children and the adults who can help them. The company has raised more than $9 million for nonprofits to fight child abuse, he said.

“Any kind of sexual abuse is terrible, but when you’re a child and you’re just starting to learn what it means to be a human on this planet and part of our society, if your first most impressionable moment is that level of pain and betrayal, and you don’t have the opportunity to unpack that and understand it and be able to move forward, it not only hurts the child but it hurts everybody,” Neulinger said.

Now 34 years old, Neulinger said he works to “take away the shame and stigma and have a candid and open conversation about what this is and what we can actively and tangibly do so people don’t have to be defined by their trauma.”

If children are unable to receive the care they need, they default to a position of, “I was awful, I must have done something to make this happen,” Neulinger said. “If you grow up with the idea of you’re dirty, bad and at fault, it’s going to limit opportunities, healthy relationships and your scope of what you think you deserve in life.”

Kelson Castain, supervisor for the Special Victims Unit in the 4th Judicial District Attorney’s Office, said he found the event useful.

“I think of all the cases we work with and wonder where they (children) are at,” he said. “It’s rejuvenating to know there are people who have gone through that process and see some of the benefits. It’s a struggle for us in the DA’s office thinking about cases and resolution to balance accountable punishment and closure.”

Neulinger describes his life as good now.

“What I went through as a child was horrific, but I’m happily married, have a beautiful son, live in a beautiful part of Montana, have friends, hobbies and a successful career,” Neulinger said. “All those things can be traced back to rebuilding a healthy relationship with myself. It took a lot of work, but I want that opportunity for every child who’s going through what I went through.

“I don’t want my outcome to be the exception. I want it to be the rule.”

Editor’s note: Statistics on the frequency of child sex abuse have been corrected from the original version.