NORFOLK, Va. (WAVY) — Back in the early 70s, in the public housing community of Tidewater Park — now known as Tidewater Gardens — when the bell tolled 9 p.m. at a nearby church, for most children, it was time for bed.

But, for then-4-year-old Paulette Livingston, the thin girl who wore thick glasses, it was time for the sleepwalking monster who visited her Mariner Street home.

“He would come crawl in the middle of the night and he would fondle me,” said Livingston, now 57 years old. “He would rub all my private parts. He did that for years before he upgraded.”

Livingston visited 10 on Your Side to share her painful story of incest and abuse, chronicled in a YouTube video, Bearing the Pain, and a book titled Yes Ma’am.

This was not Livingston’s first visit with WAVY-TV.

In December of 2015, she met with 10 On Your Side’s Andy Fox the night a close family member was murdered on Rugby Street in Norfolk. The names of the suspect and the victim are redacted because Livingston says both men are perpetrators and victims of incest and sexual assault that started when they were minors.

Paulette Livingston: My (name redacted) was in the living room on the floor dead.

Regina Mobley: He had been stabbed?

Paulette Livingston: Yes, 17 times.

Eight years later, Livingston revealed that the murder victim, who was two years older than Livingston, was the sleepwalking monster on Mariner Street.

Regina Mobley: Was he the only person who molested you?

Paulette Livingston: No, my uncle did too, and my cousin.

And, said Livingston, that uncle also molested the cousin and other relatives and the cousin later molested her and others including the Rugby Street murder victim. That cousin is now in his 60s; the uncle is deceased according to Livingston.

Regina Mobley: He [the cousin] raped you, and while raping you, he motioned with a knife?

Paulette Livingston: Yeah, he had the knife, he motions [up and down] and says he is going to stab me if I ever tell it and he put the gun to my head and he put the gun in my mouth.

Regina Mobley: And you are 8-years-old?

Paulette Livingston: I’m 8-years-old.

Livingston believes a dispute that led to the Rugby Street murder is connected to incest that occurred decades ago.

“I think (name redacted) confronted him about what he did to him as a child and (name redacted) always told us he was gonna stab us to death and he did it,” said Livingston, who estimates that over a period of about eight years, the three family members violated her 300 times at the homes of relatives.

Little Paulette carried to school pencils, paper, and homework assignments, but she also carried the pain of abuse.

“I acted out because I had just gotten molested and stayed up all night trying to get through the night. I was cranky, I was angry, and I was sleepy so I acted out,” said Livingston, who told 10 On Your Side in recent years she posted an apology on her Facebook page in an effort to reach out to the former classmates she harmed in elementary school.

Decades later, Livingston acted out the pain in a YouTube video titled Bearing the Pain. In the video, she holds a doll and tosses it into flames to illustrate the devastation and the determination to expose generational sexual abuse and incest.

The pain that burns in Livingston represents a few frames of a horror story that is unfolding in the African American community.

Dr. Tim Goler, a Norfolk State University social psychologist warned of the crisis in a 10 On Your Side special report that aired earlier this year.

“We have a lot of issues in our society that we don’t talk about, abuses on a lot of different levels,” Goler said. “From domestic abuse to incest to molestation and rape are going on in our own communities and we don’t talk about it. The sad part about it, is sometimes parents turn a blind eye to the abuse that is going on in our families.”

A blind eye turned, said Livingston, is what the response was from an adult on Mariner Street.

“Someone in my house one day, when I was being molested, they opened up the door and shut the door back,” Livingston said.

For Livingston, the door is closed no more.

“What happened to me? It’s 90% of all households,” she said. “Someone has someone in their families that has alcohol abuse, mental abuse and sexual abuse that’s going on in Afro- American homes and that’s what it is. And, we are torn up and taught not to say anything.

“It’s sad but it needs to be addressed and we all need to learn how to talk. You have to tell it because you have to save the next generation; that’s what it’s all about to help the next generation. We couldn’t help ourselves; no one helped us. It’s to help the next generation.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control, 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys is sexually assaulted before the age of 18, and 91% of the perpetrators are people known to the victim’s family.

Paulette Livingston has shared her story with audiences from New Jersey to Atlanta, and she told 10 On Your Side that after every event, a man or woman comes forward to say, “Me too.”

Both Yes Ma’am, and her new children’s book “It’s OK to Tell,” can be purchased on Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Livingston recently released a child-friendly song titled Tell, Tell, Tell.

If you are the victim of sexual abuse, call the National Sexual Assault Telephone Hotline: 800-656-HOPE (4673).