Patti Spradlin can talk about Roy Moore.

She grew up in Gadsden with Leigh Corfman, a woman who told the Washington Post she was 14 when Moore, then an assistant district attorney in Etowah County, picked her up and made sexual advances.

The group of friends rode bikes and skated together. They passed out of Eura Brown Elementary school and the gang from the Country Club and Clubview areas graduated from the skating rink to socializing at the Gadsden Mall.

Patti Spradlin backs up Leigh Corfman's story, and says Moore's accusers gave her strength. (Ian Hoppe)

It was a safe place, said Spradlin - who asked that her married name not be used, so as not to cause harm to her husband. But there was one man the middle school girls knew to avoid, she said.

"There was an element there that everyone was aware of," Spradlin said. "There were places you could duck into to avoid this person. And it was Roy Moore."

She remembers darting into Sugar and Spice, the children's clothing store her aunt owned in the mall, when her group saw Moore coming.

"He was always by himself. We just didn't dare make eye contact for fear that would signal something to him, so we'd scooch to the other side -- you know, walk on the other side of the mall.

"Everyone knew there was something to avoid that was creepy and icky and it was something that my friends didn't want anything to do with," she said.

Let me be clear.

Patti Spradlin is not another accuser of Roy Moore.

Patti Spradlin does not claim she was abused by him or groped by him or approached by him, and Moore adamantly denies all of the allegations against him.

But the allegations against Moore were somehow freeing for Spradlin. Because she says now - for the first time publicly - that she was abused as a child. Not by Moore. Not in the way Moore is accused, but in a way that has stifled her and choked her and, she says, changed the trajectory of her life.

It was Corfman who gave her the courage to even say it, she says. So she's tired of hearing people attack and criticize Corfman, and the other women quoted and referenced in last week's Washington Post story. She says she has known since childhood that something happened between Corfman and Moore, though she admits she never talked to her about it for fear of causing more pain.

"It was one of those things you just knew," she said.

But she's weary of hearing "why now?" and "Why just before the election?" She is tired of the innuendo and blame of those women.

Because she can look at her friend, and understand. She can look at herself, and understand.

"I was molested," she said. "It started when I was five years old and it went for several years. I have yet to confront this person. I've had several Christian counselors and psychiatrists and I didn't tell them until just this past year. It's been almost 50 years."

She can only imagine what it's like to see her abuser every day on TV.

"If I had to hear his voice -- whether it be on the radio or TV or see a picture of him and his name in print -- I would find the loudest and largest voice I could find to speak out," she said.

It has happened time and time again since the Roy Moore allegations began. An Arizona woman came forward after more than 60 years to talk about her abuser, and women across Alabama have done the same. Because it is a moment of change in the culture.

"It's not political," she said. "It's our lives."

But it puts her in a tough spot, because she doesn't support Doug Jones or his views on abortion.

So who is she going to vote for?

"I can't imagine voting for either one of them. I don't know. It's a horribly sad state.

"Literally."

John Archibald's column appears in The Birmingham News, the Huntsville Times, the Mobile Register and AL.com. Write him at jarchibald@al.com.