But she'd like to forget them.

"Sometimes I wish I could just empty my brain out and not have those thoughts," she said, referring to the talks.

Gonzalez is a forensic interviewer - one of the most active in the country - at the Dallas Children's Advocacy Center. She is often the first and only person to get a complete testimony from child-abuse victims.

Her job is to help limit the angst of child-abuse victims by allowing them to tell their story only once, rather than force them to repeat it to teachers, parents, investigators and attorneys as a case winds itself through the legal process.

The 31-year-old interviewer has conducted more than 2,040 interviews since joining the Dallas Advocacy Center in 2004.

Growing up in Irving, Gonzalez thought she might some day work with criminals. She began as a caseworker with Child Protective Services but was always fascinated by gritty crime documentaries.

"I never thought that I was going to be on the other side, working with victims," she said.

The stress of her CPS job, however, made her consider giving up her career working with abused children. Then one day she had to go to the Advocacy Center where she witnessed a forensic interview and decided, "I can do that."

When Gonzalez first started, she practiced her interviewing techniques every night with her unwitting fiancé, Eliver Ochoa.

"We role played," Ochoa said. "I was the kid and she asked me questions. I didn't know exactly what she was practicing, but I still played along."

Gonzalez's supervisor, Irish Burch, said it takes a special kind of person to genuinely connect with a child who has been abused.

"You have to get them to trust you and to tell you something they swore they would never ever tell anyone else," Burch said.

But that trust often comes with a price, Burch said. She tells Gonzalez and the rest of her forensic interview team that the career they've chosen is one they must sincerely love because the tragic stories they hear will often leave them depressed.

"Many times have I felt that way," Gonzalez said. "But I have always managed to pick myself right back up because I know I can't quit. It's almost like an emotional rollercoaster."

Her most difficult case began in July 2009 when she was called to interview three siblings who had been beaten by their mother's boyfriend and kept locked in a hotel bathroom for months with little to eat.

"I will never forget that day," said Gonzalez, who had to respond to the Advocacy Center in the middle of the night. "I remember coming home and just crying and not understanding how someone can be so evil."

Gonzalez had to relive the terrible details of that night in court last month when she testified in the separate trials of the children's mother and her boyfriend. She said it was as though the prosecutor "stabbed me and turned the knife" in order to paint a vivid picture of the children's ordeal for the jury.

Although she has testified in court more than 100 times, Gonzalez said she had never broken down and cried on the witness stand- until then.

"I've always been collected and calm, poised and everything," Gonzalez said. "This particular trial, I was so scared. It was hard for me, and I tried to fight it, and I couldn't."

In that case, the mother was sentenced to life in prison, and the boyfriend was sentenced to concurrent 99-year terms.

Burch said horrific cases such as that one are often difficult for forensic interviewers to cope with and she said that she has noticed the toll interviewing abused children has taken on Gonzalez.

"Jesse is a different person from when she came in initially," Burch said. "Nothing bothered her, but I think the job has weighed down on her."

Gonzalez agrees and notes that the difficulties of her work have even had an impact on her personal life. She has no children and is still considering whether she will ever want to become a mother.

"Maybe one," she said, but added that her paranoia about the dangers that children face makes her wary.

The nature of her job usually means she only hears the saddest parts of abuse victims' stories. After she interviews the children, most of them undergo therapy to help them get over their trauma. During that time, Gonzalez has little contact with them, if any.

But even though she doesn't get the chance to be there throughout their entire road to recovery, Gonzalez knows she still plays a valuable role in the children's healing process.

"For me, being that one person, on that particular day for that one child, makes all the difference," she said. "I don't think there are too many people who can say, 'I think I changed someone's life today.' "