Found my Perp

Found my Perp
Hauser

Hauser

Registrant
He died back in 1994. His name was Kimball (deleted). After giving up finding him on the net and with public records available at the county building, I then went through the microfilms of the Grand Rapids Press at the Main Public Library downtown. Success! I found an entry for Kimball (deleted), aged 40, passed away at his home, lived near my area, was exactly the same age as he would have been. The obituary was from May of 1994. He was survived by his adapted sister, and his mother, he was also survived by his nephew. I looked up his sister and found out that she was living at her mother's old house in G.R. I figured that she died some time after my perp died and left her the house.

I just now remember a huge scar that he had across and up and down his chest from open heart surgury. He had heart problems and he was a heavy smoker.

I wrote the above yester day. Update:

I went to his step-sisters house. She was home, as was her son. Her son was 13 when my perp died. I was told that Kim was the only father figure that that boy had while growing up. I have no idea if he was perped. I introduced myself to the nephew and told him that I knew Kim when I was little. He said, "That's cool". I gave him every chance to ask me anything about my relationship with him, but he simply disappeared into the back of the house and never wanted to talk to me again. He is 25 now. He gave no idications that he was perped by him, maybe I was the only one.

So I found his step-sister, she is 51 now. I introduced myself as a childhood friend of his when he was in his 20's. She betrayed no feelings of "why do you want to know about him? Did he perp you too? etc). She did not ask me how old I was when I was hanging around him. At my request, she happily showed me old photos of him from the 80's. It was wierd to see his face again. It was him. I thought about it, but I just could not tell her that that man had sex with me when I was only 9 years old. I just couldn't do it. She had only fond memories of her step brother and missed him, so I thought I would let him take his sectret with him to his grave.

She drove me to his grave site. We had some parting words, and a formal hug. She then left me to be with my perp alone at his grave. (As I said she had no idea that he was a perp apparently).

I had a "conversaion" with him. I said to him "You totally fucked up my future, I have no intimacy, to career, and little love for myself". "You messed up EVERYTHING IN MY LIFE!" "EVERYTHING!!!!" "Thanks to you my parents will never have grandchildren." "Because of you, I never had a normal life." "Thanks to you I started looking at boys myself." "I ALMOST turned into you!!!" "You selfish fuck!!!" "But I didn't cuz I'm better than you." "I will always be better than you."

I then turned my back on him, and said, "I'm sorry I never got a chance to tell you this when you were alive." and "For what it's worth to you, I forgive you".

Of course I left that cemetary not feeling any better than before.

I have tried to resolve my past but this was another dead end. I endevored to find him and make him accountable for his acts, but this was all I could do.

I thought that if I could just focus on his grave and be able to point at that for all my failings in my life that I feel bad about, that I could feel better about myself. It didn't work. Nothing is working. I feel like I failed myself again.
 
Hi Hauser,

In the time I've been here at MS, I've seen these kind of trips/confrontations go one of three ways: (1) Good; (2) Bad; or (3) Indifferent. I think it can also be a mixture of all 3, with certain qualities of each.

You said in your post that you feel like you failed yourself again. I don't see that at all. I see three VERY POSITIVE aspects of this encounter. They are:

(1) You were concerned about the nephew of the abuser, enough so that you wanted to interact with him to see if he had been abused. You might say that was simply curiosity on your part, but I would also think that if he had opened up to you about abuse, you would have readily opened to him as well in any way that you could have helped him.

(2) You saw that the abuser's sister had good memories of him, and while you could have easily trashed all those memories for her, you chose compassion and chose not to soil those memories. That makes you a man 10' tall in my opinion.

(3) And finally, but certainly not least, you chose to forgive the abuser at his gravesite. Not many can do that, and I'm not there yet. But the fact that you can certainly does not make you a failure. It makes you an incredible person.

You have not failed. Not by any stretch of the imagination.
 
Hauser,

Someone pushed my tired button about 15 min. ago, but I have to respond to your post before I head for bed. I agree with Eddie. You have most certainly not failed. I think it was shadowkid who posted to another member that if he could only see himself as Adam saw him he'd not think of himself as a failure. The same holds true for you, my friend.

I can get pretty hard on myself at times about things. Someone here pointed out to me that people, especially survivors have a tendency to let our feelings dictate to us how we should view ourselves, but feelings are not an rule with which to measure fact. The fact is that you are a considerate, compassionate friend to many of us here. That is truth, and it is not a feeling. We as survivors need to learn to look through the glass through which others view us before passing judgement on ourselves.

Frankly, I'm proud of you for what you've done. You've faced a difficult situation, acted with compassion, and forgiven an individual who never even asked for forgiveness. That takes courage and guts. Is there perhaps someone else in the picture that could use a little forgiveness?

Lots of love,

John
 
Hauser, that is a truly amazing story and I agree with everything that Eddie said. You were incredibly kind and caring to those people, and the visit quickly became about them and what they needed rather than about you and why you were there. That says so much about who you are.

I especially identified with your being at his gravesite. Every time I go home, I go to the cemetary and have a talk with my father. Sometimes I ask him why. Sometimes I tell him how he hurt me. But forgiving him has never come up in our conversations. I admire you for being able to do that, too.

I hope I'm not speaking out of turn here. We haven't talked enough that I would know this, but it seemed that you feel guilty for blaming your disappointments in yourself on your abuse. Well, there's some truth in that. All those things you told him about that he had ruined for you were true. He did. That's not blaming him in a negative sense....that's putting the blame right where it belongs.

And I found your visit to be quite profound. It didn't come out exactly the way you planned, but you know more now than you knew when you went, you were incredibly kind to two human beings, you got to talk to your perp at his grave, which is the best possible scenario in that situation, and you forgave your perp, which is supposed to be one of the important parts of healing.

Now, if you could just see the amazing person I saw doing all of that. I am always impressed by the strength and the character of the men here. This was absolutely no exception.

Bobby
 
Huaser, you have not failed, simply triumphed over it all. You were brave enough to go for starters, you are dealing with all of this for sure; which is a very big step. You have succeeded. You may feel like it has done nothing for your recovery but I am sure you will soon find it has, it takes time for all of it to sink in. This part of the recovery process is difficult because we look for instant relief that last forever and it is more like hidden relief that takes us into the next phase of healing without all that much releif for some and for others it is a great relief. Give it some time, adjusting to all of this is hard to do, finding the real you after all the crap is wierd because it is hard to let go of the old. The key is letting it go and letting the new come. You have not failed my friend, what you did was brave and very kind.
 
WOW!
What a brave and inspiring story!!
Thanks for going there, Hauser, and thanks for sharing your story here.
Ditto, Ditto, Ditto to everything Eddie, Bobby, John and John have said above. This is a story of triumph and victory, not of failure.
Emotionally, as time gradually passes, you will probably find that your visit to his family and his grave, will have produced considerable healing and relief for you (and should also produce some enhanced self esteem).
You can be very proud of what you were able to do; many of us are not yet ready for the giant step which you have taken.
Much love, etc.,
 
hauser sometimes i am not smart enough to get across what i mean and sometimes i think maybe i dont see things the right way ,but what i see in this post is no you didnt fail,what did you find by doing what you did?what i see is that you caught a glimpse of the guy we all know and love here at the site,your perp is dead and you know the life he lead ,what is the one thing he came out of his miserable life with? the respect and love of his sister and nephew,you could have taken all that away ,you could have ripped apart his life of deception by telling them what he really was ,but you chose to let him keep his dignity even though he didnt deserve it. i wanted to say more here but late for work!you had a chance at revenge but you turned the other cheek ,failure ?i dont think so,also its not up to you to save the nephew if he was molested that is something he will have to work out himself . adam
 
Hauser, i dont know if it will help, but i will offer it anyway. The instant Kim died, he returned to face God, and he accounted for his life. if he hadnt repented and changed, he is answering for what he did to you.

i hope and pray you find some way of finding closure, so you can have a little happiness in life. i am not sure even if you could have faced him, prosecuted him, and put him in jail that it would have felt any different for you. in the end, i suspect it would have still felt empty. what i have found is the reason is that the problem can't be solved from outside. the solution is inside yourself. until you find closure, and find a way to move foward, nothing seems to help much. i hope you find what you need so you can heal and move ahead.
 
Thank you guys. Apparently, she was totally naive. She was very anxious about trying to find his pictures whilst rummaging through boxes, and filled with glee that someone would be inquiring about a step-brother of hers that died 12 years ago.

She's 51 now, my perp would be 54 right now, and she didn't seem to put 2+2 together and figure out that I was only 9 when I was hanging out with him. But I wasn't going to tell her. What was the point? She only had fond memories of him, so to the grave he takes "our secret".

Guys, I wasn't really trying to say "chalk up another failure", I was looking for instant realization, like John Oarc said. I will give this some time to sink in and appreciate the magnitude of these events.

My calm demenor at that house was in stark contrast to my behavior while on the road earlier that day inquiring about an intern position. I was just sitting in my car and exploded, I punched out the LED display in my radio, cut myself good, got home and kicked the grill out of a fan, plastic flew everywhere, I then threw it across the living room. I felt better for like 2 seconds. But I can't afford this type of self-therapy.
 
i remember the night before i called Howard to get an appointment and start therapy. i was making us tacos for dinner. i sat the table, and laid the shells down. as i got everything on the table my little boy walked up, put his hand on the shells and cracked every one of them, and ask, 'what are those' he was like two. i started smashing the shells into little tiny bits. after that my wife was ticked, she said you need to do something or i am leaving.
 
Hauser,

I am so very proud of you!! You showed an unbelievable amount of compassion for this woman and her son. When you wrote that you could not bring yourself to tell her the real reason why you were there becuase she missed him and only had fond memories of him, I said to myself, "Hauser is a real man"! I know for a fact that I would not have been able to do that. I believe that you are much farther down the road to recovery than you think you are; just give it some time to sink in.

You also have a 100% certainty that he is dead. You can go back to his grave to resolve any unfinished business that you have at any time. I'll say it again, Hauser, you are a real man and I am so very proud of you!!

God Bless,

Brian
 
There's nothing I can add to what has already been said. You're no failure. You had compassion and you forgave the man who brought you all that pain. You faced your fear and it didn't get the best of you. But like John said, there's someone else that needs your forgiveness and compassion...

Jesse
 
Hauser,
What an amazing story. You inspire me. I agree with what everyone has said. There is one thing I would like to mention about "failure". It is a perception and nothing more. Years ago I learned that if I lived up to my expectations of what would make me NOT a failure..I'd never reach the top of that mountain. I was always setting myself up to feel failure. If you can, my friend, try to experience some things in life without having to put it somewhere on the "failure" scale. It's really hard....and to this day...I still measure most of my experiences on that scale. And most of the time I allow that feeling of failure to creep into the front of my brain. But, I try to remember we are the ones who write the rules for our own "failure scale". As an outsider..from how I know you..which is only from our chats here.....YOU ARE NO FAILURE.
Your friend,
Steve
 
Hauser
I don't believe that you walked away from the cemetary feeling no better than before, because you certainly deserve to feel better than before.

What you did was behave like a man, you didn't involve the other people who might be innocent, unknowing of what your perp actually did, and therefore love the man.
You went there, gained the information you needed, said your piece and walked away - like the man you are.

Dave
 
Well that was weird! Not been here for a while. In some sort of limbo....suppose my head is just having a rest (though it doesn't feel like that).

I came looking for some sort of answers again tonight.

Hauser - you made this post on the eve of my birthday this year. Over the last few days/weeks, I've been thinking of having a first birthday party (or at least some sort of celebration (?)) on March 17th next year - 1 year to the day since the perv was convicted.

It's astounding that a post from June was brought back to the top today, and that I came here in need of an answer today. I'd asked my parents to let me know if this shit was going to get better (dead for 6/16 years) and didn't expect an answer this time.

It was there, post from Jesse: "You faced your fear and it didn't get the best of you. But like John said, there's someone else that needs your forgiveness and compassion.

It's also strange, because the first time I ever came here needing a response, Lloydy/Dave was one of the first to support me!

Thanks.
 
Hauser,

Good for you...to me too there is no failure but great success in what you did. Something inside you drove or lead you to seek him and to say your piece....and you did a lot of work and research to do accomplish that. I'm no T but my guess that confronting your perp or yourself with the perp was something that needed to be done for healing. No one feels good immediately after surgery, the healing of the wound happens slowly. My guess is this will lead to greater healing in its time.

Be kind to yourself,as you said you can't afford too much more of the self-therapy you sued, but perhaps can afford to do something you like to celebrate fulfilling something within you that you had to do.

Proud of you!

Halibut
 
you won!!!! you did not become like him...he is only someone that we should have pity for..Most likely he carried all that hate and fear to the grave with him....WE must not bring all THEIR hate and fear to the grave with us...I hope I have the honour to meet you at one of the retreats

Happy Healing
Julian
 
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