Part of but not all of me
Hi everybody.
*** Trigger Alert***
I am a 53 year old man who was sexually abused between the age of 12-18 by a catholic priest who was also my father's cousin. I was also abused by my mother (emotional incest) throughout the same period, a fact which my therapist tells me opened me up to being vulnerable to abuse by the priest. My father neglected me throughout this time, and actually sent me to his cousin to teach me about the "birds and the bees" as he was unable to deal with talking to me about this himself; my sexual naivety had been found out in school when I couldn't get a dirty joke, and on telling my dad and asking for his help, he sent me to his cousin, the paedophile priest. Let me tell you the priest wasted no time whatsoever in laying his hands on me - and not in the biblical sense - grooming me and there followed 6 years of sexual abuse until I went to college.
This is turning out to be a bit longer than I thought.
There was a rather peculiar dynamic in our family home. My mother accused my dad of incest with my sister, a fact he denied, as has my sister, and to be honest I could never believe it. Despite all his faults, basically emanating from being Victorian Dad and from a pretty messed up childhood himself, he was an incredibly gentle man and I just don't believe he had it in him. On his deathbed he called my mother and sister together and told my mother "nothing happened" pointing to my sister. My mother is most likely has borderline PD and is most certainly a narcissist and couldn't take another women living in the house - from the age of 7. She eventually forced my dad into therapy where she laid the whole blame for the failure of their marriage on him as well as the whole incest thing on him. When I tackled her on it she has reduced this to emotional incest. What she fails to realise to this day is that she did the exact same thing to me. I used to come home every day from school to listen to her woes about how her husband was so mean to her and how he preferred my sister. It was a total set-up. I immediately hated my dad and my sister and went to war for those same 6 years with them both - "to fight for my mother's honour" and her rightful place in the pecking order in our family. I was the pseudo-husband and my sister the pseudo-wife.
I was fortunate to meet a great woman in my first week in college (university) who helped me to see how dysfunctional my family - particularly my parents - were, and still are. I immediately stopped visiting the paedo priest and within a year had confronted my mother and told her I didn't want to hear any more of her crap. We (my wife and I) have been together ever since (35 years) and married for 25 of them. She is the most amazing women, my rock and I don't know where I would be without her. We have 2 daughters, who I adore - though I often wonder if all the shit that happened to me in the past has left me as a good or a bad dad. I think on the whole I'm a good dad, in fact I think I'm a really good dad, my 3 ladies (wife & 2 daughters) all tell me that too, but I have been very harsh on one of them when younger as she was quite challenging. My sister had been pretty much like that too and I couldn't bear to think my own daughter would turn out the same. I only understand now that my sister was a victim of all the crap in our house too. Some day I will square the circle with my daughter - when she is a little older.
I know I have spent a long time talking about my family but its important as it laid the foundations to the sexual abuse with that f***ing priest.
I did ok in school but not great - the only thing I passed in college was the front gate - and the back one a lot as it led directly to my wife's house. My parents refused to pay my university fees any more and I ended up getting a job. After a very ropey first job - I was useless and got fired (that's the first time I've ever admitted this), I left the country, (but since came back) and all my family crap (it was great to be anonymous). I became a workaholic - did pretty well, and I have had a very interesting and varied career to date, but have always been incredibly insecure and anxious about succeeding, probably because of my failures in education and in my first job, not to mention as I now know all the crap in my birth family home.
So how am I here and where am I now?
Well I completely ignored what had happened to me - I just buried it and threw myself into work. I struggled to deal with some of the crises that came along in work. I was bullied by one of my bosses - a serial offender, the firm I was with had defended him 3 times and I was the fourth, but I fought it all the way, won a settlement but had to leave, set up a consulting practice and after 2 years ran straight into the global financial crises, lost all our savings and needed a job to pay the bills. Through sheer grit and determination and very hard work, we have managed to rebuild our careers. But it took a heavy toll on me. My most recent role - a turnaround, a basket case has taken the stuffing out of me. And it all came to a head 2 years ago. Sheer hard work - the running away - throwing more hours at the problem just wasn't working anymore. Ended up with severe tinitus, went to neurologists, had a brain scan, believed I was completely loosing my head - literally, was also having terrible trouble with my teeth and ended up having to borrow money from my mother to pay dental bills. Anyway one dentist said to me - this is not a neurological or a teeth issue - I think this is stress related. I go and see this lady when I feel I need to talk - I'll give you her number?
So I have been seeing this great therapist for the last 18 months. On my second session, she had me talking about my family and eventually some weeks or months later I mentioned the f***ing paedo priest. It took me 6 months of really saying nothing to actually start feeling anything in relation to my mother in particular. 2018 first half was really tough. I had completely disconnected from my family, except my mother who I had got back in to a weird carer relationship with again - and she was running me ragged - did't realise this at the time. But I have managed to gain one of my brothers back - he had reached out to me a couple of years earlier to let me know he was getting help to deal with all the family crap ( I was still in denial - workaholic). As young children, I had wronged him very badly and he ended up taking the blame for something I had done. The incident so obviously had my name on it, but our parents had decided that it was my brother's fault and that he was particularly devious because he had made it to look like I had done it. I remember just standing there, denying I had done it, and watching as they reasoned why it was him. This had been eating me for years and Sept 2017 I fessed up to him. It has had a profound effect on him - a) in unlocking something that he didn't know, b) that the assumptions that he had about himself - not believed, devious, were totally untrue. He's had to reset his therapy I also fessed up to my mother at the same time - that was more difficult, and despite her promising to talk to my brother she still has yet to do it. That's the narcissist in her. So my brother and I, we have a parallel shared history of emotional incest with my mother and the marks our family upbringing has had on both of us, we are dealing with this in our own way but we also talk about it when we meet every month or so. We are getting to know each other again. I know there is more to come in relation to what I did to him - some day he will need to let his anger towards me out to me on that one - but in the meantime, he is the only man that I can have, or have ever had a close open relationship with - its refreshing. Some day I hope that we can talk about things that are not about our shared past.
2019 has been the year of me getting to grips with the fact that I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a very trusted man - trusted because he was my father's cousin (and one time drinking buddy - oh my dad was an alcoholic too.) and because he was a priest. We had talked a little about the abuse, my therapist and I, and she warned me about Leaving Neverland (LN) and how it might effect me. But I had to watch it - in one go and the Oprah interview afterwards. For me it was not just cathartic - I finally heard from 2 men describe grooming and the abuse and understood what had happened to me. It was 2 people describing things that had happened to me that I was unable to express myself up to that point - it completely unblocked the dam for me. 2 incredibly brave guys - so helpful to hear their stories. So I am dealing with the sexual abuse part of my story. If I'm honest the last few months since LN, have been extremely difficult for me, an incredibly painful time, there's been many times where my lights have been on but I have definitely not been home. I have found it extremely difficult to do any work, I have been a bit of an empty shell at home, very upset, feeling incredibly deep emotional pain, incapable of intimacy.
3 last things to tell you. My wife knows about my family background - sure she saw it for real for herself when we were first dating. She knows that I was sexually abused and by whom, and for how long - but none of the details. She has been incredibly supportive - I am a very lucky man. Our kids don't know, but some day when they are a bit older, I will tell them.
I haven't spoken to my mother since Christmas. She confronted me at the end of last summer and asked me straight out whether I had been sexually abused by my dad's cousin. After thinking about it for a while I told her I had been. I then asked her why she was asking me now (2018). She told me she had suspected it for years. I asked her why she couldn't have spoken to me before about it - she said she couldn't. She gave me a hug and said she was so sorry, and then it was clear that it was all about how this would affect her, she changed the subject to something else and moved on. Turns out my brother told her back in 1993. (I had told him then). I'm finding it a little unforgivable to think that she has known for 26 years and never said anything to me all this time. But then as it was not about her - why would she? On the couple of occasions I went over to see her before Christmas, she never raised it again and it was like nothing ever happened. I did tell her that I was finding it very difficult to talk to her and that I needed some space from her - that I still loved her but I needed space. She visited us once since, an it was like nothing ever happened ... I had to go out and collect one of our girls and by the time I came back she was gone. Not sure how this will end up. I don't like to be cruel, but for the sake of my sanity, i just need some space from her. A family friend has just died, one from our childhood. I know I would like to go to the funeral but just can't face having to talk total crap to mum.
I am working through the clerical CSA with my therapist and have joined this community because of LN and her advise to me to connect with fellow survivors. I did confront him in 1993 - he told me it was as much my fault as his. I told him that it wasn't, that it was his alone, I was a child and he was the adult. This despite all the secrecy and consequences I had been sworn to as a child - it was why the LN guys' testimonies were so vivid for me - I could relate to it. Anyway he died in the late 1990's and I have had this desire to find where he is buried, I became driven to find it and at one stage almost obsessed - and find it I did on 22nd March. It is a most unremarkable, unkempt grave. The gravedigger that helped me to locate it told me that due to the state it was in, it had unlikely been touched since the day he went in all those years ago. As I stood there at the foot of it, I felt nothing, not anger, fear, sympathy, - just stone-cold bloodless nothing. However as I walked away, I nearly passed out. But for me it was a milestone - I needed to know where he was; and the most remarkable thing about it - his grave is unmarked! Why? Did he not want to be discovered? He was the chaplain in an all-boys boarding school before he retired - what the hell happened there? I wonder is it fitting to put his name on the headstone (he's in there with his parents), so that others might be able to find him? I know what it means to me to have located him. My Therapist thinks it might bring some level of closure for me.
If I'm not dwelling on the emotional pain in the above, believe me it is not because it is not there, It's like a rucksack on my back, a cloud around me constantly.
So here I am - this is part of me, but not all of me. I am delighted to be part of this community and thank you for reading this part of me.
Clem
*** Trigger Alert***
I am a 53 year old man who was sexually abused between the age of 12-18 by a catholic priest who was also my father's cousin. I was also abused by my mother (emotional incest) throughout the same period, a fact which my therapist tells me opened me up to being vulnerable to abuse by the priest. My father neglected me throughout this time, and actually sent me to his cousin to teach me about the "birds and the bees" as he was unable to deal with talking to me about this himself; my sexual naivety had been found out in school when I couldn't get a dirty joke, and on telling my dad and asking for his help, he sent me to his cousin, the paedophile priest. Let me tell you the priest wasted no time whatsoever in laying his hands on me - and not in the biblical sense - grooming me and there followed 6 years of sexual abuse until I went to college.
This is turning out to be a bit longer than I thought.
There was a rather peculiar dynamic in our family home. My mother accused my dad of incest with my sister, a fact he denied, as has my sister, and to be honest I could never believe it. Despite all his faults, basically emanating from being Victorian Dad and from a pretty messed up childhood himself, he was an incredibly gentle man and I just don't believe he had it in him. On his deathbed he called my mother and sister together and told my mother "nothing happened" pointing to my sister. My mother is most likely has borderline PD and is most certainly a narcissist and couldn't take another women living in the house - from the age of 7. She eventually forced my dad into therapy where she laid the whole blame for the failure of their marriage on him as well as the whole incest thing on him. When I tackled her on it she has reduced this to emotional incest. What she fails to realise to this day is that she did the exact same thing to me. I used to come home every day from school to listen to her woes about how her husband was so mean to her and how he preferred my sister. It was a total set-up. I immediately hated my dad and my sister and went to war for those same 6 years with them both - "to fight for my mother's honour" and her rightful place in the pecking order in our family. I was the pseudo-husband and my sister the pseudo-wife.
I was fortunate to meet a great woman in my first week in college (university) who helped me to see how dysfunctional my family - particularly my parents - were, and still are. I immediately stopped visiting the paedo priest and within a year had confronted my mother and told her I didn't want to hear any more of her crap. We (my wife and I) have been together ever since (35 years) and married for 25 of them. She is the most amazing women, my rock and I don't know where I would be without her. We have 2 daughters, who I adore - though I often wonder if all the shit that happened to me in the past has left me as a good or a bad dad. I think on the whole I'm a good dad, in fact I think I'm a really good dad, my 3 ladies (wife & 2 daughters) all tell me that too, but I have been very harsh on one of them when younger as she was quite challenging. My sister had been pretty much like that too and I couldn't bear to think my own daughter would turn out the same. I only understand now that my sister was a victim of all the crap in our house too. Some day I will square the circle with my daughter - when she is a little older.
I know I have spent a long time talking about my family but its important as it laid the foundations to the sexual abuse with that f***ing priest.
I did ok in school but not great - the only thing I passed in college was the front gate - and the back one a lot as it led directly to my wife's house. My parents refused to pay my university fees any more and I ended up getting a job. After a very ropey first job - I was useless and got fired (that's the first time I've ever admitted this), I left the country, (but since came back) and all my family crap (it was great to be anonymous). I became a workaholic - did pretty well, and I have had a very interesting and varied career to date, but have always been incredibly insecure and anxious about succeeding, probably because of my failures in education and in my first job, not to mention as I now know all the crap in my birth family home.
So how am I here and where am I now?
Well I completely ignored what had happened to me - I just buried it and threw myself into work. I struggled to deal with some of the crises that came along in work. I was bullied by one of my bosses - a serial offender, the firm I was with had defended him 3 times and I was the fourth, but I fought it all the way, won a settlement but had to leave, set up a consulting practice and after 2 years ran straight into the global financial crises, lost all our savings and needed a job to pay the bills. Through sheer grit and determination and very hard work, we have managed to rebuild our careers. But it took a heavy toll on me. My most recent role - a turnaround, a basket case has taken the stuffing out of me. And it all came to a head 2 years ago. Sheer hard work - the running away - throwing more hours at the problem just wasn't working anymore. Ended up with severe tinitus, went to neurologists, had a brain scan, believed I was completely loosing my head - literally, was also having terrible trouble with my teeth and ended up having to borrow money from my mother to pay dental bills. Anyway one dentist said to me - this is not a neurological or a teeth issue - I think this is stress related. I go and see this lady when I feel I need to talk - I'll give you her number?
So I have been seeing this great therapist for the last 18 months. On my second session, she had me talking about my family and eventually some weeks or months later I mentioned the f***ing paedo priest. It took me 6 months of really saying nothing to actually start feeling anything in relation to my mother in particular. 2018 first half was really tough. I had completely disconnected from my family, except my mother who I had got back in to a weird carer relationship with again - and she was running me ragged - did't realise this at the time. But I have managed to gain one of my brothers back - he had reached out to me a couple of years earlier to let me know he was getting help to deal with all the family crap ( I was still in denial - workaholic). As young children, I had wronged him very badly and he ended up taking the blame for something I had done. The incident so obviously had my name on it, but our parents had decided that it was my brother's fault and that he was particularly devious because he had made it to look like I had done it. I remember just standing there, denying I had done it, and watching as they reasoned why it was him. This had been eating me for years and Sept 2017 I fessed up to him. It has had a profound effect on him - a) in unlocking something that he didn't know, b) that the assumptions that he had about himself - not believed, devious, were totally untrue. He's had to reset his therapy I also fessed up to my mother at the same time - that was more difficult, and despite her promising to talk to my brother she still has yet to do it. That's the narcissist in her. So my brother and I, we have a parallel shared history of emotional incest with my mother and the marks our family upbringing has had on both of us, we are dealing with this in our own way but we also talk about it when we meet every month or so. We are getting to know each other again. I know there is more to come in relation to what I did to him - some day he will need to let his anger towards me out to me on that one - but in the meantime, he is the only man that I can have, or have ever had a close open relationship with - its refreshing. Some day I hope that we can talk about things that are not about our shared past.
2019 has been the year of me getting to grips with the fact that I am a survivor of childhood sexual abuse at the hands of a very trusted man - trusted because he was my father's cousin (and one time drinking buddy - oh my dad was an alcoholic too.) and because he was a priest. We had talked a little about the abuse, my therapist and I, and she warned me about Leaving Neverland (LN) and how it might effect me. But I had to watch it - in one go and the Oprah interview afterwards. For me it was not just cathartic - I finally heard from 2 men describe grooming and the abuse and understood what had happened to me. It was 2 people describing things that had happened to me that I was unable to express myself up to that point - it completely unblocked the dam for me. 2 incredibly brave guys - so helpful to hear their stories. So I am dealing with the sexual abuse part of my story. If I'm honest the last few months since LN, have been extremely difficult for me, an incredibly painful time, there's been many times where my lights have been on but I have definitely not been home. I have found it extremely difficult to do any work, I have been a bit of an empty shell at home, very upset, feeling incredibly deep emotional pain, incapable of intimacy.
3 last things to tell you. My wife knows about my family background - sure she saw it for real for herself when we were first dating. She knows that I was sexually abused and by whom, and for how long - but none of the details. She has been incredibly supportive - I am a very lucky man. Our kids don't know, but some day when they are a bit older, I will tell them.
I haven't spoken to my mother since Christmas. She confronted me at the end of last summer and asked me straight out whether I had been sexually abused by my dad's cousin. After thinking about it for a while I told her I had been. I then asked her why she was asking me now (2018). She told me she had suspected it for years. I asked her why she couldn't have spoken to me before about it - she said she couldn't. She gave me a hug and said she was so sorry, and then it was clear that it was all about how this would affect her, she changed the subject to something else and moved on. Turns out my brother told her back in 1993. (I had told him then). I'm finding it a little unforgivable to think that she has known for 26 years and never said anything to me all this time. But then as it was not about her - why would she? On the couple of occasions I went over to see her before Christmas, she never raised it again and it was like nothing ever happened. I did tell her that I was finding it very difficult to talk to her and that I needed some space from her - that I still loved her but I needed space. She visited us once since, an it was like nothing ever happened ... I had to go out and collect one of our girls and by the time I came back she was gone. Not sure how this will end up. I don't like to be cruel, but for the sake of my sanity, i just need some space from her. A family friend has just died, one from our childhood. I know I would like to go to the funeral but just can't face having to talk total crap to mum.
I am working through the clerical CSA with my therapist and have joined this community because of LN and her advise to me to connect with fellow survivors. I did confront him in 1993 - he told me it was as much my fault as his. I told him that it wasn't, that it was his alone, I was a child and he was the adult. This despite all the secrecy and consequences I had been sworn to as a child - it was why the LN guys' testimonies were so vivid for me - I could relate to it. Anyway he died in the late 1990's and I have had this desire to find where he is buried, I became driven to find it and at one stage almost obsessed - and find it I did on 22nd March. It is a most unremarkable, unkempt grave. The gravedigger that helped me to locate it told me that due to the state it was in, it had unlikely been touched since the day he went in all those years ago. As I stood there at the foot of it, I felt nothing, not anger, fear, sympathy, - just stone-cold bloodless nothing. However as I walked away, I nearly passed out. But for me it was a milestone - I needed to know where he was; and the most remarkable thing about it - his grave is unmarked! Why? Did he not want to be discovered? He was the chaplain in an all-boys boarding school before he retired - what the hell happened there? I wonder is it fitting to put his name on the headstone (he's in there with his parents), so that others might be able to find him? I know what it means to me to have located him. My Therapist thinks it might bring some level of closure for me.
If I'm not dwelling on the emotional pain in the above, believe me it is not because it is not there, It's like a rucksack on my back, a cloud around me constantly.
So here I am - this is part of me, but not all of me. I am delighted to be part of this community and thank you for reading this part of me.
Clem
