MY STORY
Living with the experiences of institutional child sexual abuse
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In the early 1980s, I attended a small Catholic School. The two years I was there I was sexually abused by a number of men attached to the school and the Church.
I was 8 years old when it first started and 10 when it finished. It is very confusing to think back not realising it was wrong. This is what I now know is the shame that is child sexual abuse.
When my father found out, he would beat me for being gay. I never really understood what I had done wrong, but he blamed me for the abuse. I can only wonder what the institution told him. I was petrified, being told that I would “get AIDS” every time the Grim Reaper ads would come on TV.
I was happily back in the state school system and dating girls in my teens. I wasn’t gay after all. But, during high school I watched my dad’s life slide into depression. When I was 18, my dad finally apologised for physically assaulting me in my pre-teen years and broke down. He was so remorseful and squared the blame back on the school and church. It was starting to make sense.
Unfortunately, we could not rebuild our relationship as he died by suicide shortly after.
This was an extremely difficult time for me, as I was trying to understand how it all happened, the sexual abuse, and my broken father. I was crippled with guilt.
I didn’t seek any help to recover from the abuse. I didn’t know how to. I didn’t know how to acknowledge any of this.
After dad passed, I coped through burying myself into a career and studies.
I had failed high school, so I went into the TAFE system and later progressed right through the university pathway.
However, I was never able to sustain my career path as the triggers kept mounting. I changed jobs constantly.
After one failed relationship to the next, I later married. It was after my first child, a boy, that my mental health really started to suffer. Prior to that I had some really detrimental coping mechanisms, but coping none the less.
The years after my son was born, all the triggers, the memories of my childhood consumed me entirely. It was after I reached what I call “rock bottom” that I finally reached out for help.
I began the long journey to a healthy and sustainable form of coping.
I chose to seek advice through the legal services. Unfortunately, it wasn’t as easy as searching the internet.
I encountered what I felt were untrustworthy lawyers. The one I first settled on ended up being in Sydney. It wasn’t a safe process and some of the lines of questioning led me to unhealthy outcomes.
I ultimately withdrew from the legal process and simply tried focused on survival.
It took another few years until I engaged with advice that was provided through the Royal Commission.
This was a much safer approach, a journey mapped with a social worker and all the appropriate supports in place. I began attending a support service that exists entirely to support men who were sexually abused as a child.
Up until that point, I thought I was the only victim. Of course that wasn’t the case, but I had never encountered others with similar stories. I started to realise that none of us had coped in our lives. This was something never spoken in public, or if it was, no one wanted to hear it.
It challenged people’s faith, or was just too “revolting” to imagine.
Again, I commenced the civil process with a lawyer endorsed through the Royal Commission. I had much more trust in my legal representation and am much stronger through my support systems.
It was a very challenging process. Every few months I had to relive the abuse, over and over again, and it took weeks to recover emotionally at every step. This time I was determined to continue even when it felt like I was up against the juggernaut of the Catholic Church.
It took about 5 years, but in the end I feel that I have received justice and I began to heal.
I now know and accept that I will be living with my diagnosis, a mental illness I will have for life. One born from the sexual abuse I suffered as a child from these men, and the cover-ups by the institutions.
I know now and accept that I will never reach my potential in my career and will have this disability that has evolved since I was 8.
I'm exhausted by the process...
But my determination to not transfer my illness and my trauma to my children, and to be the absolute best father I can be, will be my focus for the rest of my life.
END.
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