A PTSD Trigger as a Pathway to Healing?

I have not written anything for this blog in a while.  I do not wish to craft some piece of fine writing here.  I am just looking to communicate my thoughts, and hopefully be helpful to those of you who have suffered in a similar fashion.  I do not know what this blog will look like going forward, but for tonight it looks like this:

Before today, I have not experienced an episode of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder) in quite some time.  In fact, it’s got to be over a year now.  It is - now that I’m doing the math. 

An episode of PTSD is like re-living an aspect of the abuse completely.  I always get tongue-tied when I try to explain it (or pen-tied when writing), because it is difficult to convey the fact that I am re-living, in  just seconds, what can be many minutes of abuse in total (with all senses, including pain, shame – you name it).  It is kind of like “dreamtime” in which seconds are minutes.  And because of the totality of these episodes, there is this: I am there right now, and it is happening right now.  Of course, that isn’t so.  But that is what it feels like. 

When I first started tackling the abuse, the PTSD lasted much longer periods of time.  It was often debilitating.  Although I continued working, I stopped hanging out with my friends.  I became a hermit, except for the fact that my lovely wife was there to love me and help me through it all.  This went on for years.

Now I am more whole.  More in control.  More myself.  Mostly because I allowed myself to relive those horrors.  Relive them and express and expel all feelings that were wrapped up in them.  I thought I’d beaten all those demons.

And then there was today.  Eating lunch out at a restaurant with friends, and – BOOM – triggered.  Like getting punched in every sensitive nerve that I own.  Triggered by food – this has happened before, three years ago, or so.  And of course it is an aspect of the abuse that I have not truly dealt with yet.  Yes, I am aware of it.  I have thought about it.  I remember it.  But I have not fought with this demon.  I have not grappled with him in hand-to-hand, close quarters combat.  It is mental anguish.  It is remembering in absolute vivid detail the thoughts, feelings, and physicality of the worst hell that can be imagined.  Think about the horror of child sexual abuse much?  No?  Who does?  No one! -save predators themselves.  Why is that?  Because it is beyond our comprehension!  In my estimation, it is easier for the brain to wrap itself around the idea of murder then it is to think about a boy or a girl being raped. 

Naturally, I do not want to fight this demon.  I want to go on living my life.  It’s good.  I like it.  But to do that – to really do that – I have to get back in the fire.  Rip my mental guts apart and fight these fuckers again. It’s not fun.  I’ve never enjoyed doing it.  But it must be done.  I know it must.  This one is just like all the other demons.  It is fear.  It is pain.  It is shame.  I will not let this one live inside me any longer.  I will use all my strength to delve deep into the dead heart of this foulness and expel it from my being. 

Fuck you, beast.  You are not welcome here.  I will defeat you, like I did all of the other torturous horrors that were imposed on me.  Tortures that I had shut away deep inside my subconscious, but that still poked at me from the inside-out like needles of self-hate, fear and shame.  I shine a light on you.  Come out and fight..  I know you are there. I have already beaten the worst of your kind. You cannot defeat me.  I am of love and light.

Sexual Abuse and the Catholic Church

A word on the Catholic Church.

         My father has been spending some time recently in an attempt to get the Catholic Church - more specifically the Camden Diocese - to reveal what they know about the sexual abuse and cover-ups that has gone on for decades.  The church was stonewalling him.  Then he was contacted by the d
iocese's Bishop Galante.
         The bishop told him that he was sorry for what happened to me, and that he has been putting measures in place to ensure that this would not happen to children in the future.  He also said - as did nearly everyone else from the church that my father spoke to - that the church has to move forward and not dwell in the past, especially when so many of the priests and bishops involved are now dead.  The bishop then asked if my father thought it would be helpful for me to talk to him.
         I thought about it for awhile.  The following is my response to my dad, who forwarded it along to Bishop Galante and a few others.

*******

Dear Dad,

I greatly appreciate the steps you have taken to persuade the Camden Diocese to reveal the truth behind its involvement in child sexual abuse and cover-ups.  I also appreciate your insistence on getting my permission before each step you have taken. 

I must decline Bishop Galante’s offer to meet with me in person.  Even though he may be working to ensure that the Camden Diocese will protect against future child sexual abuse and cover-ups, he chooses to take the stance that the church cannot “move backwards” and that most of the guilty are now dead, thereby taking no responsibility for the effects of the church’s past crimes.  This pitiful response to victims of child molestation makes my blood boil.  If it is known that previous bishops were guilty of covering up abuse, then why has Bishop Galante not disclosed this information and shared the truth?  Because the church is still in the mode of covering up.  It is clear that the Catholic Church as an organization is still more interested in protecting itself and its assets than it is in helping the countless victims whose childhoods – and in many cases adult lives – were ruined.  The Catholic Church continuously re-victimizes the now grown children by refusing to be truthful about the cover-ups that occurred.

If Bishop Galante, the pope, or even one priest had the guts to assume responsibility for the cover-ups and the shuffling of pedophile priests to unsuspecting parishes, and he came forward speaking truthfully to the media, for all to hear, then I would be interested in meeting that person face to face.  He would be a person with great integrity. 

I have no interest in being placated or otherwise glad handed by a church mouthpiece who will give nothing more than a lip service apology.  His apology, indeed any apology by a member of the Catholic Church, I would find false until the day the church opens up its files –  all its information – and says:

“This is what we did.  We allowed children to be abused and raped.  We knew it was going on.  We did not try to stop these defilers of children.  Instead, we encouraged it to continue by taking these people who were raping children, and moving them to other churches, churches in which the families who trusted us were unaware of the monsters that we were sending to them disguised as spiritual leaders.  Then, to our shame, we attacked these victims again in the courtroom with our pit bull lawyers and forced them to relive the horror of their abuse and rape again while we, through our lawyers, picked apart their lives and called them liars and greedy.  We are sorry we did this.  And in good faith, to show that we are sorry, and to ensure that this will never happen again, we are opening all our files including our “secret files” to be investigated by the police.  We are turning over every person that we know who has committed these heinous crimes.  We are also going to reveal everything that we as individuals know about these abusers and cover-ups, and we are going to demand that our priests reveal all that they know about abuse incidents, abusers and cover-ups.”

The Catholic Church is a religious organization that is run by men who are more like politicians than spiritual leaders.  These men appear to be in place to protect the money and assets of the church rather than to do the will of Jesus.  It is doubtful that the church will admit guilt without the insistence of the people of the church, people like you, who demand full disclosure and insist that it takes full responsibility for the past. 

I am glad that Bishop Galante is taking seriously the fact that there are children today who need to be protected from pedophiles both inside and outside the church.  He also needs to realize –  as do all church leaders – that what happened to me and to countless other victims is not in the past.  It will not be in the past for as long as we are alive.  It will not be in the past for as long as our words carry on into the future about what happened to us, how we were raped and molested by priests while the church did nothing to stop it. 

First, we were raped by those who perpetrated the actual attacks.  Second, we were raped by the Catholic leaders who covered it up, thereby allowing it to happen continuously until the victims – despite the money that the church tried to use to buy their silence –  no longer remained silent.  Finally, the church still victimizes the survivors of sexual abuse today by keeping their files sealed and their mouths shut, and by continuing to employ lawyers and even priests who treat victims and their relatives like little more than dirt on their shoe – like the priest and lawyer that you encountered on your quest to get the truth from the church.

I will not site the numerous ongoing cases in which the Catholic Church continues to attack victims.  You know them, and so does the church. 

There is a disease in the church.  Instead of rooting out the disease, the church leaders are festering in it.  The question you were asked by so many of the leaders that you encountered: “What do you want us to do?” has such a simple answer: tell the truth.  Keeping the church’s collective mouth closed is lying.  Tell the truth.

I have not lost faith in Love, but I have no faith in the organization of the Catholic Church or its leaders.  It showed me the hierarchy of importance that it operates under when it chose to protect itself and its pedophile priests over protecting innocent children.

Please pass this letter along to the bishop and to the others you have talked to in the church.  Maybe it will help them to understand that the legacy of abuse that the Catholic Church engendered will not be forgotten by any of us.  It will not be swept under the rug, and it will never go away.  There are those of us who will always speak out about it and remind the world of how the Catholic Church treated – and still treats – children.

Thanks again for everything.

Your son,

Andrew

Repressed Memories of Sexual Abuse

A word on repressed memories.

            Many publications have attempted to dispel the reality of repressed memories.  Equally, many lawyers have been employed to rip apart the testimony of victims based on the victims’ repressed memories. For a time, these individuals and publications that purport that victims with repressed memories are liars, sick, and mentally ill had a profound effect on me.  I was fearful of what I felt they were saying about me.  But the truth is, those publications are a sham.  They are lies perpetrated by those who would protect the worst kind of criminal there is: people who destroy the lives of innocent children.  I know that repressed memories are real memories because I had repressed the memories of my abuse and I was sexually abused

The abuse that was perpetrated on me from the time I was 4-years-old until I was about 10-years-old occurred usually no more than once or twice a year over the course of a long holiday weekend and often in the middle of the night.  Despite the horrific intensity of the abuse and rape – which sometimes involved a group of men participating in a child sex ring – much of my childhood was away from the abuse where I was loved by my family, as a child should be.  I believe that this made the memories easier to repress.

Initially, one of the scariest things about healing from childhood sexual abuse was the fact that I had repressed the memories.  Today, however, I am grateful that the miracle of the human brain allowed me to do such a thing, because I feel that I was able to grow and develop in a relatively typical manner in a large part thanks to “forgetting.”  Of course, one can never truly forget, and the effects of the abuse always lingered in my subconscious and left its stain on my conscious existence.  This left me vulnerable to rape and abuse in my teenage years because, although I was unaware of the pedophilic grooming that told me that I was powerless to keep from being sexual abused, that grooming remained in my subconscious.  I also believe that the intensity of the abuse and the purposeful mind control tactics that were employed on me as a young child, contributed to why, as a teenager, I was still unable to protect myself from the pedophile priest who quickly determined and took advantage of my vulnerability and raped me several times.

In the early stages of recovery, I felt as if I could not trust myself.  If I had been able to hide this ghastly reality from myself, what else had I hidden?  My abusers told me time and time again that I was just like them, and that I was going to be abusing children the same way that they were abusing me.  I never accepted this.  Not when they were saying it, and not as I was growing up away from their abuse.  I am a good person.  I feel that I have always been a good person, and people who know me best have told me that I have always been kindhearted.  Much in the way that my abusers could not turn me into a girl or a homosexual – as they repeatedly told me I was – they also could not turn me into an abuser.  Nonetheless, after I first accepted the reality of the abuse, I did not trust myself or my memories.  I was afraid that I had sexually abused my younger brothers, and had repressed those memories.  I told them of my fears and I asked them directly if I had ever sexually abused them.  They gave me the answer that I already knew was true deep in my heart: I had not sexually abused them.  I am very grateful to them for being so open and caring toward me during that time.  It was difficult for me and I am sure that it was difficult for them.  Today, my mind is whole and my memories are intact, and I know that I never sexually abused anyone.  Of course I would never abuse – sexually, physically, or verbally – a child or anyone; that is just not my way. 

One of the great things about going through the healing process was that, as my mind opened up and I remembered more and more of the abuse, I also remembered how I purposely pushed the memories out of my head (or rather pushed them into a corner of my brain and sealed them off).  I believe that this active forgetting was also much easier to accomplish because of the human brain’s often natural reaction to trauma, which is to remove the consciousness from the scene of the crime, even while the crime is still occurring.  For example, while being raped, I was able to leave my body.  I am aware of how that sounds to people who look to dispel the reality of memory repression, and that was a huge part of my fear in recovery and healing – “am I crazy?”.  I know that I am not, and I know that leaving my body was a gift that I was given to help me to survive. 

For years I had feared that people would not believe me and would try to poke holes in the truth of the abuse.  I was afraid that aspects of what happened to me would seem unbelievable, and that I would be called a liar.  I do not care anymore what is believable to anyone other than myself, and I am blessed in that my entire family never once doubted me.  I am now fully aware of what happened to me, and sadly, many victims have had similar experiences. 

Regarding purposely pushing the memories away, it was done with great persistence and determination.  Whenever any thought led me to memories of the abuse, I would cut down that thought and the memories and then I would scream internally: “No! No! No! It’s not true!  It can’t be true!  It never happened! It never happened!”  I would also use the words of my perpetrators against myself: “You’re a liar!  That never happened! You don’t know what you’re talking about!”  This allowed me to cut the memories shorter and shorter until my mind stopped going down those memory paths.  And when the abuse recurred, I would cut down the memories all over again. 

At one point in elementary school, I was filling my trapper-keeper with drawings of blood, guts and mutilated people.  Then I heard somewhere that that was considered a possible sign of abuse, so I destroyed all those pictures.  I was diligently on the look-out to ensure that no evidence in my behavior revealed that I was being sexually abused.  Despite my desperation in trying to cover up the truth, what I really needed all along was to speak up about what was happening to me.  I could not do that then, but I am able to do it now.

I am thankful that I finally recovered these memories.  They have helped me to become a whole person.

There is much written about repressed memories, and maybe I will write about again.  In the mean time, search the internet and see for yourself.  If you have suffered from sexual abuse, my heart goes out to you, and I implore you to put yourself on the difficult road of healing.  You can do it.  I will continue to share my thoughts here.  Please share this blog with your friends.  There are many survivors out there.  Hopefully these words will be helpful.  You are not alone.

Recovering from child sexual abuse

Recovering from child sexual abuse

In this blog, I will often address my ongoing recovery process from childhood sexual abuse and trauma.  I hope to add my voice to all of the survivors out there whose voices have helped me to know that I am not alone.  I am not a researcher, so my views are based on my own experiences as well as on some experiences of those that I have encountered throughout my life.

Although sexual abuse occurs in isolation and leaves victims feeling shameful and utterly, desperately alone, the truth is that we are not alone.  There is world full of survivors out there because the sexual abuse and rape of children is a disgustingly common occurrence.

So to you survivors out there, I stand with you.  I witness that the devastating effects of abuse can be overcome with painful hard work, patience, and love.  

I will talk about my experiences with PTSD, repressed-recovered memories, therapy, the effects when religion is part of the abuse (pedophile priests and the Catholic church), and anything related to my abuse and recovery process.  I will also comment on current events that relate to the liberation of victims from their perpetrators’ strangling silence. 

The more survivors voices that there are, the less these perpetrators will be able to commit these heinous crimes.  Our voices will add what we know to the collective conscience: these crimes happen often; the effects are more devastating than can be imagined (especially because society as a whole has pretended like it does not happen. For who wants to talk about such horrible things?) and most importantly, recovery is possible because we are not alone.  

We as humans need to educate ourselves and educate our children in order to stop this from happening.

I deeply respect every victim and his/her right to heal in a manner that they find best.  Just because writing and talking about it is best for one person does not mean that it is best for all people.  I only implore you survivors to take the difficult and painful steps toward healing.  You will not regret staring down your greatest fear until it loses its power.  You, like me, have already lived through the worst.  You are in control now.

I have talked and written about my experiences of abuse and rape with a good number of people, and now I will share it, hopefully, with more people through this blog.  I hope these words are helpful to at least one person.

To help protect children, I contacted local police, the FBI, and Child Protective Services, regarding my perpetrators.  In all instances, I was told that there is little that law enforcement can do about it today.  Still, thankfully, because of another offense, one of the abusers a registered sex offender.

Finally, I would like to thank my wife, Deborah; my family, the McGarrys, the Parkers, the Napolis, and all of each family’s supportive offshoots;  and my many friends for the unending support during the good times and the bad times of my healing process.  I know you have suffered along with me and for that I owe you a world of debt.