OPINION: Victims’ lives left destroyed, and confused, by child abuse

By Terry Sweetman
Courier Mail
March 22, 2014

http://www.couriermail.com.au/news/opinion/opinion-victims-lives-left-destroyed-and-confused-by-child-abuse/story-fnihsr9v-1226862126894

After writing for decades about the scourge of child abuse I thought I knew all the buzzwords such as exploitation, betrayal, and abuse of power, but confused?

MAYBE it’s a defence mechanism, but lots of bad-taste bloke jokes in pubs revolve around dirty old men offering boiled lollies to children.

It’s a simplistic and stereotypical view that doesn’t stack up against reality but what if the man was not so old and not so dirty and was offering love and security instead of sweets?

That was the experience of a reader whose worst memories have been fuelled rather than quenched by the royal commission into child abuse. The inquiry might bring relief, vindication, justice, revenge or even the elusive closure to some, but for our reader it reopened the windows to her private hell.

It (and my questions about childhood memories a few weeks back) forced her to confront events she had been trying to put behind her for maybe 50 years.

“Does the general public realise,’’ she asked, “that for every victim willing to testify there are as many people hiding in fear that their secrets will be exposed, ashamed of the past, feeling dirty and tainted, confused about their feelings for their abuser?’’

After writing about this scourge for decades I thought I knew all the buzzwords such as exploitation, betrayal, and abuse of power, but confused?

After all these years, our reader remains just that: “I have difficulty calling my priest an abuser or myself the victim. You see, I loved my priest and in many ways still do.

“Pedophiles like my priest aren’t like (Daniel Morcombe’s murderer Brett Peter) Cowan or the dreadful teachers at the Salvation Army homes who brutally attack their prey.

“My priest presented as a loving, nurturing father figure who filled the void that was my life and gave me the joy of feeling loved and treasured.

“He wasn’t a monster. He was simply a deeply flawed man who did some pretty monstrous things.

“For the most part, much of his life outside of his abuse of me was filled with genuine goodwill for the community.’’

Coming from a dysfunctional family and suffering at the hands of nuns from age five, she recalled: “I miraculously found my priest when I was seven years old at my local church in a prayer group.

“He made me feel loved and cherished and safe from the horror of my own home and the cruelty of the nuns at school.

“He made me feel special and chosen.

“I spent two years visiting my priest at the church. It started with me doing jobs for him and receiving high praise.

“It then moved on to a lovely hug and ended up where your imagination could never imagine.

“He explained that what he did to me was helping him go to heaven and my reward was that he would take me with him.

“That made perfect sense to me and I was excited to be helping God’s representative.’’

When the Church found out about this relationship, and one with a different child, the priest was moved on to another parish. Same old, same old.

Yet our reader can still write: “I never got over his disappearance (and) never considered I had been abused.’’

It was a secret she kept from parents, friends, husband and doctor and until she watched a home movie of her first communion and saw her priest: “As I watched the happy scene, I felt full of terror.

“I felt like I was back there and I was scared beyond reason.’’

There is more of it (six closely-typed pages), some of which I imperfectly comprehend, but it is a reminder that the more I know about child abuse, the less I understand.

This royal commission will give relief or closure to some, it will expose some monsters and it will embarrass those who did nothing to stop them but some people remain beyond its embrace.

To abuse seniority, authority, or the priesthood is terrible. To abuse love – to proffer it like a bag of sweets – is unforgivable.

NOT ALL RED TAPE IS BAD

THERE are good laws and bad laws, a judgment sometimes skewed by our experiences and our political beliefs. But, there are mercifully relatively few laws that are absolutely pointless, no matter where you graze in the political paddocks.

Among them are changes pushed by the Federal Government under the guise of red-tape culling to scrap the charities regulator and to change our financial advice laws.

The first keeps our charities transparent and reasonably honest and is pretty much backed by the not-for-profit sector, although not the Catholic Church. At a time when it’s impossible to walk down the street without somebody asking you for a buck and when some outfits deal in flim-flam rather than charitable endeavours, we need transparency.

So, too, does the not-for-profit sector, which has its own reputation to protect.

The second was supposed to ensure financial advisers acted in their clients’ best interests rather than ramping up corporate products and salting away sales commissions.

Most of the financial sector supports the regulations except, significantly, banks and the like who have their own barrow to push and lots of clout.

And, at a time when hand-wringing over the future has become a national sport in a greying land, those investing in their old age need all the protections they can get.

Without them, it’s like swimming among the Straddie sharks with a bag of burley tied to your leg.