Pain of abuse stays forever

By Brian D’arcy
Sunday World
July 25, 2014

http://www.sundayworld.com/top-stories/columnists/fr-brian-d-arcy/pain-of-abuse-stays-forever

Pope Francis

I’VE lost count of the number of people who were shocked when Pope Francis said that one in fifty priests were child abusers.

I’ve done nothing to alleviate their shock by telling them that it’s much more than 2%.

Studies across the world repeatedly show that paedophiles in the priesthood make up between 3% and 5% of all priests. If you ask me, it’s even higher because not all abuse is reported.

When you add it all up I wouldn’t be surprised if the real number of paedophiles within the priesthood is nearer 8%.

Priest abusers are only part of the story.

The vast majority of abuse takes place within families or by neighbours. What I want to concentrate on today is the devastating and lasting effects sexual abuse has on a child.

Unless you’ve been abused yourself it is impossible to understand the devastation that happens in your life. Personally I am convinced that it’s almost impossible to live a normal life after you’ve been sexually abused.

There was a powerful article in last week’s edition of the religious magazine The Tablet which I hope they won’t mind me referring to.

It is written by the wife of a man who was abused as a child in a boarding school in England.  

His abuser was a priest. His wife bravely explains that at the beginning of their marriage they hoped to be a normal couple on a beautiful journey even though she already knew about his abuse.

She recognised she was married to “a kind, sensitive (man) who had great moral integrity” who, at the same time, was a deeply damaged individual destroyed by being sexually abused by a monk.

Furthermore his relationships with his wife and two daughters were fatally damaged by his abuse. Even his relationship with God is wounded. 

The first sign that his ability to be intimate was damaged was when he moved into a single bed shortly after their marriage.

“I blamed the insomnia he had suffered since school days, not his deep seated fear of intimacy” his wife wrote.

He had an intense need for privacy, which the writer thought nothing of, since many people who attend boarding schools have an intense need for privacy.

More difficult to cope with were his angry outbursts which escalated after the births of their daughters.

After seven years of marriage, a letter arrived from the police asking if he could help with the investigations into the sexual abuse of children by a number of monks at his old school.

He agreed to help the Police and his wife pinpoints the beginning of a complete breakdown to the days after he gave his testimony to the police.

He had suffered terrible abuse from one of the monks when he was between the ages of 9 and 11, which he had suppressed.

As an abuse victim I can identify with the victim. I know that, try as I might, I have found it increasingly difficult to come to terms with what happened to me between the age of 9 and 11.

The victim’s wife discovered that her husband simply couldn’t manage his own life as a result of the abuse.

Partly because of his testimony, one of the monks was sentenced to two years in prison; the other had died.

The woman makes another excellent point. She says her husband never thought of compensation but presumed that the school would apologise to him. They never did.

The downward spiral continued. He began to drink too much, he spent hours in his office alone, he  and found fault with everyone, especially his wife and his two young girls.

In desperation she herself She began to research the damage sexual abuse does.

An American  Psychoanalyst Richard Gartner enlightened her: “The anger, fear and isolation that typically results from childhood sexual abuse is particularly corrosive to healthy love.”   

The result was that she and her husband constantly fought. He needed to control her and she spent years trying to keep him calm him.

Sometime later another school friend rang her husband asking for help in suing the school and the monks who abused them. Both victims had been abused and the other man also had multiple disastrous relationships.  

This had a profound effect on her husband who for the first time, her husband “was able to acknowledge that the abuse was still affecting his life too – and ours…. Within a few months he was again experiencing flashbacks, panic attacks and unable to work; he  and suffered a nervous breakdown.

Now he is piecing his life together, slowly but steadily. His wife recognises that this is the most dangerous time for their marriage but she hopes and prays that their love will carry them through. She admits she is angry. “I am angry about what was done to the person I love. I am angry that our children and I have had to deal with the fallout, angry about the lack of help available to us, angry that our girls have had to witness so much aggression and turmoil from a father who adores them, yet is often unable to show it.”

Mostly she is angry with her husband’s abusers and the school which refuses to say sorry.

Society has to accept that the sexual abuse of a child damages the child for life.

For the victim it’s a life sentence. For those in relationship with them it will also be is also a life sentence that not even love can overcome.