I was going to wait until after my holidays. Then until after my wedding. Then maybe get summer out of the way. I’ve come to realise that I’ve been saying that for years. I’ve seen news stories come and go about celebrities, about footballers, and about care homes, and religious groups. Every time I’ve thought now is the perfect opportunity but I’ve let it pass.
I have a journal that’s currently 60 sides of A4 so this is massively condensed but I’m now sick of carrying this around with me. Sick of keeping someone else’s secrets.
There are under 80 of you on my tight knit Facebook friends list because of one reason or another; maybe you’re related to me or a long time friend, maybe we’ve become friends recently through a club or something similar. Maybe you keep escaping the cull… I know most of you pretty well. There are hundreds of you on Twitter, who I talk to daily in our groups, networks and communities. But I’m not writing this for any of you. I’m writing this for me. It’s time to stop carrying this weight around, to stop keeping secrets for someone that conditioned me to do so, a long time ago.
In 2012 due to a mixture of mental health trauma, a bad experience with an obscure type of mental health therapy (to stop smoking of all things), a set of memories became unlocked. Memories I always knew where there but I subconsciously blocked - as I’d always been conditioned to do so. From the ages of roughly 8-10 years old I was abused by a neighbour.
I’m not going to go into any details. 5 years ago I sat in front of a camera at a police station and shared the details with them - to no avail. No prosecution as no physical evidence, and no confession. I got passed on an apology but that apparently wouldn’t stand up in court. I also told my story to Victim Support, and then a local NHS mental health centre, later came the online communities and retreat weekends of learning and development with fellow survivors. Thank you specifically to Steve of AMSOSA for that. Thank you to the members of the Offside Trust for your inspirational courage and words of support and to the members of our Purple Summer movement. I then I found a private counsellor outside of my home town who stopped me from killing myself and taught me how to take back control. My counsellor actually suggested I go to the top of a hill one day and shout all this out. I decided that this website will be my hill, and this post is my voice.
The physical element is not something I’m going to go into. It is not something you want to think about. The mental effects are ones I’ve detailed extensively in the other pages of this website. But aside from that some of the worst aspects, particularly for a male, are the emotional ones. The feelings of shame, embarrassment and misplaced guilt. It’s very difficult to say how and why you have them feelings but they tear away at you. More on that another time.
It’s difficult to explain why you feel guilt/shame and so on but it’s very closely linked to coercion and control. A young mind is re-programmed like a computer, the boundaries of right and wrong get corrupted. The coercion to keep secrets and not tell anyone is a seed that gets planted months if not years before any actual abuse starts. It starts with small things. Don’t tell someone about this. Don’t tell someone if I tell you this secret. And it builds from there. Again, more on that another time.
My family and my partner are all aware. Despite these memories, I had a good childhood on the whole. I have an exceptionally amazing and loving family who just got tricked as much as I did. I had some good and some great friends and overall a good life. Partly because I was so good at suppressing these memories which is why they’ve become so damaging in adult life. There’s always the nagging feeling of what I might have become had this not happened, or maybe even if I’d never remembered. I actually see myself as a different person to the date prior to the memories coming back. Who knows what path in life I might have taken. Maybe without any of this happening in my childhood I’d never have suffered any mental health problems? Maybe I was predisposed to? I’ll never know because those choices were made for me, against my will.
The police were made aware and did a half arsed investigation without breaking a sweat. The groups I’ve mentioned above have been amazing and I’ll be eternally grateful. There will be some to whom this is new. Maybe it’ll change your perception of me. I know that since writing these posts some of you have distanced yourselves from me. Some of you who I wouldn’t have expected to do so. In turn I’ve removed myself from some social situations just for self care. But none of this changes who I am. I’m not sick. I don’t have a disease. I’m not going to become the same monster that found me. You also don’t have to tread on eggshells or treat me any differently. Any jokes you might make will be a reflection on you as a person and/or parent as opposed to me as a victim.
What I’m trying to say is what I said at the top. That this is for me. This is because for most of my life there’s been an element of someone else influencing or controlling me. This is me breaking the silence and taking back control, so I can not only survive, but thrive.
