Fr Brian D’Arcy: I can manage the memory of abuse but I never grow out of its clutches
‘Hundreds of listeners asked me to write in the Sunday World about some of the effects of sexual abuse’
It was a difficult interview to give and even more challenging to listen to. Brendan gently guided me through the lasting effects sexual abuse has on victims. My own experiences helped me to put words on the ruination abuse brings.I shared some of the personal damage I’ve suffered. I also tried to pinpoint the implications for the Church and society; we cannot simply forget that wholesale abuse happened, hoping that if we throw money at it, the problems will go away. They will not. Victims will never know what pain free life is.As a result, hundreds of listeners asked me to write in the Sunday World about some of the effects of sexual abuse. To do so will open a wound that has never healed, and I do so reluctantly, praying that some good will come from it.Only those who have personally suffered sexual abuse have any conception of the pain it brings.I have been unable to adequately describe my feelings for over 50 years. I cannot communicate even one per cent of the devastation of those dark days.Sexual abuse cripples one emotionally, physically and spiritually. I learned to control my own emotions to share the horror sexual abuse brings, for those who don’t know.No matter how exhausted I am when I go to bed some nights, I cannot sleep if abuse is brought to the surface. I will toss and turn, and if I drift off, I will be shocked back to reality by vivid flashbacks. I will smell the sweat mingled with the stale cigarette stink off his breath. The heavy breathing and the horrible oversized eyes popping out of his big round head will be as visible as they always are when I try to outrun the memory.I will leave the bed and walk around the room in the dark. When I’m awake, I can defend myself. Sleep, on the other hand, makes me vulnerable to thoughts and feelings that torment me.I was an innocent boy of ten years of age, away from home and anxious to please everyone.The teacher — a religious Brother — knew he could get away with anything; no one would question his reputation in Catholic circles in Northern Ireland in 1956. A respected Brother’s word against an insignificant boy from Fermanagh? No contest.I don’t need to describe the abuse; I want only to explain what abuse does to victims.He pretended to be interested in me, even though he wasn’t my teacher. At lunchtime, when his classroom was empty, he led me away from the schoolyard on the pretext of wanting to help me settle in. Then he abused me. I became his lunchtime recreation.I often trembled in fear. I didn’t understand what happened to me, but I knew I was no longer an innocent boy from Bellanaleck. I should have told my parents, but I was too ashamed. I was hampered by needless guilt.When he finished with me, he dismissed me with a pat on the head. He went on to teach his class, and I felt dirty, rotten and fearful. Even though I did nothing wrong, I knew my innocence and childhood were gone forever. The abuse happened many times.I went to Mass every morning and tried to be super good in my innocent, ten-year-old, boyish way. I felt I had to repent for what he was doing to me!There was a day in 1956 when I lost my childhood and never found it again. Since then, I have had to make it through life; deep down within me, the emptiness has never been filled and never will be.The abuser cruelly used me for his gratification. He bullied me in a sly, cynical way. He made little of a naïve country kid just because he could.To this day, I have an inner longing to be accepted for who I am and not for what I am. If only I could believe that God loves me as I am! I constantly wish I could make up for my stupidity in not knowing what abuse was.The result is that I continually allow myself to be used by those in authority. I wish I could grow out of that frozen ten-year-old abused child. It won’t happen now.At times, I can manage the memory of abuse, but I can never grow out of its clutches. I know it’s irrational, but that is what childhood abuse does. A victim can become a survivor but will never be ‘unabused.’I know I have grown more robust in the broken places because of what happened to me. From experience, I can tell the clerical Church with utter conviction how cruel they were in not facing up to abuse in their ranks.Like all-powerful institutions, the churches deliberately chose to see the alleged good name of their institution as more important than protecting innocent children. No sensible person will ever trust them again. Nor should they.
