The God Squad

Dr Michael Corry looks at how sexual abuse leads to self-loathing
The emerging self, with its inherent potential, needs to be protected and, like a seedling, nurtured in fertile ground.

Sexual abuse, like no other trauma, eclipses this natural unfolding with an impact of such magnitude that is rarely appreciated. Upwards of 150,000 adult women and men in Ireland have experienced statutory rape in childhood. Five times that figure experienced other forms of sexual abuse, ranging from inappropriate touching to the forced witnessing of exposure.

Picture an infant, whose window on the world is the rim of their cot, whose cry or smile elicits the unqualified, unconditional attention of her mother and father, their watchful eyes holding her gaze completely, making her feel, for those moments, the absolute centre of the world. In the infant’s tiny mind an inner knowing is forming – “I have made this happen.”

Now put yourself in her tiny shoes and fast forward to a time when the same apparently loving father is gradually beginning to express his ‘love’ in a sexual manner involving you in sex games, which evolve over time into full sexual intimacy such as that shared by consenting adults. Your protestations are mollified, your co-operation validated and your secrecy rewarded. Variations of this premature sexualisation occur. Not for some fathers the process of seduction, but rather sadistic brutal intercourse instilling terror and pain, where every orifice is violated. You have no escape.

Drunk or sober, day or night, he has access to you. Your reason for living has been reduced to being a sexual object, a sex slave. Once again, and in both examples of fathers, the belief holds – “I have made this happen.” The same interpretation will be formed if the attentions are those of a grandfather, uncle, sibling, neighbour or babysitter.

Fast forward again. You are now a teenager, perhaps at this stage no longer being actively abused, you now live a secret life besieged by guilt, shame, depression and self-loathing. School life becomes meaningless. Recreational drugs and alcohol bring anaesthesia. Suicide – the ultimate escape – is always on the agenda.