THE AUTHOR of this article, a victim of clerical sex abuse, wrote to the Editor seeking to ask questions of the people of Ireland. In the course of her letter to the Editor, she explained why she wished to remain anonymous, something not allowed on the Letters page.
The author explained her reasons thus:
“The reason I do not wish to give my address is simply that as a victim of clerical sexual abuse it has been very important for me to retain my privacy, having had it violated many years ago. There is no real right of privacy when, as a young person, you are interfered with, exposed in secrecy time and time again.
“For 25 years I lived with the fallout of my abuse, burying it deep within myself while it ate away, impacting on my ‘self’, my mental and physical wellbeing, my family life, my education, my relationship, and my future. When I came to find the strength to face it full on and deal with it in all aspects of my life, it was clear that I had to do the one thing that I had avoided for years: pay attention to myself, put myself centre stage, and work through the hell.
“From the time of my abuse I had projected myself into standing up for others’ rights, on an individual and collective basis, in Ireland and overseas. While this served others very well and at the time was good for me, it was clear when I was ready to face my own reality that the one thing I needed to do was pay full attention to myself, and not distract myself from this task by going public and getting involved with the ‘issue’.
“It was extremely important for this purpose that I keep my privacy; work my painful counselling through, week in, week out, to bring myself to a place that was good for me. This decision was hard for me to fulfil, it did not sit naturally with me and left me repeatedly feeling that I was letting others down, lacking courage to stand up and be counted.
“When I made my first step in approaching the church, they immediately violated my privacy, and this almost pushed me in to a deeper inner retreat than before. That experience taught me that in dealing with the abuse, to repair myself, I had to at all costs protect myself, circle the wagons, and trust no one outside a small circle who equally wanted to protect me.
“Every time I watched brave people like Marie Collins, Colm O’Gorman or Andrew Madden, I struggled within myself to take the step and speak out, knowing that I too could be articulate in challenging the hierarchy, the State and even use my journalist connections to push the agenda. But I stuck with what I needed to do, having for a decade put absolute energy into my counselling and all it unearthed.
“Finally I reached that powerful place of finding closure, and almost four decades later, to being alive.
“So why now do I want to speak out?
“Simply, I can’t stand any longer to watch the dishonesty, the inadequacy, the hypocrisy, and the mistruths being repeated time and time again, and good people like Marie Collins let down. I have asked myself the question: ‘What do I care now if people know my story, what does it matter?’
“But it does. Why should I have to expose myself when I was so wrongly exposed all those years ago? The experience of the abuse has impacted badly on my relationship with my family, contributed to the lack of trust in my own family; why should I have to do anything?
“Yet there are things as a victim, that everyone says they want to listen to, [that] I want to say to the population of Ireland, questions I want to ask, so that people at least listen and consider my views, my feelings in this whole matter.”
The identity of this writer is known to the Editor. The following is what she wanted to say to the people of Ireland:
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