Warning: This article contains descriptions of abuse that some readers may find distressing
ALMOST ALL OF the people who gave testimony to the scoping inquiry into sexual abuse at religious schools in Ireland said that the abuse they experienced led to the premature end of their childhood.
The scoping inquiry revealed almost 2,400 allegations of sexual abuse of children in schools run by religious orders. There were 844 alleged abusers in over 300 schools run by 42 religious orders across the country.
The report of the scoping review, which was published on Tuesday evening, details the harrowing testimony given by survivors.
They described the impact the abuse had on their childhood and adolescence, how it affected their sense of self and confidence, their social interaction and in some cases, their relationships with their parents.
The majority of participants also described a significant adverse impact on their mental health in their childhood and youth, while many said the impact of the abuse had a profoundly negative effect on many aspects of their adult lives.
One person said: “‘Fear has been with me for a lifetime.”
The report notes that many participants said their sense of safety, happiness and trust in the world was replaced by chronic fear and sadness as a result of the abuse they experienced.
“We were singing and laughing little kids, then that’s the day my childhood ended,” one person said.
Another person said their childhood ended “as fast as it began”.
“The physical, but emotional, mental pain of the first rape is as real today as then,” they said.
I withdrew into myself, I became emotionally empty. I was screaming on the inside with anger and fear, but no one could hear or see me.
Others recounted how the abuse changed their understanding of the world and made it somewhere where they felt afraid and unsafe.
“I lost my naïve view of the world; it became a lot greyer – the world became a dangerous place to be,” one person said.
Some participants described how their experience of sexual abuse impacted their
concept of self and obstructed the development of their identity during their formative
years.
One person said they changed their whole personality at the time in order to cope with what had happened to them.
“You become hard. You become a different person to deal with it. Otherwise, it
subsumes you. You’re not yourself,” they said.
For some, the abuse stopped their emotional development entirely. One man said he had never progressed past childhood, while one woman said her emotional development had stopped at a very young age.
Participants also described feelings of “intense shame” and said they were made to feel responsible about what had happened to them, the report states.
“I was angry at him for what he was doing and for making me feel so small and
vulnerable. But I was angry with myself for allowing it to happen,” one person said.
Feelings of helplessness and hopelessness were also described by participants, as well as impaired trust, self-blame, self-loathing and a deep belief that there was something innately wrong with them.
One man said that after he was abused, he woke up the next morning feeling “totally ashamed of myself” and like he could “no longer trust myself to do the right thing”.
It takes very little to shame a child for the rest of its life. I had to wait 52 years to finally be able to forgive and love myself.
The report states that many participants said the abuse caused them to stop socialising and withdraw from the world around them, leaving them struggling to maintain friendships.
One man said he became increasingly introverted and found it hard to deal with reality, saying he went from “a person who was outgoing to a person who wouldn’t go out the door”.
“It was literally, lock yourself into the living room and stay in front of the TV for the evening,” he said.
In some cases, the determination to hide what was happening to participants made it difficult to form and keep close relationships.
One account described how a participant found it difficult to be in any kind of one-to-one situation with people and found it difficult to talk about himself.
“I became very secretive. I was concealing so much through that time.”
For some people, the sexual abuse they experienced impacted their relationship with their parents throughout their childhood.
The report notes that some people said the relationship fractured because their parents viewed their child’s different behaviour as carelessness or rebellion, while others said that them avoiding school and not getting good grades further damaged the relationship.
One man said that when he dropped out of school, it impacted his relationship with his mother because she felt “he had failed”.
Some participants described how they did not want to attend their parents’ choice
of school, but were sent anyway, with one saying they became estranged from their mother “because I blamed her for sending me to that school”.
In other cases, the parent/child relationship was described as being impacted by the child blaming the parents for not protecting them from the abuse.
Participants described how, in some cases, this was because parents did not see the signs of sexual abuse.
One man said his relationship with his father changed drastically after he disclosed the abuse to him, saying he called him “lazy” and “a liar” and was very violent towards him.
Many people reported a wide range of effects from the abuse on their mental health, according to the report. These include anger, insecurity, inability to sleep, bedwetting, anxiety, panic attacks, eating disorders and depression.
In many cases, participants said they turned from being a happy young person into an extremely unhappy one and the impact on their mental health was described as profound.
One man said he grew hypervigilant and would always look for exits and escape plans upon entering a room, something that he does to this day.
In most cases, the mental health problems described in childhood followed them into adulthood.
Some people were prescribed medication for depression at very young ages. One man said he experienced debilitating panic attacks and became bedridden before being sent to a psychiatric hospital in his teens, where he was locked in a ward with adults. He said he “just had unmitigated fear and anxiety over almost everything”.
Others described experiencing self-harm, suicidal ideation and attempting to take their own life. Several people told the inquiry about former classmates who had died by suicide or high-risk behaviour and expressed the belief that those deaths were related to sexual abuse at school.
While the majority of people reported suffering in silence and isolation, a
number of people spoke of trying to manage the pain. The most common coping strategy described was use of alcohol and drugs, often starting at a young age.
The report also outlined what participants said about the impact of childhood sexual abuse on their adult lives, with some describing the experience and its consequences as “fundamentally life changing”.
Participants told the inquiry about how they kept searching for answers to ‘why’ questions, but couldn’t find any explanations.
One person said: “Why me? What have I done? Why didn’t I do anything? Why was I not able to? So many whys; that creates a problem.”
Others said they felt the abuse had destroyed their life entirely, with one saying:
I’ve never been okay. I can honestly say there’s not one single day I have been okay.
Many people told the inquiry that the still feel sad or angry when they think about how their life could have been, and described a sense of loss related to their identity and their opportunities.
One person said the hardest part “is that you lose that person you were meant to be, as you never meet that person again and fulfil your potential”.
Another person questioned: “Am I the person that should have evolved, or am I a product of this abuse? I don’t know who I am.”
Participants explained how they kept trying to move on from the sexual abuse and
enjoy life despite the past, but they found this very difficult.
“I got a life sentence; we all got a life sentence,” one participant said.
“It happened in the 60’s, but really, it’s happened every day since. You live with it every day. I try to move on, but it hits me in the face.”
Others described how childhood shame continued to influence their perception of self and how they related to others, which was further linked to difficulties in growing and maintaining relationships.
One participant said the longest lasting effect for them “is that I still live in fear of people finding out what has happened to me in the past”.
Some also described how the shame they still carried with them from childhood continued to build a wall of fear and isolation between them and other people.
“I am close to no living soul, even those close to me. I can’t let myself be loved. I have no friends even from childhood, as being close means opening yourself up,” one person said.
They said they still felt ashamed from what happened to them. “I’m living a lie; I act all day, every day.”
The majority of participants described significant negative impacts of sexual abuse
on their mental health, including experiencing anxiety, depression and PTSD as well as poor self-esteem, isolation, social withdrawal, shame, anger and hypervigilance.
One person said the effects of the abuse were “lifelong, including frequent flashbacks, nightmares, loss of sleep, ongoing embarrassment, shame, questioning ‘what if’, and psychological and emotional hurt and damage”.
Another person said their anxiety and depression was so bad that they couldn’t swallow. “For two years I couldn’t go to the cinema or anything, because I would get panic attacks,” they said.
Another man linked his need for order and cleanliness in his home to his experience of abuse. “I think the cleanliness came from him [the abuser] an awful lot because I felt so dirty from him.”
One man said he never forgot the smell of the abuser’s breath and the mucus on his lips. “It feels like it was only yesterday. This always comes back to haunt me.”
Intrusive thoughts were experienced by another man, who believed that the abusers were
following him around.
I’d say “He’s there, he’s there, he’s looking at me” but he wasn’t, it was just my brain.
For others, intrusive thoughts were tied to particular triggers. One man said he experiences PTSD symptoms around churches to this day.
“I start to vomit when I smell incense or the smell of a church. Even just going for a funeral or a wedding, I’m on edge and just want to get out of there.”
The full report can be read here.
One in Four, a charity for survivors of child sex abuse, has received an increased number of calls to its helplines since the scoping inquiry report was published.
Deirdre Kenny, CEO of One in Four, told RTÉ’s News at One programme yesterday that many people have been in touch with them.
This includes some looking to understand what happened in the school that they were in, and family members who feel impacted following conversations prompted by the report.
“People have come forward for the first time, disclosing their abuse, very overwhelmed with emotion, with a sense of grief and loss for the childhood that has been lost for them and their fellow survivors,” she said.
She said the report will have activated old memories and feelings, and while some people come forward straight away, for other people, it takes time.
For anyone who wishes to disclose their own experience, Kenny said there are a number of things they can do.
“They should try and confide in someone that they trust if that’s possible. If not, there are services out there for them to reach out to,” she said.
“It may take weeks or months before people realise ‘I need to do something about this’.”
She advised anyone who wishes to come forward to reach out to One in Four or other professionals who understand this issue, and to confide in a loved one or friend if they can.
Support is available
One in Four provides support for adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse; you can call 01 662 4070 or email info@oneinfour.ie
An extensive list of support services, for people in Ireland and abroad, can be read here.
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