With the blessing of my editor, and as Covid19 rules our timelines, here is a peek into Chapter 7 of #VeiledThreat.
Curiosity. The who, what, why of Pk Hill
I am a soul in the process of metamorphosis.
I hear the tiny voices in my head. They are so young and although muffled they are so very wise.
What is the meaning and purpose of my life? Why do I write about torturous sexual memories and horrific episodes that used to silence and shame me? Why am I now willing to publicly rip off the decades old bandaids that lay atop scars crooked and red and expose my soft underbelly to the world?
I write about this horrorshow because writers write best when they write what they know. I know about the collateral damage of child sexual abuse and rape and the consequences of conspiracies of silence adhered to by church, family, and society.
I write because I want to heal and because negatives only develop in darkness and I want to feel the sun on my face again.
Why bother, I ask myself. Why rip open the wounds of my soul and bleed upon these pages...and as quickly as the question forms I remember why I do this work. I do not want another child to experience what I was subjected to and so I will continue to speak my truth regardless of how it may be received. It is my purpose.
I work hard to raise awareness and teach prevention in rooms filled with people who are 'woke' and aware of the dangers and devastation of CSA and sometimes I speak about the truth in rooms where the audience would prefer not to listen. But whether in front of a live audience in a studio with Dr. Oz., or at a compulsory attendance meeting speaking with educators and parents my story remains the same and I get to teach about the damage and devastation childhood sexual abuse and rape carves into a victim's body, spirit, and soul. I get to teach about ACE’s: Adverse Childhood Experiences and the permanent imprint sexual abuse leaves on the life of a victim.
Check this box if you experienced child rape. Check this box if you were neglected, emotionally ignored, physically abused, or sexually exploited as a child. ACEs teaches mental health professionals (victims and survivors) that our body keeps track of every violation from the tiniest touch to the most violent of rapes and even if our minds cannot remember the specifics of the abuse... the body keeps score.
Check this box if one or both of your parents were physically abusive to you, your siblings, or to each other. If there was an alcoholic or addict in your family check this box. Were you subjected to manipulation, lies, neglect, or abandonment? Were you considered disposable? The list goes on and the more boxes you check the higher your score and the more physical challenges you are apt to experience during your lifetime. The correlation between childhood sexual abuse and its physical manifestation on a victim's lifestory is proven... and profound.
When I arrived at a place in my life when I could no longer out run the memories, nightmares, and flashbacks associated with CSA I turned back to drugs and alcohol to curb the pain and quell the thoughts of suicidal ideation. If I truly wanted to heal, and I did, I had to read and study the ACEs report and now, today, by publicly sharing my abuse and putting a face to the phrase victim-survivor... I teach and write and speak about what I know best.
Sometimes getting a 10 out of 10 does mean you win. It is not always beneficial to earn an A.
The first time I was raped I was five years old. It happened on the altar of our town’s catholic church. The perpetrator was a 450-pound pedophile priest who we knew as Father Dan. He was my hero until he raped me on the altar of Our Lady of Mount Carmel church in Ridgewood, New Jersey. Seven more years of sinister sexual acts of depravity, secrets, lies, threats, and brutality followed. The abuse did eventually end but only after a violent rape in a secluded confessional at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in NYC which intiated several surgeries and required five blood transfusions where I contracted Hepatitis C...land eventually resulted in my inability to ever have my own children.
It is not always a good thing to earn an A.
I was sabotaged from day one.
I was…
....Side-Tracked
......Hijacked
........Backstabbed
My sperm donor was emotionally unavailable and my mother was a drunk. I also believe she was a survivor of childhood sexual abuse who, like me, was never provided the necessary treatment to heal. I believe she was simply too wounded to protect me, to love me, to love herself.
At 15, I was turned over to the 36-year-old pedophile nun who introduced me to sex, drugs, and alcohol to make me compliant in the bedroom.
Why me? I ask that question a lot. Why was I considered expendable?
Yes. I checked that box too.
At 15 I told the nun about Father Dan. I confided in Sister Eileen Shaw of the Charities in Convent Station, Morristown, New Jersey and I asked her if Father Dan was telling me the truth,"Am I a sinner and is it true that I am going to spend eternity in hell"? She responded quickly, almost too quickly persuading me to unburden myself and tell her all my 'dirty little secrets' and I did. I told her that the priest had brutalized me. I told her that if I failed to please him sexually he would strip me naked and lock me in a cold dark closet for hours.
Sister Eileen said, "It was not his fault" and told me, "He was a sick man", and then she took me under her wing and into her bed and with a flagrant disregard for my life, breath, and soul she used my young body to satisfy her own carnal needs. The moment she opened the pearl-like buttons on her Barbizon nightgown and took my hand and placed it on her breast she threw her vows and her integrity out of the open bedroom window and into the darkness and salt air that surrounded the house that sat on the sand near the ocean.
“Drink this tea,” she said, and I did. The tranquilizers she had crushed and mixed with alcohol removed my power of choice. She groomed me; an impressionable, vulnerable, needy 15 year old girl. She used me as a recipient for her deviant sexual behavior and 'shared' me with a 70-year-old pedophile priest with bad breath, a huge nose, and rough hands. Sister Eileen sex-trafficked me through 13 states and across the International border of Canada to the tip of Nova Scotia and as far as the Bay of Fundy. We had sex from one end of the east coast of North America to the other. She told me I was special. She told me I was chosen.
She told me she was my savior.
I become a sex toy for a predatory nun on a hunting expedition for fresh young meat.
Another box on the test for Adverse Childhood Experiences was checked.
Most of the time Sister Eileen was gentle but when she was drunk, angry, or hungry for sex she became a Stepford nun, a vessel void of compassion, concern, or care. She became aggressive, demanding, and belligerent. I became afraid of her. I was afraid of men because Father Dan had taught me that men were rough and demanding, demeaning and violent where Sister Eileen was more confusing crossing that line into obscene behavior when I least expected it. Sometimes it was in a convent bedroom in Connecticut, New Jersey, or Florida... sometimes it was in a dirty highway motel room on Route 17 north in Bergen County New Jersey in the middle of a school day and other times it was in motel rooms in Vermont or Maine while others nuns slept in the same room in the next bed. Sister Eileen would nudge me awake, place her hand over my mouth and whisper in my ear demanding I sexually pleasure her. There were times I knew the nuns in the bed, so close were just pretending to be asleep.
I wish I did not remember the names and places where these atrocities took place. I wish I could forget everything but the ACE’s report explains that the body remembers even if the mind cannot. The abuse is stored in our cellular memory and healing, if at all possible can take a lifetime.
Sister Eileen Shaw, perpetrator and pedophile, was given a lifetime of therapy by her religious community.
I was denied the same opportunity.
And so the journey continues...with some hesitancy but always with truth✍✍✍
CSA Survivor Advocate LifeCoach
Storyteller and TruthTeller
Trauma-informed writer speaker educator
SNAP leaderPennsylvania
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