Toni's story
When I was a high school senior, I put in applications for small colleges that were all far away. My mother wanted to know why I wanted to be so far away. I mumbled something about independence. The real reason was because my father had sexually abused me from the ages of 9 until I was almost 17. My last year home I had begun to lock my bedroom door at night. It was the hardest thing I ever had to do in my life. I just wanted to put the past behind me and start over. Well, I did go to school some 8 hours away. In the naivete of a 18 year old, I didn't realize problems don't go away just because you will them to.
Because of the distance and expense of traveling home, I didn't have to face my father again until our Thanksgiving break. What a shocker for me to run smack dab into the same problems I had left. He continually pressured me for "one more time if you love me." I refused even as I could feel my heart break. As much as I hated what he had done to me, I wanted him to love me just for me. Returning to school wasn't the same. The sense of freedom and relief vanished.
I was a sophomore in college when I found out that my father was dying. I knew he had been sick, but I never really thought of his mortality. I sank into a deep depression. I was very involved in the church on campus. I wondered how God could ever forgive my sin. What a wreched creature I was. I ate little. My stomach was constantly hurting to the point of being painful. I know there are angels because they kept me safe as I wandered the dark alleys and hills of the small town college without once being confronted or hurt. My grades crashed. I loved him. I loathed him. How could I possibly reconcile that in my little brain? And of course I wondered if my wishing his death at times had anything to do with the cancer he had.
Midway through my sophomore year I transferred colleges. I wanted to be closer to home in case anything happened. I went home more frequently. I could see my father's health deteriorating. It triggered something in me that caused me to have flashbacks. Being at school with strangers, I withdrew into myself even further.
Now, when I transfered I met Father Hubert Kealy. He was the campus priest. He was 39, handsome, and very charismatic. Many of the girls had crushes on him. He was old enough to command respect, but young enough to speak our language and know our needs. I met him the 3rd day on campus. He pulled me in and we quickly became friends. I told him about my dying father. He comforted me. I became very involved with the campus ministry. I cooked, cleaned, did his laundry, and basically worshiped the ground he walked on. He was so holy. With him everything seemed to make sense. He listened to me and told me what a good person I was.
As my father was dying and the flashbacks were getting more frequent, I longed to rid myself of my sin. I thought if I finally confessed it, all the pain would stop. It was like carrying around an elephant. The more Hugh told me I was good and kind, the more I knew that deep down I was the scarlet woman. My soul was black and ugly. I attempted several times to confess. All confessions were face to face now. How could I confess such heinous crimes to someone who I trusted and needed in my life as a counselor, friend, and confessor. What if he condemned me to the pits of hell? What if he thought I was disgusting and turned me away?
It took several sessions of late night talks before I finally broke down and told him about my father. The sobs came from the deepest part of me and Hugh comforted me. He told me that my father's abuse of me wasn't my fault. There was nothing to forgive. I felt like God himself had come down from the heavens and forgiven me.
Over the next few weeks I confided in him about my feelings. I told him how dirty I felt. How much I loathed myself. He talked me through my feelings and I was so grateful.
One night not too long after the great confession, I went to his apartment to wake Hugh up before the midnight Mass. This had become my job. I woke him up an hour before Mass so he could go over his notes. I made him coffee and generally just hung around and he drove me to Mass with him. Well, this one night when I went to wake him up, he grabbed me and kissed me deeply. I was totally shaken. I had never had a boyfriend. Had never kissed a man let alone so intimately. I pulled away. Told him I would get his coffee and fled the apartment.
As I walked home a little voice told me that I knew what Hugh wanted. I also knew if he asked, I would comply. But as I went to bed that night, I began to think of the bleary eyed look he had given me. Maybe he wasn't really awake when he kissed me. Maybe it was an extension of a dream. Maybe he wouldn't even remember it. I convinced myself he didn't really mean to pull me to him and kiss me like that. The next day when I saw him it was as if nothing had happened. I was right. It was part of a dream. Whew!
It was only weeks later that one late evening I had spent the night in the guest room of the campus ministry. Hugh lived upstairs. My room mate had a male guest in our room. I had no other friends on campus, so I thought I would stay on the downstairs couch at the ministry building. Other students sometimes did. The modern couch was lousy to sleep on, but it would do in a pinch. When Hugh observed my overnight bag, he offered the guest room in his apartment upstairs. While getting ready for bed, I heard him call me to his room. I was dressed in a granny styled night gown. There was nothing revealing about it, so I thought nothing of going to see what he wanted.
What he wanted was me. He drew me to him. As he kissed me, I thought of how wrong it was. When he began to disrobe me, I saw my father's face in his eyes. I shut it out. I lay there and did the things I knew would make the moments pass more quickly. Tears slipped out of the corners of my eyes. I didn't know why I was sad. After all this was love, wasn't it? What else did I have to offer this man who had been so patient, loving and kind toward me? Afterwards as he got dressed for Mass, he asked me if I could keep a secret. How odd I thought. Hadn't secrets been what my life was all about?
I compartmentalized my life. I knew I was going to burn in the pits of hell for seducing a priest. Funny how my mind assigned guilt and culpability to myself. But I needed Hugh. He made me feel wanted despite my wretched past.
It was a strange relationship. I was like a little puppy dog trying to please it's master. I lived for the compliments, the pats on the head. Sex was just an aside. I put that in a separate place.
During our sessions where I poured my heart out about my father, Hugh encouraged me to confide the deepest feelings and secrets of my heart. I was working up to confronting my father, when he died. Left with residual anger and resentment, I almost fell apart. Hugh pulled me in.
Our friendship/lover relationship was on and off again throughout the next 5 years. We were always friends or so I thought. The lover part ebbed and flowed with his needs and his other lover's demands. I was jealous (something foreign to me) and yet I didn't feel like I deserved his attention. So I was there when he wanted and backed off when he wanted. I became friends with his other lover and died a little inside each time we were all together. How cozy.
Sometime in the midst of all of this Hugh was transferred from campus work to a parish. Rumors flew that he was having an affair with this other lover. He was! Other kids on campus knew we were friends and asked me if Hugh and this woman were having an affair. After all they were seen together so often. I retorted that Hugh and I were often together. Did that mean we were sleeping together? Silence... How ridiculous!
I continued to visit him at the rectory. The other priest who lived with him politely retreated from the room when we were together. Sqeaky beds were not questioned.
I graduated college and took a teaching job a few hours away. I didn't want to be close enough to visit often. Still, when he called, I drove the hours to see him.
After about 5 years of all of this, I began to have some real head problems. The internal conflict of being a very devout roman catholic girl and sleeping with my priest raged. I couldn't keep the lives separate. And the flashbacks of my father increased. I often heard his voice telling me that I was no good, a whore, worth nothing but what was between my legs. When I was about to break, I called a sexual assault crisis center.
I began to get counseling from a wonderful woman. As I got stronger, I told Hugh what I was going through. I told him how confused I was and how I needed his friendship, not to be lovers. He would tell me how he understood. I would go to see him and he would immediately become intimate. I didn't have the emotional strength to say no.
With months of counseling, I became stronger and more firm in my resolve. I refused to see him when he called the next 2 times. Finally, when I felt strong enough, I agreed to see him. He promised he would respect my wishes. He told me how important I was to him and that he wouldn't violate that. I took him at his word.
It seemed when I entered the rectory that he had finally listened. He didn't grab me or try to kiss me. I was elated. That night when the other priest had gone to bed, we sat in the television room talking and watching something inane. I was in a nightgown (stupid me) and sat across the room from him. He asked me to sit closer. The yellow flags went up, but I ignored them. I sat next to him very tensely for a while. He made no moves. We talked. I told him of my counseling sessions. I began to relax. He reached for me telling me he couldn't be near me without wanting me. I said no. I couldn't. I was falling apart. Somehow we were on the couch and I was laying down. I again told him no. He pushed me toward the couch. I pushed back but I could feel his weight. Tears came. I said no.
Then there was my father's face interchanging with his. My father's voice coming out of him. I stopped struggling. I just lay there crying while Hugh moved above me. Wasn't this what I was? He got up and left me there. I went to the guest room. I was plagued with voices of condemnation. When the sun rose I packed my bags and wrote him a note. In it I told him how confused I was and how I feared losing my sanity. I sat on the bed and waited until I heard him downstairs. I went down. He asked me if I was alright. Of course I was. I told him I had to leave early. He walked me to the car and I slipped the note in his hands.
I don't remember the hours long trip home. I guess angels are good drivers. I entered my apartment, crawled into fetal position and didn't move for hours.
I got in touch with my counselor the next day and we began some heavy duty healing work. It was with her that I began to see the abusive nature of the relationship I had been in. I made one last attempt at explaining it all to Hugh. I called him and pointed out how he was the one who had the power in our relationship and how it wasn't fair of him to take advantage of my neediness. He somehow turned it around to the fact that he was hurting too. He railed at me that life never promised me fair. I crumbled under his anger and accusations.
That night I came closer to suicide than I had ever in my life. There were times when I did contemplate taking pills or running off the road at high speeds. This night I didn't think I could survive. I called a friend who knew nothing of what was going on. She dropped everything and came to see this mad woman who was crying hysterically and who would give no explanation.
It took a couple years of counseling to pull all the pieces together. I emerged stronger and healthier for it. I still had a hard time with male/female relationships, but I was getting there. I met a wonderful man and married. We had 3 beautiful children by 1991, but I was still plagued by the fact that Hugh was still out there able to emotionally and physically harm those who most needed the church and it's protection. I finally wrote a letter to the church.
To make a long story short, they breathed a sigh of relief that the statutes of limitations had expired. Basically they told me that these things happen. They were sorry that Hugh's friendship had hurt me. Hugh went through magnatory therapy (or so they said). I did talk to him on one occasion. He sounded nervous. Somehow that made me feel good. He told me how good HE was doing. He was still in therapy and was doing so good. I still felt unsettled, but what else could I do? I put the information into the hands of those who had the power to make the changes that needed to be made. They now had the responsibility. That was a relief.
My spirit has healed in all these years. I am closer to God and my christianity than I ever was when entrenched and indoctrinated in the catholic church. I know that what I was given was not even a fraction of what God wants in our lives.
By the way, it's been 15 years of marriage and I'm still estatic with my life. I married someone who understands what I went through and has supported my efforts to make things right. I now have 5 children. Life is full. I never thought there would be such good and beauty in my life. That's why I still go to incest survivor rooms and rooms for suvivors of priest abuse because the message is that there is hope. God did not want you to go through all the crap that happened, but man in his free will chooses to hurt, betray, manipulate, and abuse. We can heal and come out stronger than we ever imagined.
Well, that's the reader's digest version. Many details have been left out, but the essence is here. I don't mind corresponding directly to any one. I can be contacted at [email protected] I'm very open about my healing journey and will be happy to discuss almost any part of it.
I pray peace and healing to all who visit this site and all those who don't even know about it.
Your sister in healing.........
Toni B