Remembering the guilt and shame of hidden sexual abuse later in life…

A couple of months ago I was having a conversation with my dear friend Richard, and a subject came up that had him very perplexed. When ever we see each other there is never a lack of subjects to discuss as we’ve know each other for a very long and there isn’t anything that is taboo or off limits that we haven't shared. But this sort of came out of left field…..

Richard told me about an incident that happened to him as a young 14 year old while away at a Boy Scouts of America camp retreat in Wisconsin in 1963–64. He said he had completely forgotten about this incident until recently and it was weighing heavily on him and he just couldn’t shake it, and then questioned himself over and over trying figure out if it really had happened. He said a camp counselor took him under his wing one summer, and put him in a favorable position as his personal assistant in the camp office, which then put him in a different league with the rest of his scout cohorts. This BSA camp counselor was quite a big deal muckity muck in the region that covered northern Illinois and southern Wisconsin. He had gained the trust of many people in the community and was very much liked, especially with the parents of the scouts. In fact Richard said the this counselor was often a guest at his home for dinner with his parents. Richards father was a fighter pilot in WWII and the counselor was in the Coast Guard in WWII, so there was a common bond of sorts and many war stories were told.

During that summer at Camp Offield near Lake Geneva WI, Richard said that he got to do more things than the other scouts at the camp. The counselor would take him for rides in his new red Chevrolet Impala convertible , go for ice cream, and one weekend he asked Richard to spend the weekend with him at his apartment. Since the counselor had gained the parents trust there wasn’t even a thought that this might be unusual for a 14 year old boy to spend the weekend with a 45 year old single man. Now a days warning bells would be going off, but back then people just didn’t even give it a second thought, it wasn’t even on the radar that this was or could’ve been strange.

Once they got to the counselors apartment, Richard said the counselor suggested they play a game and wrestle….. In their underwear. Compliant Richard went along with it. After all, that is what boys of that age do from time to time and it’s not that unusual. But after a while of this Richard lost interest and just didn’t want to do it. He was sensing something was a little weird about it and it made him uncomfortable. Richard said the counselor eventually suggested that he could sleep with him in his bed that night, but Richard said he insisted it was ok and that he would sleep on the sofa instead. Sometime that weekend their was an eventual episode of “ showering together “ and Richard was asked to wash the counselors back, and in turn the counselor washed Richard’s back. Whatever happened next Richard didn’t go into detail, but the counselor vehemently told him not to tell his parents, that he ( Richard ) would be in serious trouble if he mentioned anything to anyone!

I then began to explain to Richard, that what probably was weighing him down was the guilt of surviving the sexual abuse and it is most common with victims of sexual abuse to feel as if they somehow brought this onto themselves and the predators will somehow reinforce this. It then makes the victim feel that they are bad, dirty, and there is something seriously wrong with them, and the worst of it they can’t tell anyone because they will feel judged or even outcast. Emotionally and psychologically it really fucks you up! I tried to reiterate to Richard that he did absolutely nothing wrong! The other thing I tried to explain to him is where the internal conflict can sometimes lie, is that especially at that age in puberty your hormones are raging and most boys ( and even grown men….) all you have to do is look at something or someone , or the wind could blow the wrong way and you have an instant erection! It’s nothing to be ashamed of, it happens to all of us, but if someone has physical contact such as the wrestling in underwear episode , and guaranteed if your naked in the shower touching another person or they are touching you and it feels good, naturally again no doubt you’ll get an erection! The confusion that comes with that is when you are heterosexual and another male touches you and you are sexually stimulated, and it feels very wrong and that is were a lot of conflict lies!

It makes you question everything you thought was normal. And that is were the weight, guilt, and shame start to wear you down. And the worst part was at that time in our culture you really couldn’t discuss it with anyone, you had to bare this burden by yourself.

Now the amazing thing is that in survival mode, the mind can compartmentalize traumas such as this, pack it up and put it away, and try to forget it ever happened. Over a period of time the ugliness and guilt can lessen and or even seem like it’s gone. And every so often over the years, something may trigger a moment that takes you back to the trauma and start to feel guilt and shame when you least expect it.

The difficult part now for Richard is now in late middle age, why has this all of a sudden surfaced and is weighing heavily on him? I tried to explain that he was in survival mode, or what is also known as survivors guilt, and he had to put that experience away so that he could go on with his life, and possibly now he is at a stage in his life where he is dealing with some serious health issues, and that it is very common for all of us to start reflecting on our lives, our mortality, and all the experiences we’ve had in our lives, both good and bad. The strangest and sometime the most obscure things will pop in your mind, things you haven’t thought of in maybe 50 years, and then we’re amazed that we’ve forgotten about said things.

Now with all of the exposure over the last few decades of sexual abuse, by priests, teachers, scout leaders, and many other religious groups, it’s easier to talk about, still uncomfortable , but it not uncommon.

In our conversation Richard said, now that he looks back on the whole experience , there were other signs that there were things that didn’t seem right to him . Such as there were other counselors that might have been involved in similar situations, and Richard wondered if there were others that experienced the same things he did? I assured him that most likely there were many others that were abused just as he was, which that then began our quest to see if there was anything on the internet that we could find if there were other survivors of that specific camp and counselor. What happened next was unbelievable!

I told Richard I would do some searching on the Internet for him, so he wrote down the counselors name, dates of his years at the camp, as well as a few other names of counselors that he was suspicious of.

Low and behold, the very first search entry to Boy Scouts of America, Wisconsin , Camp Offield, and counselors name, the whole file opened up! It was an actual BSA official document file on said counselor, with all his personal information , a photo of him, and then came the Coup de Grace! It turns out that the abusing counselor had an ongoing relationship with another scout ( a few years older than Richard, maybe 18 or 19) and he had written the young man notes/love letters that were intercepted by his father! The father immediately confronts the son about this situation with the counselor and the son confesses to everything! The father then contacts the head leaders of the BSA in Chicago, and the immediately come to the home and interview father & son, and father presents the council with all notes and letters from said abuser. The council determines that there is sufficient evidence of abuse, but the father does not want to take any legal action and wants to keep everything hush hush, so the council abides with their wishes.

The very next morning they hold an emergency meeting with the abusing counselor , confront him with the allegations which he denies, but when they show him all the notes and letters that he had written the young man, he buckled! They then forced him to sign a resignation letter, which he was so unfortunately lucky and could continue on with his life and move on without the truth of his predatory nature. I was so amazed this document was available for the world to see! Even the notes and letters were on there to be read. It was unbelievable that we able to find out this much information and more than anything to give Richard some peace of mind and maybe closure, but I still recommended that he seek professional assistance/ therapist to give him a better perspective on what to do with all this information and to help him lighten his burden of carrying this with him all these years.

I can already tell the self realization of what happened to Richard and that he is not alone in this life experience has opened him up and given him hope.

As I’m sure it obvious to anyone reading this, I know of what I speak…….. but this was not my story. I will leave that for another time.