May I be part of the Healing not the Hate.

The fact is, people I love were molested and raped by Gary Goddard. At least 4 that I know of first hand. I had to call a member of my own family to ask “Can we talk? Were you molested by him as well?” My heart raced in my chest as I waited for the answer. Memories of Gary and the hours he spent with my sibling in his theater productions starting when he was just 4 yrs old, flooded my head. I was in a panic. My mother had left him in the care of a Monster. I felt my face flush with anger as I pictured how I would kill Gary with my own hands. Rage and hatred overwhelmed me. It was hard for me to breath, blood pounded in my ears. I sat there picturing how I would kill him, literally. I waited tensely then finally, “No, he never touched me.” came the quiet answer thru the phone. I hesitated for a moment before shakily saying, “I believe you. I love you. I just had to ask.” After we hung up I burst into tears. I sat in my car angrily sobbing. What was happening? I had not experienced any sense of relief. I was shaking with emotions. Memories came flooding back and missing puzzle pieces from my past were suddenly fitting together, to form a clear picture.

Other boys had been asked if they were molested by Gary and they had initially said “No.” They had held the ugly truth inside for decades. I now know that my dear friend Scott Drnavich had been raped by Gary Goddard as a young boy. We talked about the rape, in the wee hours of the morning during one of our drunken sleepovers. He told me he had been raped more than once as a young boy, but not by who. We both knew that he couldn’t step away from that pain without him naming his rapist but he wouldn’t. I held him against me and he cried quietly into my chest until we fell asleep. I wanted to protect him. I wanted to hurt the person that hurt him and I told him that. He knew abuse affected his relationships and he wanted to put it in a box and bury it deep, but it came out in unhealthy ways over the years. He was openly gay yet asked me to marry him once when I was 18 so we could “make a family that no one could break”. Coming from an physically abusive childhood myself, I briefly toyed with the idea that we could actually make that work, we knew each other’s childhood traumas. We would live happily ever after, protecting each other. We loved each other after all and both craved the same safety. We knew it was only a fantasy and I ended up dating his best friend and roommate shortly after that. Scott would come get me from Santa Barbara in his little sports car and drive me down for the weekend to their place in Venice then bring me back. He dressed me up in his Drnavich Originals and dragged me out to parties. Scott liked this arrangement at first but then quickly became jealous and anxious when I told him I loved his roommate and wanted to tell him so. Soon after that conversation his roommate dumped me. Many years later, when we both lived in N.Y. he confessed to something that had been weighing on his heart. He had purposefully broken us up, by telling his roommate a lie about something I had said. I was devastated. He told me then that he had needed that friendship in order to survive. They shared a tragic bond. That friend knew who the rapist was and kept his secret safe. That friend, the boy I loved, had been molested as well. Scott didn’t tell me then that it was Gary. He protected his friend and never told. He knew it would ruin his budding acting career if it came out. He knew I would expose Gary if not worse. I see now how many lives would have been changed for the better and worse if I had found out their tragic secret. Their story was not mine to tell. I am in awe of the courage it took for my first love, his roommate Anthony Edwards to step forward and begin the process of undoing Gary Goddard’s savage hold on so many people’s lives and well being.

Sitting in the car the other night, raging inside I realized suddenly that the same person who had hurt my friends and so many others was now hurting me. I was sitting in my car feeling Hatred. I was experiencing the emotion of Rage and Hatred in every cell of my body.

I was overcome with sudden clarity. My body was actually feeling nauseous, sick from the hatred. I was not helping anyone by hating. I wasn’t changing anything by raging. I wasn’t holding a space for healing by hating and raging.

Starting with Tony, those brave men who have now steeped forward to bare their souls and shine a light on these dark crimes against them, need us to hold them close and protect them. To honor their individual processes of healing. Our only job is to open our hearts and shine our Love on them. Celebrate their bravery in every way we can think of. If we wallow in hatred and gulp down rage we will drown ourselves and be unable to lift them up above this fray. They need us now.

In honor of my friend Scott, I pray. May I be part of the Healing not the Hate.