I was sexually assaulted as a child, I kept silent for 50 years

THE WeSpeak online anonymous platform launched this week by the Rape Crisis Centre for survivors of sexual violence, means people can share their stories anonymously without fear of being trolled or sued.

This initiative has inspired me to tell my story in public for the first time in 50 years - though not anonymously.

Like all the best horror stories, my story begins with a small, trusting child, a sunny morning and an adventure. It was June or July. The weather was amazingly good. My family were staying in Kerry in a holiday house for a few weeks. At the time, maybe there were five of us, of whom I was the eldest.

The farming family who rented the house to us brought their milk to the local creamery every day in big metal churns, transported by a horse and cart through narrow boreens full of fuschia and honeysuckle. This was extremely exciting to us children.

One day, the people renting the house kindly offered that, with the parents’ permission, one of the children could accompany the driver to the creamery.

I was only about six at the time. Maybe seven. I don’t .

I do putting on my best shorts and tee-shirt for the great occasion. My family stood at the gate to wave me off. Later, one of my younger brothers told me he was absolutely leaking envy that I was the one chosen to climb the cart and sit on the wooden seat beside the driver for this exciting journey.

We hadn’t gone around more than a few bends in the road when the carter, who seemed very old to me, clicked to the horse to slow its pace.

He grabbed my tee-shirt by one hand and hauled me closer to him. His hard, calloused hands rummaged under the tee-shirt. Not finding anything to his satisfaction there, he pulled the garment up completely. Then he pulled down my shorts. I had no vocabulary for what he was doing. I had no mental concept of what he was doing. But he was rough and whatever he did, it hurt.

I don’t what happened next except that we were suddenly at the creamery and that I was immobilised by panic and terror. 

The driver positioned the horse and cart so I was facing a blank wall with my back to the thronged yard, which, I quickly, fearfully realised, was loud with the voices of big, strong hard men just like the driver. I sat, speechless, rigid with fear, staring at the wall, my throat hot and closed. 

There was, of course, still the journey home.

The journey home involved another assault, a more painful one. I didn’t understand what he was doing to me or why and I don’t anything else about it. When we reached the holiday house where we were staying, the block of ice in my chest melted and I jumped from the cart and ran screaming down the path to the door.

My parents came to the door, frowning with concern.

I should say here that my father was a member of the Garda Siochana. My mother was a primary school teacher.

The carter must have known what they were. This was a remote, rural area and we were the holidaymakers. Everyone would have known what my parents’ professions were, but like all monsters, the carter didn’t care and had no fear.

He was inviolable. Probably, he went to Mass every Sunday and may-be helped to give out the communion and did readings and was a regular at confession. Maybe he even wore the Pioneer Pin on the lapel of his Sunday suit. And, after all, I was so young, and, sure, who would believe a child about something like that anyway?

As I ran by the door of the holiday house and into the back garden to hide, I looked behind me to see the cart-driver sitting ram-rod straight on the seat, nodding to my father in a brusque man-to-man way, and cheerfully raising his whip in salute as the horse and cart trundled off down the boreen. Not a bother to him. Didn’t cost him a thought, let alone a night’s sleep. And he knew my father was a garda.

At the time, I couldn’t explain what had happened. 

I had no words for it and no understanding whatsoever of what had just been done to me, except that it was wrong, that I didn’t like it and that it hurt. I stayed silent.

For a long time there were disturbing dreams. Eventually I came up with a story about that day, which I told myself over and over. The story I told myself was that I had fought off that monster carter, like Superwoman. I told myself the story so often that I ended up believing it all the way into adulthood.

Then, one day, I was a grown-up journalist interviewing a psychologist who had just written a book about trauma. I was interviewing her about the chapter on child abuse for an article for a national newspaper, when I experienced difficulty breathing.

The psychologist was explaining about symptoms that adult survivors of child abuse had reported. A scorching in the throat was one. Lots of showers. Oh, Lord, that did it for me. I told her I’d have to take a short break and I’d get back to her asap.

I took a short break. I breathed. I went for a quick walk. Then I rang her back and told her my story. She was very kind. Her clinic was booked out, she said, but she provided names and numbers of people who might be able to help. I saw a therapist called Pat Lyons, whose clinic, Brooke Counselling, is at the top of Barrack Street in Cork. It took Pat a while to get around to the matter at hand because, despite the fact I needed to talk about it, every time the topic came up, I fudged and dodged and cried or changed the subject or just went a bit silent.

Any time I tried to discuss it I was overwhelmed by absolute rage and devastating grief because now I knew more or less what had happened to me 50 years ago.

Time went on, but Pat was patient and it eventually emerged that my most specifically traumatic memory was of sitting in the cart facing the big blank wall with all these rough male voices behind me, shaking, petrified by terror.

Now, as an adult, I understood more about that day.

I understood that, to my six-year-old brain, I was surrounded by the same kind of men with the same accents and the same way of talking as the man who had just assaulted me. If they saw me, maybe they would all do it to me too. So that is why I sat so still and watched the wall, hunched over to make myself seem smaller, my throat closed, mouse-quiet.

I couldn’t hear any ladies’ voices. The yard was full of rough male tones, laughing loudly and joking in strange accents.

On the way home, I was assaulted again, only worse. Once we were out of sight of the creamery, and without uttering a word, or looking at me, the carter attacked me. His hands were hard and calloused and he was very rough and I was only six and my voice was choked in my throat.

When we got to the gate of the rented house, the man didn’t look at me as I scrambled down the side of the cart and ran screaming down the path towards our rented house.

I my parents’ faces at the door, bewildered, concerned, and that’s all. I have no other memory.

Later there were nightmares; graphic and unpleasant. These went on for years.

In the end, Pat Lyons decided to use a special technique. It was such a very strange technique that I couldn’t for the life of me see how it could work. It seemed ridiculous. It involved wands.

I checked back with Pat for this column to ensure I was ing the details correctly. The technique is known as Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy - EMDR Therapy for short.

EMDR Therapy worked. I have no idea how or why it. But it worked, and that is how I can write this column without having a meltdown.

My advice to anyone who has experienced sexual abuse of any kind is to make use if the We-Speak initiative. Only 53% of women and 34% of survivors of sexual violence have told someone.

I told nobody this story for nearly 60 years. And now I’m telling my story to anyone who wants to read it. Maybe it will inspire somebody to get their trauma out into the open air, where the rage and pain will eventually dissipate.

: WeSpeak.ie

S:

Sexual Violence Centre Cork 5 Camden Place, Cork

Helpline: 1800 496 496

See www.sexualviolence.ie