Lifelong Learning

Another penny has finally dropped this week.  When I was twelve or thirteen, knowing me as I do, I would have told myself I wasn't allowed to remember the trauma of St Joseph's until I was really, really old. Well here I am and surprise, surprise, the teacher abuse is all coming back into focus.

I may or may not have already have mentioned an incident in my teenage years when, being from a Catholic family where the mysteries of sex were kept undisclosed for as long as possible, I decided the only way to find anything out was to steal a book.  As stealing was so obviously a sin, I had to keep the evidence hidden in my padlocked box of 'secrets'.  At some stage, my dad must have realised something wasn't quite right at school and decided to break into that box and confront me with my copy of the A-Z of sex.  Uh-oh, I thought, I'm in trouble for stealing again (My mum had once frogmarched me back to the newsagents to apologise for stealing a Beano annual). But no, this time it was, "Why have you got this? I mean look at all this nonsense (line drawings telling me things you haven't, Dad) And this! (flips to back three pages on homosexuality) You know this is all rubbish, dear boy, rubbish!" 

I hadn't even read that far!

He proceeded to give me a lecture on all the misinformation there was in the world concerning sex (which is arguably better than zero information) and I got the distinct impression he was worried about me being gay. I have always wondered why he immediately went to the back pages to confront me.  How could you even think such a thing Dad?! Then he made me burn the book, my extremely hard-earned effort, in the Aga. Yes, we were that posh. 

Well now it occurs to me in a flash of light that he thought that I may be gay because he was told to think that by a certain teacher. The same teacher who had recently palled up with him by buying his old car and had, to my great distress, promoted himself to first name terms.  Naturally, my Dad would have been concerned about his son's declining school career so who better to ask what might be going on at school than one of his teachers?  

I would bet my house on my trusting father being told by this coercive controlling teacher that I was probably struggling with my sexuality. Poor old dad, always believing the best of people, would have easily bought this line and worst of all, not wanted to see what was really going on.  This manipulative teacher was clearly covering all bases so that if he did get caught interfering with me, in his defence he could then say my own father had had doubts about my sexual orientation.  My God, if my dad could've known the struggles I've had to avert my eyes when women are around, I think he might realise he was duped. 

So well done little me for storing all the information I thought was forever blanked out.  The bigger picture is coming into focus at last. I'm writing this simply to log it but boy, am I ever still learning how these creeps operate.

St Joseph's College Ipswich, I and several others are part of your dark past. Please do yourselves and all us former pupils a massive favour and acknowledge publicly there are casualties of your de La Salle era. 

St Joseph's Survivors - still here.

Hats off to Pat Mills who tells it like it is in this blog and podcast.

https://patmills.wordpress.com/2021/04/10/voices-of-awareness-podcast/

I notice another former teacher/abuser died recently and wonder if his family realise yet. My guess is not. 

I'll say it again.  St Joseph's College, Birkfield, Ipswich needs to acknowledge it has a history of child abuse perpetrated by members of staff there.  But not any more, right?  

❓

 

Bye Bye Birkfield.

My last day at St. Joseph's might identify me but I'm beyond caring.  

I had been caught skiving in the o-level year with a friend (for skiving read : avoiding seeing __) at Ipswich railway station so was summoned to Brother Peter, who by this stage had forfeited any respect I'd reluctantly afforded him.  He'd come into class previously saying that if we didn't work hard for our o-levels, we wouldn't be staying on to sixth form, which of course I grasped as my opportunity to not be there a minute longer than was necessary.  He did his usual low-toned, murderous threat act saying he wanted a three page explanation as to why I had bunked off, on his desk, by nine a.m. the next day, or else.

I, of course, relished the opportunity to compose a narrative so compelling in its rationale that my classmates could be left in no doubt as to who was the oppressor and who the victim.  I duly handed in my masterpiece and returned to my classroom to begin the day's lessons. During register, I was summoned back to Brother Peter's classroom by a worried-looking pupil of his.  I walked into a hushed room .

I can't recall his exact words but it would have been something along the lines of, "So gentlemen, here is our Clever Dick Sluggard. And this, gentlemen is what he has to say about his conduct..."  He thrust it to me. "Read it!"

I began.

"Louder! So they can all hear you Jonny!"

I got to about half way through and could see Brother Peter turning a particular shade of dark puce, his rage barely containable.  It was when I got to the sentence , "but it wasn't my fault because..." that he finally flipped and everything sort of went into slow motion!  I knew exactly what was coming. I'd seen it a hundred times. I knew which fist it would be and how the arm would draw back before the swing, and at what height (short).  So I ducked. There was a collective intake of breath and some laughter.

If memory serves me correctly, and I think it does, ducking wasn't allowed in his playbook and he may have even hit the backboard which was just behind me.  At this point I simply walked out to the scream of "Don't you dare duck! Come back here!"  There may have even been applause, I can't say. Certainly in my mind there was. 

I walked down the corridor, out through the doors and into the sunshine and across the grass towards town, taking off my tie and thinking, "why did I not do this years ago?"

Of course, I'd have to come back in the summer to flunk all those o-levels. Well, all except the one I wanted most and the one which was considered least valuable there. Art.  

In my forties I decided I ought to put an education where one should be. I did an Access to Humanities course and according to my tutors, excelled. I began a degree course which confirmed what I always knew; I wasn't "Stupid".  Okay so maybe I never will "never amount to much" but I tell you this:  In spite of childhood physical, emotional, psychological and sexual abuse by a former lay teacher at St Joseph's College, Birkfield, Ipswich (who, by the way, as a school have still to acknowledge this went on (Feb 2021) and could help us all to heal by doing so) I am more determined than ever to live better than any of the (mostly) miserable gits I had the misfortune to have as my teachers. 

They say you never forget a good teacher. Just one inspiring one would have been helpful!

As previously mentioned,  I have now listed 90 or so first and surnames of my former year group plus a few others from years above and below. Some of them may well be survivors too so if the list of former teachers below looks familiar and you need some help, I'm listening.

Bro Dennis Robert (Squealer)

Bro (Sicker) Terence

Bro (Fluffy) Cuthman

Bro (Jonny) Peter

Bro Benet

Bro Ives

Bro.Richard

Bro. Anthony

Bro Bernard

Mr McGlaughlin

Mr Wilcox

Mr Rae

Mr Hughes

Mr Smith

Mr Hawes

Mr Thuell

Mr Moss

Mr Kearney

Mr Krajewski

Mr Rix

Mr 'Snoddy' Taylor

Mr Sumner

Mr D Bevan

Mr Keenan

and you guessed it, 

__

Labore et Tenacitate - "work and stick to it" 

(I do bro,  I do.)

Blogging this stuff is quite hard sometimes so I have to take time out to do life and focus on the good things.  Also, I believe it's important to spend more time looking forward, not back to abuses of the past in order to live as best you can. If you've come through abuse, don't forget to congratulate yourself and your clever brain for coming up with the most amazing survival strategies.  

In spite of the damage done, in spite of the daily battle just to feel "normal" (and boy, you don't half notice when a day feels something like it should), I'm learning that my self-image or belief  is actually a lot stronger than I'd thought. Which is good.

Recently, life has been challenging with COVID etc but I've quite enjoyed feeling one step ahead of many when it comes to the emotional chaos of having to deal with issues one can normally avoid by keeping busy.  (Tip: We are human beings, not human doings.  Learn to embrace yourself.)

Be that as it may, the struggle continues, most notably in that place where sleep meets waking.  If anyone has any tips on how to manage the morning panic attacks when subconscious hasn't fully transitioned to conscious, let me know.  I do all the breathing/grounding techniques like a pro but am pretty certain (probably blogged this before) my dreams are so incredibly detailed because it keeps my brain fascinated enough to not go to the recall of trauma.  They're pretty exhausting dreams and most mornings I wake feeling as though I've just run a marathon. So thanks for that __. 

I walked past his house recently with a friend who commented it looked more derelict than others in the road. Couldn't quite bring myself to knock on the door as didn't quite trust myself to not keep knocking if it was opened. 😂

Anyway, more snippets of memory still incoming.  I mentioned I'd made a list of my year group peers before. well, another name popped into my head randomly in the wee small hours so that makes 88 now, which must be most of three classes of 30 ish surely.  Names of some older guys and some prefects too.  

Anyway, someone let me know when St Joe's gets taken to court.  More than happy to testify.

Pointers

Another pointer to, and one of the main causes of my beginning to wake up to my own past:  my  brother, the family discovered, had been abused at St Joseph's by another teacher who, for the time being shall remain nameless.  But that's his own story to tell, not mine.  Hearing about my brother caused me to ask the question, "Did something happen to me as well then?"  The more I tried to ignore it, the more things I'd never understood about some of my own behaviours began to make sense. 

My sister and I got chatting about St. Joseph's when we found this out about our brother. She knew I'd had issues with __ but then she said something that shook me. She said, "I remember when you started refusing to go to school and missing the bus. That's when __ started giving you lifts into school, to help Mum and Dad out." 

I felt as though I'd been punched in the guts. Oh, my, God. He actually did, I remember it clearly now! I remember leaning away from him as close to the door as I could get. I remember feeling sick. Possibly even having to stop to be sick, and I think he came over all 'caring and concerned for me'. That bit might just be my imagination filling in the blanks but I would put money on it being a case of him playing the chummy role in private and belittler in the classroom. I can still hear him posing some question to the whole class before saying, "Oh don't ask him (me), he's stupid".   

And guess what; those journeys  with him were never my favourite car rides ever because guess what, he would rarely drive me into school by the most direct and obvious route. It was always the most convoluted route. Out of interest, I took the time to drive both recently. The route he took would always be through some of that lovely, quiet Suffolk countryside. Now why would that have been I wonder, from a "professional" obsessed with punctuality and all things ordered? Oh the power and control.

I've since discovered I've quite a keen interest in some of the subjects he managed to put me off completely.  I know you can't live your life on 'what ifs' but I do catch myself wondering how much easier growing up and just living well every day might have been were it not for this teacher.  I think I can count on one hand the times I've woken refreshed by sleep since puberty. Normally I wake feeling as though I've just run a marathon. I suspect I've always had incredibly vivid dreams just to keep my mind distracted enough from remembering the truth in what sleep there has been. I remember what it used to feel like to sleep well and for decades I've rationalised the disturbances as being normal hormonal changes sparked by puberty. Now I begin to think that it was around the age of 12 or 13 that sleeplessness began for another, much darker reason. 

Was it the case that this guy who watched and chivvied us all in the communal showers was busy forming a plan and selecting his easiest target? Again, I'd put money on it. I think there was a network of teachers like him too, given accounts from other former pupils, and I know there are more stories to come out. 

A couple of years ago I looked at the St Joseph's governors list and noticed a former classmate among them so I've not been too encouraged to contact them directly about abuse as it's a bit re-traumatising.  Frankly they should be dealing with their ugly history before being asked to. I was speaking to one former pupil, a few years older than myself recently.  He told me, "they're terrified there's something in the pipeline". Well there is. It's deeply unpleasant and it's coming out now. But you know what, it needs to, and denial is not an option any more. We're not going away and our blogging is here as our legacy if you're waiting for us all to die off. Personally, I have zero interest in tarnishing any reputations or revenge, but the more silent any organisation stays on a problematic past , the more complicit they appear to me.  Acknowledging your failings  and learning from them is not weakness, it's strength. And if you're not teaching that to your kids they're still being ripped off. 

You never forget a good teacher, they say. Yeah well, just one might have been helpful. 

Flashbacks, moi?

Just this morning I'd forgotten I'd told my wife I'd drop her off at our daughter's before going to work. This meant I was going to be fifteen minutes late for an appointment I'd arranged. No particular problem as my work schedule is fairly relaxed but I could feel a definite twinge of anxiety. I've learnt how to manage this over the last few years. Stay in the room, touch something, notice something maybe.

It stems from one lunchtime break at St Joseph's, the day I had to shut out a trauma. I had moved from the toilet block next to the gymnasium and was desperately trying to focus on whatever notices were pinned on the noticeboard there, without succeeding. The recently installed 'bleeper' had gone off, announcing the resumption of afternoon lessons. I knew my classmates would be lining up and I had to join them. I also knew that if I didn't do something immediately to keep myself calm, they'd spot my panic. I knew there would be the question, "Where have you been?" I'd have to think of something but more importantly, I must not be late. I mustn't. I have a feeling it was __'s class too. I think he came swanning past us as we queued to get into the middle of 'E block'.

Trauma is annoying, isn't it? Unnecessary trauma even more so. It's a common thing for car crash survivors not to recall the 'during impact' moment, as adrenaline apparently stops the 'recording' process so people only remember before and after. So I think my brain must have blanked out entire chunks of that particular year. I certainly have little snippets and with some help, I've recently had a few more things return.  Before that, all I had were odd little bits of  random memory, like someone coming into the toilet block screaming and ranting about smoking (I was twelve and hated the smell of smoke, though I took it up later, probably out of rebellion). Other kids being ordered out except for two or maybe three of us, Someone possibly being told to guard the door. Being made to wait and face the wall. The toilet cubicle to the left hand side. More recently, things I'd not recalled for about 45 years returned- a light blue short sleeved shirt comes to mind. Consulate and More cigarettes. I had totally forgotten those! It shows what's in there.  Those medicine balls in the gym and the relay  team games we did for PE.

I've worked out that all this relates to my 2nd year there because I could remember my 1st, 3rd and 4th year class teachers but had to ask a friend to remind me about the 2nd year. There were memories from 1st, 3rd and 4th years too but it occurred to me that 2nd year memories were strangely absent. Why was that?  He showed me a class photo with the form tutor I spoke about in the last blog surrounded by his class, me at the back giving my best 'smile everyone' fixed grin. I also reckon the being late thing happened in early autumn as only last year, I was enjoying a beautiful sunny, early autumn day. I was admiring a gorgeous horse chestnut and 'Boom!', a full on panic attack as soon as I got a waft of that autumn smell, the same smell we had in the playground near the gym, where that lovely big tree watched as I shook. 

My first experience of a flashback shocked me. It was when we all knew my Dad was dying. I knew what was coming since I'd witnessed my wife's father die of the same cancer.  I was at home and went to bed where suddenly I was reliving an incident that had happened in childhood. I was probably eight or nine when we heard news a lady in our area had committed suicide.  I hadn't heard that word before.  Shortly afterwards, my Dad, known for stomping off in a rage sometimes but always coming home, he disappeared off before bedtime and hadn't returned before I went to sleep. The next morning was school as usual and I didn't know he was safely home til I saw him that evening, same old cheery Dad as though nothing had happened. Well a flashback to that and I was reduced to a furiously angry child again but totally in shock as well that this memory had leapt out on me like that!  I couldn't explain what had just happened to my wife because I didn't understand it. How could my mind have kept that hidden all these years?  All of a sudden I became aware that I wasn't who I thought I was and more importantly, if my clever-clogs brain could conceal that for so long... what else was hiding itself in there?

Quite a lot it seems. In the last few years, I've become aware of such things as the body storing memories the brain has forgotten/blanked ( if you don't believe the experts, I can assure you the red patch from an eye injury my daughter suffered when she was tiny reappears if she's upset and trust me, you don't want to upset her), Slowly but surely, as I piece the jigsaw of bits of memory together, more pieces appear one way or another. 

Remember, I have spent so many years trying to paint my ideal life  so my instinct is to avoid creating a narrative of abuse. And I'm certainly not interested in telling lies because a) it's WRONG and b) I learnt early on, lying helps nobody, least of all yourself.   But the more I let go and allow this process to happen, the more the pieces are showing a picture I really don't want to see. And there's simply no getting away from it; I wish I could.  It all points to one thing and one person. Childhood sexual abuse by __.

As I type, it also occurs to me that my final (5th) year there is also a bit of a hazy mess of angst as far as memories go, but I trust more will return now that process seems to have begun.  One thing I will definitely savour forever though is my final glorious day (well I don't think we got as far as 9.30 a.m) at St Joseph's and a deliciously satisfying exit. 

Working it out

I get it, life is tough for millions around the world. My Mum's stock response to us kids when we complained,  'It's not fair!' was always, 'Life's not fair'.  A valuable lesson for sure. However as that's the case, the responsibility of us all is to do our utmost to make it fairer before we exit the planet. So calling out past wrongdoing falls within that brief since it's come to my attention.

How so? 

Looking back, I can now see a pattern. Things I rationalised at the time as normal behaviours or just 'bad days' I now know were symptoms of being abused.

Speaking of symptoms, l'll start there. The trouble with GP's is they only look at what's immediately presenting. They don't normally look back at your medical history and join the dots. To be fair, neither did I. Now then, a list: I don't have anxiety problems because I went to the doc about that in my 20's. She gave me breathing exercises. Nor depression because we don't have that in the family, do we. It must have been those antimalarials except one day it was so bad, I gave in and accepted some prozac. Instantly better! Depression gone. Kind of. Maybe. Almost forgot- that high blood pressure. Oh yeah, and the sleep disorder. And the things I haven't bothered getting seen to like the shaking to stay calm and the fear of being late. And this. And that. And something else. 

And one heart op and cancer radiotherapy later ... yay, he's fine! Alive enough to write another paragraph anyway.

Oh and the dissociative behaviour. Huh? Oh and did I mention the same but more severe inexplicable major panic attack during a family gathering when everyone started talking about how great my Dad was? What the hell was that about?  My Dad being talked about so reverently flipped me out somehow so badly for about 48 hours the entire family must have been ready to call the psychiatric unit. I now realise that deep down, he hadn't been able to protect me from __ because __ had made sure to weedle his way into Dad's social circle, much to my complete and utter horror. Now I had no safe place and began rebelling, refusing to go to school.*

Rewinding now to a time in my 20's when I'd just got my first job. I'd stopped the excessive boozing after breaking off a long-term relationship (she'd hinted I had issues). Everything was hunky-dory at last. On my own, happily drawing or something with the telly on in the background when Anglia news comes on. There's an interview with some Cambridge examination board bloke who begins speaking. I look up and instantly fly into an uncontrollable rage. It's my old second year form teacher from St Joseph's. What the hell is happening here? I want to throw a brick at the TV screen. I manage to switch it off and know something is deeply wrong. Why am I in such a panic? I never liked him but it wasn't him was it? Was it?? 

Now I was really confused. This wasn't __. What if they'd both been up to no good?  I never liked this guy because he accused me of cheating my homework by copying.  In fact I'd asked my (now hard-working) older brother to explain the lesson again which he did, helping me work out the ten problems without giving the answers. I confidently handed in ten correct answers next day and was soon hauled up in front of class by this caustic weasel (no offence to weasels) who simply refused to believe I was capable of understanding anything.  More likely, he either couldn't teach or there was zero respect in the room.  Anyway, this mere unfortunate incident was the norm for St. Joseph's and by no means severe enough to cause me to want to pulverise the TV about ten years later.  So what was my problem? Was it because he had been the year leader under whose watch I should have been safe? Maybe but that was one hell of a shock to me.

I remember one time in the mid to early 90's I felt compelled to drive to St Joseph's to try and discover what was eating at me inside. Perhaps a wander round would jog my memory. I went into the chapel. I knew I had to forgive __ for something but all I could remember apart from the frequent, almost ritual humiliation in class and living in utter fear and hatred of of the guy, was that I and two others were detained after class for not doing our homework and given three sharp whacks on the palm of the hand with a steel ruler as punishment.  That, I could understand. It was NFSJ, normal for St Joseph's. There was something else much more disturbing I couldn't fathom at that point. I said a prayer out loud and walked away feeling a bit lighter that I'd done what I could.  But now it was becoming harder to ignore the fact something had happened. Still though, I refused to fully acknowledge that dark something without 'evidence' or rather memory, so it remained pushed down.

One therapist I saw said I was carrying some heavy burdens I needed to put down. Great, Thanks for telling me what I know already. (By the way St Joseph's, who do I send the bill to for counselling?)  The next attempt, I told my story and she started crying. Thanks but no thanks! 

I'm damn well going to get through this crap one way or another and if it helps someone else through theirs, so much the better.