Monday, March 29, 2010

Oh! My! God!

It's pretty certain that I know victims of this pedophile. Or victims of his victims, at least. The two murderers I knew best were both Catholic boys. I knew one deaf boy who went to that school. His family left town. It seemed sudden to me, but we'd already parted as friends, so I wasn't paying attention.

No, I take that back. I don't know that he ever went there. I know for a fact he went to a different school. Whether or not there was any contact with the kids from Father Murphy's school I couldn't say.

But, since I heard about this, I've been thinking about who that I know might have been a victim of "serious" child abuse or molestation. I'm thinking of the sullen kids who became drug users and dropped out. One of the above murderes fit that bill perfectly. Another kid was just kind of boisterous in grade school turned quiet in Junior High and eventually went to prison for trashing the old school.

There were other kids. Kids who never liked me and I never liked them. In seventh and eighth grades they were the peckerheads who made junior high hell. Then they got into drugs and dropped out. I'm thinking the ones - the "burnouts" we called them - who lasted longer in school, weren't trying to bury traumatic memories.

I felt guilty in High School, I remember. Not about those kids and their problems, whatever they may have been. Back then, I was glad to have them out of my life. No, I felt guilty that I was smarter and stronger than almost everyone I knew, and I was guaranteed to go to Heaven. I didn't deserve any of that. There were people who worked out harder, studied harder and were tons better witnesses of the Love of Jesus than I was, but such were the facts.

Didn't take me long to blow all that shit up. Waiting to find out what Jesus had in mind for me to do with these gifts - and, particularly, what my idle hands found to do during that waiting - accounted for that.

And now... now that I know why those kids had those troubles, I feel guilty that I never reached out to them. I wasn't devoid of similar experiences. Some of us who'd experienced various kinds of abuse didn't use chemical drugs, we used Jesus instead. I'd say the evidence that I've seen, points to the theory that the severity, duration and type of abuse affect the outcome. I'm sure the professionals have beaten that dead horse to smithereens, but I'm just discovering the value of psychology myself.

Well, I gotta get the beanie ready for bed. (No school this week, so her mother and I aren't watching the clock.)

Update: You should go here to see what Stef has to say on this topic. You have the choice to watch his video, or read what he says in it. Or both. It's still a kick in the gut to hear my town spoken of in this context.

15 comments:

The probligo said...

Al, this is something which (through my good fortune or my bad memory or my naivete?) I have never had to reconcile in my mind.

My initial reaction is that there is only so much a young person can do, even if they are aware of "causes" in another's life. By far the greatest responsibility must lie with the adults of the time.

Allied to that is the thought that there is nothing you nor I can do now that would turn back the clock.

The important lesson, one which I am strongly reminding myself of at this very moment after reading your story, is that we all must remain vigilant.

We are the adults of now.

We must protect more than our own children.

Al said...

"there is only so much a young person can do, even if they are aware of "causes" in another's life." Right. I thought of that and wondered for a while how I could have tried to get along with any of those kids. As an adolescent I certainly had no tools for that. I don't think I do now.

But yeah, I can watch out for the signs and try to get somebody involved who can do something. And I can try to remember what signs I did see and be on the lookout for them.

Anonymous said...

Do you know now why I estranged the brother of the deaf boy as my best friend when I was 12?

But this explains a lot.

Anonymous said...

Now you know why I estranged the brother of the deaf boy who was my best freind.

Al said...

Oh.

I'm so sorry. Oh, no. That makes me very sad.

Things got better after that. For us.

Starsplash said...

Al you act like you were so depraved. I got into a fight with him about those things.

That's not the whole story but.....

Both you and Teresa were the oops children. Add that to your list of troubles. While you are at it add youngest child syndrome. I used to be so proud of you because you had not done as other youngest children
and FU like I had seen many others do. I was wrong and just wanted to see you through some rose colored glasses.

I guess it is proof positive that if you don't deal with it immediatly like I did and hide it like you did you end up really FU.
At least I got to blow out his ear drum fighting with him, you didn't even get that. Yeah that's right I busted his ear drum.

Yet you had the best of mom and dad but you think that was not enough.

I should have really pounded the ++++ out of you just once so you could really say you were abused.

Stop blaming your problems on someone else and man up. Stop being a phycho and accept that you made your own decisions.

You might have been smart but where was the wisdom in the life you lived.

Al said...

Says the man living off the government, his wife and mom.

Starsplash said...

I am not living of the government.
My wife don't count, and Mom and Teresa were about to go hungry. They had nothing, NOTHING in the fridge and nothing in the cupboards. Now the larders here are full and it is not full because of aything you did.

The subject is you are a winer, and have nothing to wine about, stick with the subject.

Al said...

Actually, the subject is childhood sexual abuse. Do you want to talk about that?

Starsplash said...

You were the one rejected last moron. Guess by who. After wards I being 12, kicked Scotts ass.
That said, being the end of the story, nothing you could say would enlighten any more lest you dare expose your own failings. Or did you forget?

Al said...

I honestly have no idea... You seem to be talking about something else. Which is they way our conversations have always gone. The only person I was ever molested by is you. Are we clear now?

Starsplash said...

I being 12......and there was an other person there who instigated the whole event or did you forget?, which couples with I telling him to his "FU" begging that, that was not right.
In which case there was no pleasure in the whole event or did you forget. Did you also forget that on a later night after that you came to me and I said no and pushed you away. That is because it was wrong. I fought Scott just before this and we ended our close friendship. There were no further attempt on his part through me that I know of. That is, whether he approached you behind my back or not is unknown to me I suppose it not.

This was the last effect between you and me. Perhaps we could have discussed the matter but I was not much more a child than you and could not concieve of any other way to deal with it than silence.

Should I be the hero in this. No, before my strenght to say no came my weakness to retain a friend. I failed at both, and chose to eliminate a friend rather than to persue a damaging path.

The memory of that failure remains to this day.

Your failing is, you forget I rejected the one and only and last you made advance that night.

I do not blame you nor me. We were children and cannot be blamed. Should I blame Scott. How can I, he was a child no more than me.

That you have carried with you the desire for retribution all of your life; either subconsciencly or knowlingly, is where your lack of either understanding or unforgiveness on your part comes into play. You damaged yourself by bearing the hatred and you hold yourself back.

If you desire a public apology you have it and have once before but for the acts of children?, is near foolishness on your part. I simply forgave you without you ever having to ask. You should have long since developed this ability.
It leads to longevity and peace of mind.

My ability to press on with my life came with my ability to forgive and let go and not seak revenge for things that I can not logically blame anyone nor myself because of a lack of experience, understanding, and prior guidence.

Had there of been prior guidence I and you and Scott could have been at fault and punished then. With no prior guidence none of us are at fault.

We were kids.

Al said...

I accept the point that we were children. I'd like to receive the same respect. I was seven when you were twelve, if you'll recall. Your comments make it look as if you thought I was 25 at the time.

What's weird about this digression is that you brought it up when I was talking about bizarre things going on in our town when we were there. Do you believe there was a causal relationship between Father Murphy's depredations and our childish experimentations? Perhaps I knew at one time that that family was catholic, but religiosity was never much a part of my relationship with them, and I wasn't aware that it was part of yours.

Now, again, I have to admit that the exact incident you're talking about isn't coming to mind. I do remember you rebuffing me, which was all to the good. Good for you for coming to your senses. The silence, though, I think, made the point unclear. And, if you read any psychology, that means that the whole thing was unprocessed by me. I tried to bury it. Stuff it. Cram it down in a hole and stomp it to death. I never thought about it directly.

Your unconscious bites you in the ass for that kind of thing. This, right here, is what they call "processing."

By the way, there were other things leading up to that which I've never forgotten and always known were affecting me. Finding Dad's dirty magazines when I was five was the first. You reading stories to me out of them.

And there was more than one reason I felt relief along with horror and sadness when G.R. was run over by a car.

Starsplash said...

I want to address the, when you brought the Murphy thing up. Scott was a Catholic, he had a problem and he was a-one of those choir boys or something and it makes me wonder ir there was something going on before that Murphy guy got there. I wanted to deal with your side because I believe that you were bringing up something conciously to promote this very argument. BTW my concious does not bother me.
That's what it means to overcome and put it behind you. No matter what you say will ever change that.

You on the other hand are having a hell of a time and are still blaming someone else for your poor decisions. You cannot be taken seriously until you accept your bad choices, as only your choices and nobody else's fault.

Plenty of people have had it far worse and come out on top. But all of them have come to terms and pressed on and amazingly done better. You need to learn from that. If you don't you will never recover and the worst thing that could happen is you would end your life. If you don't dump the need to get even and leave the vindictiveness behind it will write itself all over your face and people will instinctvly know and shy away from you. It takes openess to do better than you are and you are not open. People will not be able to trust you at all and won't. When asked they will never be able to say why but you will not get those stellar reviews that you need to prosper. Unless your lying about wanting to prosper as well.

You have spent a lifetime hiding your habits and behavior because you didn't want to hear the complaints. You can not expect to fly under the radar forever unless you don't mind living out a nominal dull life. Truth is Alan your life is not inspiring because you are so Goddamned reserved. Completely boring. Nothing but yeah and uh huh. Your writing is dull and boring and your camping exploits are not exploits.

As far as the rest of what you have to say I figure it all boils down to one to many LSD trips. That shit has f------ your brain up permanently. There is no getting that back. Your lucky. I took care of people, young people who were completely gone at Parkland because of the dope they did. So there is no way that you would be able to remember right but I am not sorry about chiding you for not being able to. As to the rest, my accusation stands. You are trying to manipulate this around in your favor which is a loser because you can take nothing away from me that will reduce my joy in life, and know way that you can gain by this very level of deciet because people you need will sense what you are. However if you threaten my kids there is no force in the world that could protect you from me.

Al said...

You figure your method helps?

I'm getting even with you right now by publishing your posts. More people get to see what an ass you are. By the way, folks, we have not communicated with one another outside of our blogs since Grandma's funeral at Halloween, and we didn't talk much before that either. All of the amateurish psychologizing this guy is doing is based on what I've said, here or in person, in my worst moods.

Most of it is projection. I assume you've looked that word up by now, Ron. Psychological projection has two meanings, colloquial and technical. I mean both.