Moe, thanks so much for your time to reply and your guidance. The one blessing in disguise is that I haven't let Catholic hypocrisy distort my values. I was fortunate enough at an early age to see through the hypocrisy, and though we were forced to listen to all the dogma, I chose not to believe that the Higher Being I felt connected to, could be so merciless and unloving to make suffering an essential requirement for entering Heaven - a state of well-being and higher conscience - not a place!
The abusive methods of language that were inflicted were meant to make us feel small, unworthy, filthy sinners... stained with the original sin committed by Adam and Eve. I actually believed for a while in my younger years that my father's abuse of me and my sisters was our 'punishment' for being contaminated by sin!! What a paradox!
My 'parents' were proud to tell me throughout my childhood how I was given my name after the patron saint of Scotland, and also after the name of the Cathedral in which those hypocrites married. When I prayed in my bedroom, I learned not to pray externally, but to the inner aspect of self-connection to the whole. I asked for nothing but the strength to endure the years of my childhood, which was made extremely difficult by our dad's hatred and abuse.
I have to be honest Moe, and tell you that this inner connection has never been broken and I know it is not a prison, just a place where I could take refuge to grow and expand my faith. The body could not protect me but the Spirit was always right there, growing safely inside, until the time when it is lovingly expressed.
It is still present! I truly know that this is the unbroken, unbound unconditioned soul of me. I have felt Love from there and all that was afflicted externally through that past lifetime, has been used to compose the flowering of my Being.
I'm not those people. Those distorted beliefs. And though the body was violated, the Spirit was not desecrated. This is my faith and it is all that I have believed since childhood. My relationship with my wife has tested that faith because I know that the Love that comes from within is the same Love we share, and that is thirty years, next year! We are blessed with a son and daughter, and the greatest thing is that we raised them with free choices and the rights to have opinions without having to impose any punishments or cruelty or mental abuse, etc.
I truly have the gift of intuition to 'see' that my father and mother were living the half-life of malignant ego. They were detached from feeling Love, mercy or compassion, and so, that's why I felt the incongruence from the teacher's and priest's words - just utopian, wishful ideology about how it's 'supposed' to be! IF you adhere to the conditions and do what we tell you!
No-one has the monopoly on anyone's soul. It's just a pity that many of the world's human beings are not strong enough, or awakened yet, to realize this. They are still being conditioned - not set free! I think the 'guilt' I had felt was from feeling that by turning away from Catholic distortion, and perhaps because, it was all there was at that time, I feared I might have abandoned my soul or 'God' in some way. But, the guidance from within is the very evidence that this was never the case! This comforter and witness within has always held me with grace, most especially when my father was afflicting utter disgrace upon me.
This inner being was first met in presence with me, when I felt so utterly alone with my father after he'd just sodomized me for the first time I can consciously remember. It spoke within, in a felt-sense telling me to look at him. Look at him and remember what is being witnessed. I looked at my father's eyes, though I was petrified with fear, and only being six years old at that time, tried to hold myself together from the shaking and fear. When I looked at my father who was sniggering at what he had just done to me, I felt the words in my mind, 'You're not my dad anymore.' Everything felt tainted after that, including my soul.
I needed real inner strength after this day, and that is, humbly, all I prayed for, with gratitude. That man never stopped his indiscriminate sodomizing of me until I was around fourteen. The last time he hit me, was one week before my 21st birthday. I never hated him, but I could tolerate him no more. I knocked him to the ground with a single punch and I made him say he was sorry for what he had done to our family. I never kicked his head in or anything, (though he would have done to me), and kept myself dignified and restrained, but I had to laugh in disbelief when he said he was going to get the police to me. What?? I told him to hurry because I was going to tell them all about what he'd been doing for years!!
Of course the coward didn't go to the police. As I was living with my parents at that time, I knew that he would try to resort to something cowardly, when I was asleep. I slept on top of my bed fully clothed that night. At about half-six in the morning, my acute senses heard the springs in the door handle as he tried to sneak into my room and catch me off-guard. He was surprised to see that I was smarter than he must have taken me for, and I sat upright waiting for him to creep in. I was wide awake and waiting but he knew by my fearlessness that he'd better not try to move towards me. I looked at the coward as he ranted that he was going to get me back and that if he couldn't do it, he would pay someone else to do it. I told him to leave my room and said no-one would take money to do his dirty work especially when they find out what you are.
It wasn't the first threat I'd had from him. He threatened to blow my head off with his shotgun when I was fourteen, because I told him if he battered me again I would go to the police. Another time when he took great pleasure in marching my sister and I to school one morning as we had both been playing truant. He and the Headmaster almost conspired in their condemnation of us 'truants' praising themselves about how 'moral' they were, and what good parents we had, and how we should honor and respect them. We didn't disrespect our parents, but, Headmaster... you didn't know what the hell you were talking about. My sister and I knew who the real criminals and moral cowards were!! But hey, let us adults, who know better, teach these ungrateful children a lesson! Well, more fool you headmaster for being deceived by the child-abuser!!
But, all of this is history Moe, and I did receive three years of person-centered counseling when I had to come to terms with the fact that our father had then been charged and all of my family (five sisters and mother) were going to have to give statements to the police. Faith was calling again, profoundly. I needed to tell the truth, for my truth and my sister's truth were always the truth! He was the abuser and liar and our mother stood by him (as did our youngest sister) and told the rest of us she didn't need any of us in her life.
She asked me, 'What did you do this to me for?' But I was old enough and wise enough to tell my mother we did nothing to her. He was the cause of anyone's suffering, and if she chose to conspire with his lying and denying of all or any of it, she was just as guilty as he was. She was told about some of the abuse, by three of my sisters back in 1977, and she did nothing to offer any of us any support. She told us to just shut up and get on with it! I guess she was alright because he never hurt her.
I don't have any relations with my mother or my younger sister now, they are filled with bitter hatred because the rest of the family chose honesty. More persecution for truth! But it is all past now and I have no hatred for any one of them. I feel pity for their souls and truly hope that they do not inflict too much suffering upon themselves or others with their negativity.
When my father died in 2004, there was no sense of loss. I was neither sad nor glad, but I felt a vacant sense of utter pity. I asked Higher Power to forgive them, and truly, I hope that they aren't suffering anymore. All that can be done has been done, Moe. True-self has healed and nurtured me. Meditation and music are resources I have used for many years, as well as writing. I know where the balance is and I know how to go to the well. There's been enough suffering, and all I aim to do is continue watching the little-ego in me and keep it's opinions quiet.
My Love is of the Spirit of humanity and compassion. My work was the un-conditioning and removal of obstacles and hinderances. My Love of life is a stream which I will not pollute. My compassion is to bathe the feet of the weary-travelled, aching from the rocky path. My wish Moe, is not to share my past suffering, but to express, that through and beyond it, there is the way to un-suffering. Now... take off your shoes please Moe?
Thank you so very much for your kindness. I love 'Cultivate Life' magazine which has also been a great source of comfort and wisdom. I've forwarded it to friends and family members too. Please go well, Moe.
Question
You received the massive, all inclusive dose, of rabid Catholic thinking and persecution. Your experience exemplifies the most horrendous and insidious nature of a dysfunctional religious upbringing. Your experience with the nuns hits close to home. I remember being guilted in the very same way. At this point in your life you can see what was done to you but that has not stopped the guilt and shame buttons from being pushed and called into action. You are still reeling, psychologically speaking, from those negative abusive effects.
This is brainwashing and conditioning at its most profound. You are a religious abuse victim as we have been describing here at Trans4mind in our section called Dr Moe Unplugged. You're going to need a good therapist to help you through this. Find someone local if possible, or nearby that you can travel to see on a regular basis. Make sure they are well versed in the issue of religious abuse and get to work. You have too many challenges in front of you to try and sort them out by yourself.
I know how you feel. That's exactly where I was in my late 20s after my first marriage broke up and a wonderful new woman entered my life. I couldn't let myself enjoy anything. I felt guilty about a failed marriage. I felt guilty about abandoning my children. I felt guilty about being involved with a wonderful new woman who truly made me feel good about myself. The catholic guilt was everywhere. There was nowhere to turn.
That's when I found a good therapist and got involved in group counseling that helped enormously with my catholic guilt and shame. To be told that religion's methods are cruel and shameful is only part of the picture. To feel and relieve yourself of the associated pain coming from feelings of guilt and shame is when you are finally starting to heal. It took me 5 years for this first go round. In my late 30s I had another go with a better therapist and that took another 5 years. The awareness and tools of the time were primitive by today's standards.
Today therapists who specialize in all forms of abuse, including physical, emotional, mental, sexual and religious, are well equipped to move you through the process at a much faster rate. You will begin to feel positive effects within weeks rather than months or years. That is my best advice sir. You have a lot to deal with and professional help is what you need to get off on the right foot. At the beginning of such a process none of us is equipped to go it alone. Our thinking has been overwhelmingly compromised and we need outside help to get back on track. There eventually comes a time when you can pick up the reins of your recovery process. Until then let someone qualified guide you along.
