I’ve been weeping a lot over the past few days. I’m not alone.*
This morning I read a piece by Jennifer Wilson about Cardinal Pell’s response to calls for a Royal Commission into the cover-up of paedophilia in the Catholic Church. In it, Wilson wrote:
There is another group of survivors, of whom I am one, who are the victims of sexual abuse perpetrated by family, friends and acquaintances. For many of us there is no hope of justice, and we have had to learn to live with this reality. I am deeply relieved that institutional sexual abuse is finally receiving the scrutiny it deserves, because my life experience is also validated by this acknowledgement, even though my story can’t be told within a commission’s terms of reference, and the perpetrator and his enablers can’t be held accountable. I want to see a profound cultural change in attitudes towards the sexual abuse of children, and I believe we are on the way at last. This is grounds enough for rejoicing.
She put into words things I’d been contemplating writing about. Thanks, Jennifer.
I, too, am a member of that other group of survivors. But in my case, the abuse is related to the Church. I was brought up a Catholic, as was my perpetrator. We were both educated by members of religious orders. The Church’s archaic attitudes towards sex helped to create the environment in which my trauma happened. It also helped to keep the truth of its impact on my life suppressed until many years later. Suppressed; but never forgotten.
When I was about seven years old, my father found me curled up in bed with a man – a well-respected teacher who was a regular visitor to our home. I didn’t understand the furore then. The man and I were both fully clothed, on top of the bedclothes; he was turned away from me; I was curled up behind his back. I wanted to be there. This man was the gentlest, kindest man I knew. He had taught me to swim at the age of three. He’d been there to cheer me on for my first day at school. Of the very few photos I have of myself as a little one, he’s in two and took another, one of only two portraits of me as a child. He was closer to me than my father. He was also a Brother of the Marist order. And he was innocent.
My father ordered him to pack his bags and bodily threw him out of the house.
It’s difficult to try to know what my father, a very intuitive but mostly silent man, was thinking back then, but he must have sensed I was being abused sexually, and wanted to protect me. From a cheerful, happy child, I’d become clingy and needy, over-sexualised, a bed-wetter. I suffered nightmares, was afraid to be left alone. My distress wasn’t seen as anything out of the ordinary; I was the eighth of 12 kids, so there was always some drama. Once I learned to read, I withdrew into a make-believe world of books, of fairy tales and goblins, of troupes of clean-cut kids solving mysteries. As I grew older, I peppered my escapist reading which true-to-life books, trying to find out why I felt so bad, why when “photo day” came at school I’d try to hide my face behind my long hair, or not turn up at all.
At the age of 12, I went to say Confession at my local church, prepared to unburden myself, to admit to the kindly local parish priest that I was filled with shame, guilt and disgust for my sexualised behaviour. Before I’d finished “Bless me, Father”, he reached through the confessional grill, took my hand and asked, “Tell me, how is your dear mother?” I stopped believing in God that day. Instead, I found relief in drugs and alcohol, a quicker way to escape than books and study. For a time they made me feel connected to the universe, and safe.
It was years before I saw that Brother again. When I turned 18, I wrote to him hoping to make sense of what had happened, wondering who he was that I had held so dear in my heart all this time. By then, I was estranged from my father, virtually homeless, going from share house to share house, living for a time in a squat with drug dealers; I was in the grip of a drug- and alcohol-dependency that alternated with an eating disorder, while somehow managing to keep up a punishing and perfectionistic high standard at university. My life, I was to discover years later, was text-book Childhood Sexual Assault survivor. Self-hatred, shame, guilt and remorse consumed me. I wanted to die, but didn’t know how. It felt like there was a great, thick glass wall between me and the rest of the world; inside it rained; outside was sunny and blue skies; but I couldn’t connect, and no one seemed to see or hear me.
The Brother, when I wrote to him, was thrilled to receive my letter. He’d retired and was celebrating the Golden Jubilee of being a member of his order, and invited me to a special dinner. Very sick and weighing less than 48 kilos, I dragged myself along and was mortified when he read out parts of my letter in his after dinner speech, including my private confession about how important he had been to me. After, when we talked, he was a stranger, nothing like the man I’d dreamed of; the one adult I’d been able to count on to hold me and keep me safe. His main concern was that I reconcile with my father. He didn’t hold a grudge for the way he’d been treated; he knew he was innocent. What he didn’t realise, and what my father hadn’t realised, is that someone else was guilty.
I was a survivor of “molestation”, which is what they called digital penetration back then, but which for a child that age legally is considered rape. It happened intermittently mostly from around the ages of five to seven, but the last episode of “interference” I remember was when I was 12, when I was alone with the same perpetrator, an adult, and he placed my hand on his erect penis. By then, I was old enough to stand up for myself and tell him to stop, but I was shaken. I felt unsafe. I felt violated. It brought back the memories of all the earlier violations. I couldn’t sleep, I was suicidal. Only alcohol and drugs gave me relief. It was the first of many attacks of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder that wouldn’t be diagnosed for years.
And I didn’t tell anybody.
When, decades later, I did finally find the courage to speak up, I was horrified to discover this same perpetrator was a serial molester. I’ve had to live with the guilt and sadness of knowing that, if I’d said something earlier, I might have saved others the fate I’d suffered. But I’d assumed I was the only one. He has made amends, of sorts, and claims to have repented and to be living a celibate life; but even this, to me, feels warped. His attitude towards his own and others’ sexuality has been permanently twisted by the Church we both grew up in. After I confronted him, he asked me what he could do to make reparation, and I told him to read some research on the effects of childhood sexual assault on survivors, just so he’d know and take responsibility for the harm he’d caused. He refused. He asked me what right I had to judge him as I was an adulterer: I’d married a man who had been previously married and therefore I was “living in sin”. God would be our judge, he said. Meanwhile, another male, one who also grew up in this same religious system, accused me of ruining my perpetrator’s life by speaking out and exposing him, and warning the next generation.
Long ago, I stopped being sad and self-destructive, and I learned ways to channel my anger productively by becoming a contributing member of my community. Through my work as a counsellor and mentor, I’ve been able to console and acknowledge the suffering of other women and men. Over the past year, I’ve also supported Australian women’s writing through the AWW Reading and Reviewing Challenge, inspired, in part, because I know what it means to be dismissed, to set myself up for dismissal, and to stop myself from speaking. I have learned that we have more power than we realise, especially collectively: none of us has to remain a victim.
One of the few things I’ve had published is a poem called “Silencing”; in it, I describe a tongue on a plate. As a sign and symptom of sexual abuse, cutting out the tongue dates back at least to the ancient Greeks and the story of Philomela: after she was raped by her brother-in-law, he cut out her tongue so she couldn’t tell anybody. Perpetrators don’t literally have to cut out our tongues to silence us; we do it ourselves. Some of us do it by escaping into reading, often into fairy tale and myth, fantasy, romance and horror. In these, we tell ourselves stories of suffering as well as hope, love and forgiveness; the tales we choose are often deliberately oblique as we try both to find and give relief. We create happy, safe worlds, as well as confront dark threatening ones, rarely asking ourselves, or our readers – or our perpetrators – to confront the unembellished realities of our distress. Such escapes are valid; for some of us, they have helped us to survive. But there’s a time when we need to speak out.
Like now.
The problem of childhood sexual assault (CSA) is more extensive than institutionalised sexual violence. If we look to add reasons why women and girl children in particular underperform, lack confidence in their abilities and lack self-esteem – even become narcissistic and self-obsessed – we don’t have to look far. It’s likely that the incidence of intra-familial and community sexual violence against girl and boy children has been hugely under-reported and its ramifications are probably more far-reaching than the incidence of clergy-based CSA rightly decried this week. Today’s Nature magazine has an article on the effect of early trauma on girls’ brains, and their weakened ability to cope with stress and anxiety in teen years (boys tend to “act out” more in conduct disorder). The effects of CSA are long term and can be seen everywhere. But things can change.
Jennifer Wilson writes: “I want to see a profound cultural change in attitudes towards the sexual abuse of children, and I believe we are on the way at last. This is grounds enough for rejoicing.”
Amen to that.
One step toward that goal may be for survivors to speak up and expose the archaic beliefs and attitudes, the hypocrisy, denial and shaming behaviour of members of the Catholic Church. There are millions of men and women who were sexually assaulted as children, who have lived silently with the consequences of that abuse, not wanting to bring shame to their families, friends and communities, and silenced by those they have tried to confide in. We have been told to forgive and forget; turn the other cheek; let he who is without sin cast the first stone. We have learned, by example, to feel sorry for our abusers and we are reluctant, in our humanity, to subject them to the shame, guilt, remorse, humiliation and degradation that have been our daily bedfellows since our abuse. We have more compassion and empathy for them than they showed to us. We are doubly their victims.
But our silence serves nobody well. It doesn’t help those many male and female perpetrators whose minds have been twisted by the Catholic Church’s teachings about sin, about their own bodies and desires, about the threat of being judged and going to hell. By pointing to the deep indoctrination of such beliefs and attitudes I don’t mean to offer an excuse for sexual predation; but I do see it as part of an explanation. It’s also something we, as ex-Catholics and as a community, can help to change. These archaic beliefs have to be exposed for what they are: self-serving attitudes which have helped to foster hypocrisy, self-justification and denial in the perpetrators and to silence the abused.
Speaking out won’t stop the assaults – the problem is too widespread and complex for that. But it may help.
*If you are distressed by the contents of this post or recent media coverage of childhood sexual assault, there is 24-hour crisis support available through Lifeline.
P.S. The following is a video of a song written by two performers I met in the UK a few years ago. Their song is called Jenny’s Mermaid – another survivor’s story couched in folktale.
Lisa Walker
/ November 14, 2012what a beautfully written and moving post, Elizabeth. You stopped me in my tracks. I’m so glad you’ve found your voice now.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 14, 2012Thanks, Lisa. The voice comes and goes.
Christina Houen
/ November 14, 2012Elizabeth, thank you for this wonderful piece. Words fail me. I hope that many read this brave and honest piece. And congratulations for finding your voice. I hope that your piece will help many others to find their voices.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 14, 2012Thanks, Christina. As for others finding their voices, it’s consoling to think some good can come from all the suffering.
Jenny Schwartz (@Jenny_Schwartz)
/ November 14, 2012I’m crying here. I can’t even think of what to say. Elizabeth, thank you.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 14, 2012Thanks, Jenny – I hear you.
seantheblogonaut
/ November 14, 2012What can one say other than I am happy you are here, that you are an appreciated member of the community, that you survived when many didn’t. I have lived a lucky life, sheltered to a large extent. But even I have come across CSA, two close female friends were victims of their fathers and as I wrote yesterday my high school administration (Catholic) put me and other students knowingly within reach of a serial paedophile.
I have changed my view on the broad nature of the Royal Commission, while I think the Catholic Church will disproportionately be represented in its findings other institutions where there is power of children will be shown to have issues as well.
When I did my training for mandatory reporting of abuse, it still wasn’t mandatory for religious to have the training. I think it should be mandatory for all Australian adults and not just those who have to come into contact with children.
My deepest sympathy.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 14, 2012Thanks, Sean. Your comments are very much appreciated.
I read your piece yesterday and, along with Jennifer’s, it helped me make the decision to write this today. As for the Royal Commission, I know it will be hard on many who haven’t had an opportunity or the support to deal with their trauma, but if it helps to protect just one child – and I have no doubt it will be many more than one – it will be worth the time and expense.
Regarding mandatory reporting, I believe the Church doesn’t understand the healing power of taking responsibility and making amends through restorative justice. Also if, as a community, we could stop demonising paedophiles and begin to see them as sick, sick people, sometimes, but not always, victims of CSA themselves, from whom our children nevertheless need protecting, maybe more survivors would come forward. The thought that, by speaking up, one might sentence any fellow human being to horrific abuse in jail by being branded as a “rock spider” is just one of the many nightmares that silences victims.
seantheblogonaut
/ November 14, 2012I am not sure how many actually go to prison. The Principal at my high school was charged with 4 assaults, got 1 year community service and remained a Brother working with/for children upon having served that sentence.
seantheblogonaut
/ November 14, 2012I agree that concern about what will happen to the perpetrator along with how other people might react is a concern that my friends had.
I found the MR training very helpful and has helped me process my own deliberations on whether or not to report observations of odd behaviours to schools where I relief teach. Odd behaviours which of themselves might not amount to much but with other’s observations might form a clearer picture of the possibility of abuse.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 14, 2012I’m not sure how rational the concern is – especially given, as you say, the low incarceration rates. And I can’t imagine what it would be like for a teacher to address the issue, especially when the child him/herself probably has very little understanding of how and why they’re acting out. It’s great to know there’s training, though.
seantheblogonaut
/ November 14, 2012I also get de-identified reports from the registration board that inform us what teachers have behaved inappropriately and the penalties they face/ are convicted of. No teacher in the last 10 years would be able to claim ignorance to what is and isn’t appropriate with children/teens.
Christina Houen
/ November 15, 2012If I may comment, from an outsider position: I agree with Elizabeth and Sean there should be mandatory reporting. Why should priests be above the law? This goes back to feudal days. As for Archbishop Pell, I am disgusted by his defensive comments, his talk of the church being targeted maliciously and unfairly by the media, and especially his attempts to frame the issue as a historical one that is in the past, ‘in those days’ or however he put it, when pedophilia was regarded as a sin which could be confessed and absolved. I think the whole idea of sin and absolution is part of the sickness of the church. It is about harm done to other humans, not sin against God’s law; and no human (or, for that matter, god) has the right to absolve someone who has consciously, knowingly harmed a vulnerable being. I also agree with some psychologist I heard on the radio yesterday, saying that few priests (or ‘sinners’) would confess pedophilia, since their thinking is so twisted that they believe what they are doing is right.
Having said that, I agree that they are sick and need help themselves; but one thing has been shown conclusively, it won’t come through the church.
Christina Houen
/ November 15, 2012PS Have ticked follow-up comments, as I find this conversation deeply meaningful.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 20, 2012Hi Christina – Just checking that you saw my long reply to your comment above (no need to reply if you did see it, but I was wondering if your ticking for follow-up comments only applied to your last comment).
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 16, 2012Thanks for your passionate response, Christina. It’s such a complex issue, isn’t it?
Taking up your point about “the whole idea of sin and absolution is part of the sickness of the church”: I believe the idea of Confession had, originally, a good psychological basis. It helped the “penitent” to accept harm done, take responsibility and make reparation in an environment of unconditional positive regard (i.e. “God” through the confessor). Such a model, used in counselling, is actually very helpful in breaking down defensiveness, and potentially leads to restorative justice; it relies on the “sinner” having some insight into their own harmful behaviour, a first step in making positive change.
Where I think the corruption has come in is in the literal-mindedness of those who interpret this “spiritual” function as a “get-out-of-jail-free” card. To me, that goes against the spirit of the “sacrament”: it was, I believe, intended to help people change their behaviour and believe themselves capable of a new start (perhaps a necessary “conversion” to right/just/unharmful behaviour). But, like so many religious teachings, somewhere along the line scruples supplanted intuitive interpretations: being “right” by the letter of the (canon) law, became more important than serving the highest good: avoiding harm to self and others.
It’s this element where I really think the Church’s teachings has to change: to stop being so hung up on literal interpretations. But to let go of such comforting “certainty” would also mean dismantling the whole idea of “God the Father”, the interpretation of Jesus as “God the Son”, transubstantiation, the meaning of baptism – so many of the fundamental tenets of Christian belief. The end result would hardly be recognisable as Christianity the way it has developed historically but would, I believe, be much closer to the beliefs of the mystics of varied faiths and probably to Christ’s teachings.
shelleyrae @ Book'd Out
/ November 15, 2012I was deeply moved by your post Elizabeth and fully support those fighting for justice against the appalling conduct of the church in child protection matters. I hope you find strength and healing and offer you my sincere support.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 16, 2012Thanks, Shelleyrae. I don’t know what good can come of speaking out about it, but I’m guessing, even if it doesn’t help anyone else, it’s part of my own self-acceptance and healing.
Keziah Hill
/ November 15, 2012Such an incredibly powerful and brave post Elizabeth. Thank you so much.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 16, 2012Thanks, Keziah. Like I replied to Shelleyrae above, I’m not sure the good it will do, but it seems the right thing to write about just now.
Team Oyeniyi
/ November 16, 2012I couldn’t wait until lunch time, but I will read again when I have peace and quiet.
Very brave article and thank you for sharing your experience. I will comment more later.
The Australian Bookshelf
/ November 16, 2012What a moving post, Elizabeth. I want to say that you are very brave for speaking out about the abuse of not just the perpetrator but also the system, but I don’t want to discount the experience of those who are fearful of not speaking out. They too are brave.
Though not a survivor myself, in my line of work i come across many, many women who have been violated by those they trust and it amazes me how many of those have never spoken out about it before and how entrenched those feelings of shame and guilt can become.
It’s about time the government do something about CSA, it’s such a huge problem in society and it needs to be talked about. We shouldn’t shy away from this stuff just because it makes us feel bad. This issue needs to be made public, because in doing that the shame can be transferred to those who should be ashamed of themselves and the women (and men) who are the victims can find some justice in their trauma.
It’s so courageous of you to post about your experience Elizabeth and I don’t doubt there are many people out there reading this today and feeling less alone.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 16, 2012Thanks, Lauren. And thanks especially for pointing out the bravery of those who are fearful of speaking out. I was that person, too. Sometimes it takes courage just to stay alive and not harm self or others.
What you write about transferring the shame to those who should be ashamed is spot on. And it’s a long, long process, the damage is often so great and the internalisation of shame so complete. I hope you’re right about some survivors finding my post and feeling less alone.
Team Oyeniyi
/ November 16, 2012I am back Elizabeth. Read your post again in peace and quiet! The part that calls to me as far as the overall problem is concerned is this part:
“We have been told to forgive and forget; turn the other cheek; let he who is without sin cast the first stone. We have learned, by example, to feel sorry for our abusers and we are reluctant, in our humanity, to subject them to the shame, guilt, remorse, humiliation and degradation that have been our daily bedfellows since our abuse. We have more compassion and empathy for them than they showed to us. We are doubly their victims.”
Listening to Pell this last week, I can see this so clearly. The manipulation, the almost brainwashing that has gone on over possibly thousands of years is horrendous and as you say, makes you victims twice over.
I was stunned to read today a brother was quoted as saying it was god’s fault for making them this way. I am sure you read it. With that attitude, victims were doomed from the start.
Elizabeth, I realize as an atheist it is easy for me to be incredulous at how anyone bowed to religion’s masters for so long, yet I know it also happens (Jenny) outside the church.
I can’t help wondering though, had religions excommunicated (or as applicable for each religion) the perpetrators from the first instance, society as a whole would have behaved differently.
People like you who find the strength to speak out, who realize you have the power to bring change, are to be applauded the loudest. You survived, you fight on to protect others.
I hope your father knows what a truly wonderful daughter he fathered.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 17, 2012Thanks for such a supportive and thoughtful reply, Robyn. Your last thought touched me deeply, but that’s an entirely other story! (My dad was seriously mentally ill: the degree to which the teachings of the Church contributed to his distress, I believe, can’t be underestimated.)
I agree wholeheartedly with your point about the “brainwashing” and the “thousands of years”: the tradition of men in power became entrenched very early on in the church, no doubt for very good reasons – the lack of birth control for women being just one practical one. The indoctrination of each successive generation compounded so many injustices, especially the so-called infallibility of the Pope, leading to a prohibition against questioning and challenging what came to be articles of faith, for fear of being excommunicated and sentenced to eternal damnation.
I, too, find it extraordinary that people take these ideas seriously, and I honestly believe they *aren’t* true to the original teachings: those teachings, for a start, were oral, only inscribed much later, in parables, deeply entrenched in the Hebraic traditions. Most who love literature can recognise the tropes and rhetoric used to pull the listener in and have him/her remember the message – but so much of the “message” is open to interpretation, to intuition. It was the arrogance of the early Christian scholars (just like the Pharisees whom Jesus criticised) that started to solidify those insights into rules and regulations, which fearful, scrupulous people then imposed on others.
Thankfully there have been other traditions and thinkers – both inside and outside the Church – who don’t have this scrupulousness, who are willing to admit their “unknowing”, who grope blindly toward integrity, hope, compassion, only ever offering a provisional “truth”, rather than a transcendent Law, or who act spontaneously through their sense of the “spirit” that moves them to be of service in the present moment to any who call out to them. I have been lucky enough to have come into contact with such thinkers and actors – several of whom were Catholic priests – whose own freely expressed doubts gave me tacit permission to doubt the existence of “God” and come to intuit a different – and to me more nourishing – sense of the numinous, of beauty, power and mystery of nature and consciousness.
Although I left the Church a long time ago, I fantasise that if more free-thinkers had stayed there would at least be the possibility of transforming the institution from the inside. But, even if the scrupulous and fearful law-abiders didn’t hold power, the result would be unrecognisable as “Catholic” or even what we presently identify as “Christian”.
Team Oyeniyi
/ November 18, 2012Thank you for your kind words, Elizabeth.
I think you are right, had more free-thinkers stayed…….. but the problem is religions don’t welcome free-thinkers.
I am sad to hear of your father’s illness. As both my parents committed suicide, I know only too well how distressing it is to have mentally ill parents.
Your work is very important, Elizabeth. Through you others learn of the reality of child sexual abuse.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 19, 2012Oh, that’s tough. Very tough. It’s amazing to hear what journeys others have travelled, and survived. Good luck with the challenges you face, too, and thanks again for your support.
Monique
/ November 17, 2012I’m sitting here with tears in my eyes – both for the fact that this happened to you and that you were brave enough to share it.
After reading articles about the Royal Commission in The West Australian this morning my husband and I have had a long, deep discussion about some of the issues you raise, particularly the Church as a man-made institution. I don’t think the Church as it has evolved is how Jesus envisioned it.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 18, 2012Thank you, Monique. I think he would be horrified, enter the “temples” and throw them all out.
Team Oyeniyi
/ November 18, 2012I think Jesus would have too.
shallowreader
/ November 19, 2012Dear Elizabeth, I have struggled for days to know what to write to you. I am sorry that you have experienced such pain and hurt in your life. Thank you for telling us about your experiences.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 19, 2012Vassiliki, thanks for your very kind words. Just so you know, I wouldn’t have the strength or confidence to speak out now if I hadn’t already done most of my healing. The talk of all the clerical abuse is a reminder, but it doesn’t traumatise me as it might once have done.
It’s the ones who still suffer in silence (especially those who are still children) that I feel for most. They are the ones we survivors need to speak out for now – and to the adult survivors who still suffer, too, so that they know they are not alone.
Kate
/ November 19, 2012Elizabeth, wow. You’re such an inspiring, brave, courageous writer, woman, and activist. I can’t imagine what it would take to live through something like this, let alone be able to share it in an open forum. Wow.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 20, 2012Thank you so much for your lovely comments, Kate. (And it’s so nice to have met you now in person.)
I’ve struggled with going public for a while now, but on balance I think it can do more good than harm. I hope so, anyway. I’m also aware that reading about these issues can be very triggering for some and I hope those people find the help and support they need to work through whatever comes up for them for their healing.
The greatest gift I’ve had from this whole process is a very belated heart-opening to trust, and to the belief in the healing power of love and respect – themes I know you’ll be sympathetic with. It’s never too late.
Team Oyeniyi
/ November 20, 2012Definitely more good than harm, Elizabeth. Think of this, and I am sure you have many times, if your going public saves one other victim, you have done a great thing. I am sure there will be more than one that finds solace in your words.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 20, 2012Thanks, Robyn. That’s a very good reminder.
Jayneen Sanders
/ November 20, 2012Elizabeth: you are an amazing woman and an amazing writer. What you have had to endure cannot go unheard and so many of us are listening. I am SO sorry you had to go through such horror and ongoing horror because of the abuse. In my own way I am trying to help our next generation of kids with my children’s book Some Secrets Should Never Be Kept. (www.somesecrets.info). Parent/schools must educate kids in sexual absue prevention education. I cannot say it loud enough. I am hoping many more survivors will come forward and not remain silent. Their stories will help to protect other kids and wake parents and the community up to the fact that sexual abuse is not only happening in institutions but in their own homes, and that they we MUST educate kids.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 20, 2012Thanks, Jayneen. I value your support and admire what you’re doing to help protect others from abuse.
I just found you on Twitter and tweeted the link to your book. I’ll have to see if it’s in the local library. If you know of any other Australian books that touch on the issue of CSA, please let me know.
Jayneen Sanders
/ November 20, 2012Hi Elizabeth
Thank you so much for the tweet. A really great organisation to contact via twitter is @SECASA and I know they would have a number of books of support. But you are an exceptional writer: maybe it is your story/novel we need to hear?
David Golding
/ November 21, 2012Hi Elizabeth,
What an amazing post! I am so sorry that you and so many others have gone through these terrible experiences. Thank you for sharing your story with us. I hope that every story told will help towards there being one less story to be told in the future.
Elizabeth Lhuede
/ November 21, 2012Thanks, David – that’s my hope, too.