I'm a Survivor; I have nothing to hide, nor anything for which to be ashamed!

I'm a Survivor; I have nothing to hide,

nor anything for which to be ashamed!

Not long ago, I was “officially" diagnosed with “PTSD” (i.e., “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder”).  In this acronym I prefer to replace the “D” with an “S” (i.e., the word “disorder” with the word “syndrome,” ergo “PTSS”), because I think “disorder” implies some sort of weakness or “blame” on my part.  I am not to blame!  I am a SURVIVOR!  

This diagnoses was recently made during the time I spent several months “in treatment” at the St. John Vianney Center (SJVC) in Downingtown, PA (from Nov. 22, 2021 until April 18, 2022).  The Center is a specialized facility that assists priests and professional religious women and men who are in need of dealing with critical life issues.  

Most of 2021 was particularly difficult for me.  During the year (and very much related to events and situations that had preceded it), several events occurred in my life that “triggered me” and caused a fall into anger, and a state of deep depression and hopelessness (these realities were merely agitated by the inconveniences and stresses of the COVID-19 pandemic).  I believe consequent struggles with feelings of rage and great angst led me into some very self-destructive behaviors, including toxic involvement in some codependent  relationships, excessive alcohol use, and a foray into some substance abuse.  As the year came to a close, it became very clear to me I needed to get some professional help; I had to deal with the crisis consuming me, and so at the end of November, 2021, I entered the SJVC.  During my time there, I was given the opportunity “to look deep within” and, for the first time in my life, to begin to understand and to process emotional and psychological traumas that had significantly impacted the entirety of my life experience.  By 2021, and as a fifty-nine year old man, I had been encumbered and afflicted with much of that trauma for at least forty-seven years.  My treatment at SJVC gave me, for the first time in my life, the opportunity to understand some of the core issues burdening my soul for so long.  I believe I am now well “on the road to recovery.”

While at St. John Vianney, I wrote much of the following narrative (as part of a much longer essay, not published here, in which I wrote a chronology of many of my life experiences): 

I believe what's written here describes the crux of the “issues” that led to my experience with PTSS (a.k.a. “PTSD”), and to the related personal crisis and emotional breakdown I experienced in 2021.

■ I was severely sexually abused beginning in 1976 when I was a thirteen-year-old boy and by several male adults (without going into detail, and very lamentably, I can report that depending on various degrees of abuse by the individual perpetrators, the totality of these experiences included almost any imaginable homosexual-like acts: these included forced stripping, genital exposure, fondling, and mutilation, active and passive penetrations, various active and passive oral behaviors, psychological intimidation and verbal sexual humiliation and harassment; I was also forced to witness some of these perpetrators abuse other children as well).  To some extent or another, these acts were committed by John Merzbacher, my eighth-grade Catholic school English teacher at the Catholic Community Middle School, Locust Point, Baltimore, Maryland, and by Ronald Mardaga and Edward Heilman, two seminarians (who were later ordained as priests) of the Archdiocese of Baltimore; by Mardaga (who perpetrated these acts in the most severe manners many times over a three or more year period) at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church, Locust Point, Baltimore, Maryland (and at other locations, including at his parents' home in Essex, Baltimore County, Maryland, New Germany State Park, Garrett County, Maryland, and Sinks Grove, West Virginia), and by his close friend Heilman (a number of “limited” times) at St. Mark Church, Fallston, Baltimore County, Maryland, and at St. Mary's Seminary and University, Baltimore, Maryland.  In the summer of 1977, and completely independent of the above mentioned occasions, I was simultaneously sexually assaulted by two adult strangers in a public bath-house. This event occurred during a Saturday summer family outing at Codorus State Park, Hanover, Pennsylvania (when I returned to Baltimore with my family that evening, I went to the church rectory and confided in Mardaga about what had happened in Pennsylvania; he then immediately “used the opportunity” and proceeded to sexually assault me, absurdly justifying his actions by telling me I “needed a sexual healing” because of what had happened earlier that day in the bath-house – when I think about this now, the incredibility of it nearly overwhelms me).  

■ These various experiences occurred during and over a three-year or more year period, and well into my high school years while I was a student at Calvert Hall College High School, Towson, Maryland. During those years at Calvert Hall, a private, Catholic boys’ school, I remained “quiet,” isolated, and incognizant that I existed in constant state of severe depression.  Those were very difficult years for me!  In July of 1980, between my senior year of high school and my freshman year at Mount Saint Mary’s College, Emmitsburg, Maryland, and while away from home for the first time working a summer job in Ocean City, Maryland, I had a deeply religious “conversion experience” in which for the first time ever I felt some kind of certainty that “God loved me without question, and more than I could possibly imagine.”  Subsequently, during my four years at “the Mount,” the second oldest Catholic college in the United States, I had some of the happiest, most socially engaged, and spiritually enriching moments of my life. It was there that I decided to pursue a vocation as a Franciscan friar. I think I was attracted to the Franciscan charism because of St. Francis’ radical rejection of the societal and ecclesiastical “status quos” of his day, because of his desire to live a life of simplicity, because of his respect and admiration for all of God’s creation, and his commitment to serving the poor and the marginalized, people who had otherwise been rejected by the “the powerful, the high, and the mighty.”  I somehow identified with both St. Francis’ way of life, and with the “lowly people” he most enthusiastically served!

■ During the ensuing years, I went through a Franciscan formation program and seminary training, was ordained as a Franciscan priest, worked for many years in active ministry in various assignments, and believe I was relatively “stable” and emotionally healthy.

■ However, the reality of my early experiences as a victim of sexual abuse left deep psychological scars on me, and most definitely and adversely effected my ability to trust others (especially “authority figures”), and my psychosexual development (and these things perhaps led to and/or reinforced some of my “dysfunctional and maladaptive core beliefs”).  For many years, I “suppressed” and/or “repressed” my memories of those abuses, as well as related sexual-identity-confusion and issues they precipitated.  I had also erroneously “spiritualized” the feelings of “guilt” and shame they had caused me (and I “frequently got on my knees and sorrowfully pleaded with, and begged God to forgive me” for my so-called and nearly “unforgivable sins”).  I now understand those experiences also left me with a lifelong-lasting and profound lack of trust in authority figures.  This mistrust has been exacerbated when I have felt such authority figures disrespected, abused, and mistreated me and/or others who were marginalized, who were misunderstood, and who were not appreciated for who they were.   

■ In addition to my “trust issues,” I have also suffered with severe depression and inner anger for as long as I can remember. I now believe my experience of sexual abuse and subsequent trust issues, my severe depression, and my inner anger, have been very much related.  Previously, I did not “connect these dots,” nor did I have this type of “relational self-perception” and insight.

■ I believe one very significant insight I grasped during my time in treatment at the SJVC is that I have the need “to forgive” and to extend a great deal of not-done-before “self-compassion” to my very tormented and guilt-ridden “inner-child.”  I now realize that for most of my life I have unconsciously and unknowingly “blamed, chastised, and shamed the boy Timothy” for all his self-perceived faults, his failures, his so-called “sins,” and his inability to protect and defend himself from those who mistreated him, abused him (especially as a victim of severe sexual abuse), and put-him-down during his early life’s most difficult, challenging, self-destructive, and personally damaging moments, situations, and events.  Because of what I’ve learned in treatment, I now strongly believe this has been a momentous and very major development in my self-awareness and recovery.  In this regard and now for the first time, I am actually beginning to understand myself as a “survivor.”  I must not, and I have no need, to blame, to chastise, and/or to shame my “inner child,” nor the adult who I became, and who I now am!

■ I think it’s important to note I have been regularly seeing therapists (usually weekly) for the past thirty-five years.  Most of the issues I took to treatment at the SJVC were “not new to me,” but for the first-time-ever I was able to “delve deep” into them in a way I had never heretofore done.  

■  I have no doubt that going forward I will have to continue meeting regularly with therapists, with like-minded support people, and with others who understand the struggle and dynamics of trauma (especially PTSS - a.k.a., PTSD).  I know I must always honestly, and openly discuss current life events and situations that could possibly cause triggers to depression, to anxiety, to “mistrust issues,” to “co-dependent” relationships and situations, to risky or inappropriate substance and/or alcohol abuses, and/or to behaviors not consistent with my desire to live a Christian and holistic life.

■ But most importantly, I know I'm a Survivor, that I have nothing to hide, nor anything for which to be ashamed!

This school photo was taken in the Fall of 1975, in the beginning of my eighth grade year, and shortly after my thirteenth birthday.  At that time, and for the most part, I hadn't yet lost my “innocence.”

“Timmy” – September 1975

While in treatment at SJVC, I also discovered the following wonderful and thought-provoking poem written by Rachel Keating; it speaks volumes to me! 

it's not your fault

you've grown up

with the notion

that you're at fault

for all your flaws

you've convinced yourself

that your shoulders

are an okay place

for other people's problems to fall

you've got this twisted idea

that you're responsible

for other's mistakes,

that somehow, you're the one to blame

-you've got it all wrong-

you should never apologize

on behalf of other's actions

that's like saying sorry

for being too compassionate

your heart is as real

as the sun in the sky

your mind is just evil

an enemy telling you lies

don't fall for any of it

look in the mirror

wipe away all your tears

and tell yourself, always:

it's not your fault

it's not your fault

it's not your fault

*it is not your fault  

■ For more of Rachael Keating's poetry,

follow this link: https://hellopoetry.com/rachel-keating/poems/

For information about resources for survivors of child sexual abuse 

follow this link: https://www.enoughabuse.org/get-help/survivors.html

■ For more information about the St. John Vianney Center,

follow this link: https://www.sjvcenter.org