I have a different perspective on ‘ghosting’.

Ordinary people overlook child abuse as an explanation for sudden behavioural changes.

People claim they know that damage from CSA lasts a lifetime, but in reality they expect something more bombproof.
/1

When you’ve been hit or raped for disagreeing or saying no as a child, it’s makes setting boundaries hard to do.

Everything gets murky.

A long time ago, Phil had a close mate. Lovely guy. They were mates for ages.

This guy met a really nice woman & decided to get married.
/2

We had a toddler & a newborn by that point. I was keeping my childhood stuff secret.

Phil knew. We pretended it wasn’t there. Getting on with life, like society wants.

They asked me to be a bridesmaid.

I didn’t want to, but I said yes.
/3

Saying no was basically like going to the moon at that point in my life.

So you can imagine all the buildup.

At one point, I was breastfeeding my newborn & trying to stop my toddler from breaking things when I heard Phil’s mate talking about a church to get married in.
/4

I’m a clergy abuse survivor.

I guess I assumed they were going to marry outside; I’m not quite sure what my thought process really was.

But I realised I was going to have to be up on an altar and a priest would be there.

I really panicked.
/5

Lost the plot completely, I’m ashamed to say. Made an excuse, left like someone was chasing me and went home.

Phil couldn’t get me to talk coherently, we had a big fight which I engineered so I could create a giant smokescreen away from the real reason I was so upset.
/6

Phil knew what I was doing, but I couldn’t face all the horrible things inside myself.

The idea of having to go inside a church was too much.

And this good mate of Phil’s, and his beautiful fiancé, basically got the shit end of the situation, through no fault of their own.
/7

They couldn’t understand. I couldn’t explain.

To be honest, I wanted them to hate me as much as I hated myself.

And poor Phil lost his close mate because of me. He had promised he wouldn’t tell anyone about my abuse years before.

He was waiting for me to be ready to tell.
/8

This is what the after effects of severe childhood abuse looks like.

I wanted people to hate me. I didn’t have the language or maturity to explain or defend myself.

The ‘flight’ syndrome took over and I ran from all of it.

This is what clergy abuse does.

/9

Our son, at 15, said that it’s like a spiders web. The impacts from priests who rape children just keeps growing & destroying everything around that survivor.

It wouldn’t surprise me a bit if a lot of people hate me for telling this story.

I’m not proud of it.
/10

But I do think it’s important to always look deeper when someone you care about suddenly behaves out of character.

If a reaction seems like overkill, or your friend or family member starts running away.

When a small disagreement seems to be a betrayal & you don’t know why.
/11

It’s these ordinary situations that tell us about the mechanisms of shame & isolation caused by raping a child.

It hurts people. It makes it very difficult to trust that people will be okay with you.

Maybe someone might read this & understand more.

I’d like that.

/end