Earl says ‘I’m a very lonely person and I hate being lonely’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Earl was brutally raped when he was in hospital as a child.
He has spent years working to overcome his distress and anger, but is still devastated by the experience.
When Earl was nine years old he became ill on a camping trip. He was taken to hospital and admitted with suspected appendicitis.
He remembers being in agony and lying in a room with a lot of people, then being left alone. Then a man came in, manhandled him roughly and raped him.
Earl says he was a shy child, innocent of any knowledge about sex. He only realised what had happened as he got older. He remembers being in a lot of pain after the rape. He doesn’t know who the perpetrator was, only that he had a white top on.
He recalls, with obvious distress, covering himself up after the assault. He says ‘The stupid thing is, I thought that’s how they checked for appendicitis. I didn’t know what sex was. I only knew I was in a lot of pain afterwards’.
Earl did not tell his parents he had been raped and it is only in the past year that he has disclosed the abuse to a counsellor. His father has now passed away; Earl found it very difficult to visit him in hospital, he thinks possibly because of his memories of what happened to him in hospital as a child.
The rape has impacted massively on Earl’s whole life. He was doing well at primary school but became increasingly angry and he ended up being expelled from secondary school.
The abuse has affected his relationships and Earl finds it very hard to trust anyone. ‘All my erratic, crazy ways can be linked back to this event and me covering it up.’ He adds that he feels ‘marked’ and is sure people know there is something wrong with him.
He spends long periods crying about what happened to him as a young boy. He felt deep anger and for a time fell under the influence of an extreme political organisation, but has now extracted himself from it.
Earl has insomnia, nightmares and flashbacks. He uses cannabis because it stops the bad dreams. He has been in counselling for about 20 years. It took a long time to find someone he trusted enough to confide in about the rape, and the funding for this counselling service has recently been withdrawn.
‘I’ve worked hard not to be that angry individual, but it makes me upset a lot’, he says.
He feels he destroys all his relationships but is still close to a former partner. She knows he was sexually abused, and encouraged him to come to the Truth Project.
Earl would like to see more funding for counselling services and support for victims and survivors of abuse. He thinks there should be better monitoring of social media because he has a young female relative who was groomed online.
‘I’m glad I came today … if talking about it helps just one person, I’m up for it’, he says.
Earl has adult children and says that they have kept him alive. He would like to train and become a volunteer working with children.