Joey says ‘I know I have been hiding a significant experience and trauma I suffered in my life’
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
For many years as an adult, when Joey was under stress, he would suffer nightmares and ‘day terrors’.
It was only when he heard that a man who had sexually abused him had been convicted of abusing others, that the detailed memories he had suppressed came back to him.
Joey grew up in the 1970s with a domineering father who was sometimes verbally and physically abusive to Joey and his mother. He says this was countered by his mother and other family members who were kind and loving and gave him positive experiences.
He went to an independent school, which he recognises as a privilege, but says ‘Being a late developer, I didn’t excel at sports or academia so was often bullied and intimidated at school and treated with a level of contempt at home’.
Joey adds that he did have hobbies and activities that he enjoyed.
His parents sometimes went out in the evenings, and his mother had an arrangement with a few people to come to the family home and mind Joey and his sibling.
One of them was Mr Jones. Joey’s mother befriended Mr Jones and his wife. Joey says ‘Being a kind and thoughtful person she reached out to new people to support them and give them help’.
Joey was primary school age when Mr Jones first came to look after the two children. Joey says that his sibling would stay upstairs reading. He continues ‘I always liked to be with people and watch TV so remained downstairs, in the living room, with Mr Jones’.
Mr Jones told Joey to stand up and then began touching him all over his body, then he put his hand inside Joey’s trousers and touched Joey’s genitals while masturbating himself. Joey recalls that Mr Jones told him he was ‘important’ and that ‘I should never tell anyone about what we were doing … even suggesting that my parents had said it was ok. It should be our secret’.
Joey says this happened every time Mr Jones came to look after him over the following years, but he adds ‘Thankfully, my mum would ask different people so it only happened a handful of times’.
He says the abuse escalated on each occasion but he does not want to give more details.
‘I have buried my feelings and upset for many years and the more I think about it, the more I remember – and I don’t want to remember it’ he says.
At the time he was being abused, Joey had no understanding what was happening, but his impression was that Mr Jones seemed kind, and Joey was happy that he was allowed to stay up and watch more television.
Joey was subjected to another episode of sexual abuse by another perpetrator, when he was about 12 years old. A teacher cornered him in a stairwell and told him he needed to ‘check’ his pants. The teacher then touched Joey’s genitals.
‘I didn’t report the matter, even though I knew it was wrong, as I felt isolated, dirty and confused, expecting people to say it was my fault’ says Joey.
As an adult, Joey was sexually abused by a colleague. This man also tried to rape Joey, who fought him off then reported the incident within the organisation. He was told nothing could be done as the assault could not be proved.
Joey buried all these incidents of sexual abuse until he happened to hear that Mr Jones had been convicted of sexual abuse.
‘I have spent many years throughout my adulthood where I have experienced nightmares and day terrors’ says Joey. When he heard about Mr Jones, detailed vivid memories of the sexual abuse he had experienced came flooding back.
He continues ‘Since that time I have suffered a significant mental health breakdown as I confronted numerous verbal, physical and sexual abuses I have suffered over my lifetime from people I expected to have been able to trust’.
Joey says that because he was abused by different perpetrators, he has blamed himself and at times felt that he must have done something ‘to encourage and signal such behaviour is acceptable’.
But with hindsight, he feels that because he developed a compliant attitude due to his father being controlling and sometimes violent, and because he was small for his age, he was ‘an ideal target’ for abusers. He adds that his mother was very caring and thoughtful, but too trusting. He says that he doesn’t trust many people and does not easily let people get close to him.
Joey thinks that his school should have made efforts to engage with pupils after the teacher who abused him was dismissed for sexually abusing children. He says ‘The culture of control and not wanting to address an issue for fear of reputational damage far outweighed the welfare of pupils’.
Joey adds that he has taken time out from work and had professional psychological support to help him deal with some of his past experiences and move forward with his life. However, he says he chooses not to specifically talk about the child sexual abuse he was subjected to ‘for fear of remembering more that I have buried in my memory’.