The pain with which you struggle bleeds through your writing, raw and festering, a wound which may take a lifetime to heal, and even then never be as it was before all this happened to you. I say this as one who myself struggles, some days quite intensely, to overcome the negative effects of my own sexual malfeasance. I hope I can offer a few words of help and/or wisdom without sounding either cliched or trite. Some things have helped me and I offer them to you.

If you go to  The Man Who Helped Destroy America – Reflecting on the Life of Hugh Hefner, which is my blog piece on my own sexual dysfunction, and read my story, you will see that I am a survivor of the so-called “Sexual Revolution.” In dealing with therapists myself, I was told that based on my experiences, there is a strong likelihood that I was abused as a very young child. Whatever it was, I was deeply sexualized by the time I was eight. That’s right. Eight. Something caused my life to go off the rails in a very bad way at a very young age. It was all downhill from there. As I state in the blog piece, this warped approach to life destroyed all that was good and has left me with deep and bitter regrets.

Having spent time myself weeping over those whom I hurt, weeping over my failures, and in days of dark black depression as I remember all the evils I did, I can only offer you what has helped me to heal. Perhaps it will be of assistance in some way to you.

1. Forgiving. My real healing began, as with many others who have similar stories, in forgiving those who created in me the passions which drove me to express myself in sexual ways. The healing was not instantaneous, and it still is an ongoing battle, but I am in a much better place today than I was 30 years ago. Your anger, understandable as it is, roars from the pages of your blog. You will not find peace until you can pray for that man who unleashed this horror on you.

When I was unjustly accused and thrown out of the diaconate formation program, after three years of seminary study, I spent over a year in deep anger against the priest who lied about me and the bishop who didn’t even have the courtesy to call me and ask for my side of the story.  I was deeply hurt and filled with rage against this man. Every time I saw his picture somewhere I had to fight against vengeful and evil thoughts.  It was only with much prayer, asking God for the grace to forgive him, and going to Confession to admit to my anger, that I finally came to peace.  This will not be easy, given the massive injustice that was done to you, but it is the only way you will break this man’s chains which are binding you.

2. Understand your abuser as a deeply wounded person himself. This is without a doubt going to be the hardest thing to do. Try to imagine him as a young child, happy, full of joy, innocent. Then something happened to him that warped him permanently. Something that took the joy out of his life and placed in him a hollowness he can never fill with repeated sexual contacts. What you suffered from him was not malice – it was the inner demons of his own suffering that he could not overcome. This is the story of so many who are addicted to behaviors which are both self-destructive and destructive of others. We see only the wretched behavior of those who hurt us. We do not see that terrible moment when the abuse they suffered set them on a one-way road of self-destructive behavior.

If you can find it in your heart to imagine that man as young child, crying in a corner after being abused by a “Funny Uncle,” then perhaps you will find yourself able to forgive him and find healing for your own deep pain.

3. Forgive God. Yes, that sounds absolutely blasphemous, but that is what a Christian counselor told me one day. Deep inside, I found that I was indeed angry with God for allowing to happen in my life all the crap I had gone through. I had to forgive Him for allowing me to be born to two very screwed up people who had no sense of showing affection at all. This created a hunger in me that fueled my need for sexual expression as a substitute form of love. I had to forgive Him for the wretched people I met growing up who used and abused me, for the bad associates who led me astray as a young adult, and for not sending someone to be a mentor of good choices to me as I was struggling to make sense of my life.

4. Leave the Church. But I don’t just mean the Roman Catholic Church where this took place. I mean that you should for a while concentrate not on religious “duties” or structured worship, but rather go find God in silence. Go somewhere that ministers to your soul, whether it be a quiet forest with a stream running nearby and singing birds, or a quiet beach with the sound of the ocean ministering to your wounds.Talk bluntly and openly with Him and hold nothing back, even your anger and rage against Him if needed. Then after you have dumped it all out before Him, be still. Meditate on His love, difficult as that may be in the beginning. This is what I am learning to do after a lifetime of thinking of God as being much like my own earthly father – distant, cold, lacking affection. I am still working on relearning who God is – that God is love. As I told my spiritual director, this will probably be a lifelong work for me as the idea of God as angry with me, as Judge I should fear, is deeply ingrained in my soul.

5. Find a group of sexual survivors with whom you can talk openly and without fear of shame or embarrassment. I found such a group and the ability to talk freely and weep openly accelerated my own healing. The worst thing you can do is to keep this bottled up inside and let it fester. There is no greater gift from God than a good friend who is completely understanding and non-judgmental of what you have experienced and what you are going through. If you find such a group, you will probably find someone in it with whom you can develop a healthy and healing friendship.

6. Realize the spiritual battle you are in. This is a big one for me. There are days that I wake up and the depression and bad memories hang like a black cloud over my head. Throughout the day, they both get more intense, along with a sense of despair. I have come to realize exactly where they come from, and find it greatly helpful to rebuke the devil in Jesus name – sometimes having to do this repeatedly until the wicked one gets the message and pulls back from his attack. We have an enemy. He hates to see any of God’s children happy and is constantly hovering about, looking for that opportunity to cause us misery. Your abuse is his opening, your memories are his ammunition. Trust God and fight back! Do not let him win. He already had one victory through the priest who molested you. Don’t give him any more!!

I hope this in some small way can help you. You have a long road ahead. Don’t try to walk it alone.