Episode Transcript
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Hi, this is Rachel and recovery. We've got a special guest today,
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David. He's going to tell us
a little bit about himself. He's a
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survivor of childhood sexual abuse, Um, withinside the church. Uh, David's
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heels. A little bit of Art
Yourself, sure. I'm semi retired,
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father of two, Um, in
a wonderful thirty two year marriage and UH,
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for about thirty years I was a
national director of a group called snap,
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the survivor's network of those abused by
priests, which is a support and
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advocacy group. Despite the word priest
in the title. Uh, we welcome
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anybody and everybody who wasn't hurt in
an institutional setting. And I repressed the
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memories of my childhood sexual abuse until
I was around thirty years old, and
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that's really when my recovery began.
Okay, Um, so I'm gonna ask
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you a couple of questions. What
things have you done, Um, for
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recovering from being sexually abused? Oh, I think it feels to me like
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I've done or tried a wide variety
of things, primarily one on one therapy,
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although I've also done group therapy,
art therapy, Um, and really
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my involvement with snap has been a
huge part of my recovery, both going
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to uh, just countless Um snap
support group meetings, Um, and also,
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Um, may be in the minority
on this, but but the advocacy
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in the Um, public outreach that
snap does has also been very, very
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healing for me. Okay, Um, what has been the most helpful?
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Oh, I think, Um,
I think it would have to be therapy.
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Um. I've found that I've I've
managed to pick pretty competent therapists for
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the most part, but even even
less competent therapists I've found were helpful as
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well. Um. And Uh,
I remembered my memories when I was going
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out with a woman who later became
my wife, and she's a social worker.
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And so, uh, she's also
been an extraordinary, extraordinary part of
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my part of my healing. Um. How did your family respond? Not
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Well, Um. I come from
a from a kind of working class family
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and a rural part of Missouri.
Uh, six kids, both parents very
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devout Catholics. Um. The good
news is that when I disclosed, Mom
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and dad believed me. Um,
and that's not an experience, as you
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know, that that every survivor has. Um. The bad news is that,
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UM, they didn't really know what
to do beyond that, and when
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I told them later that I was
going to file a civil lawsuit against my
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perpetrator and the Bishop, Um,
you know they were they were pretty,
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pretty upset. The whole situation is
complicated by the fact that the priest who
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molested me molested three others, other
boys in our family, including my younger
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brother Kevin, who went on to
become a priest himself, Um, and
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molest kids himself. So, in
essence, when I sued the Jefferson,
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Jefferson City Diocese, I was suing
my brother's employer, if you will.
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That's gonna be tricky. It was. It was very tricky. Um,
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it was, you know, for
for the most part. Frankly, I
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should have put litigation on that list
of of things that have helped me in
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recovery because my lawsuit, even though
it was ultimately unsuccessful, Um, I
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really did regained some of my power
and I took tremendous satisfaction out of the
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fact that when I sued, his
name became public, he was suspended from
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ministry. Um, and other young
men who had been hurt by him as
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kids came forward to me. So
all of that felt really, really good.
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Stressful, stressful, but good.
Um. I guess the next question
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how did your community respond? Um. You know, uh, it's a
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it's a conservative community. Luckily,
I had since moved to St Louis,
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Um and built a very good network
of friends. Um. So I feel
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really, really lucky in that respect. Um, to to a to a
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person. Every friend I had,
believe me, supported me, applauded my
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Decisi and to file a lawsuit and
to speak publicly. Um, and that
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was hugely helpful, hugely helpful.
was there any re victimization or victim blaming?
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Um, there was. There was
a fair amount of that in the
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in the media when I filed my
lawsuit and began to speak publicly. Um,
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because this was in the early nineties
and for younger folks, younger survivors,
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it may be hard to imagine just
how shut down society was and how
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people were not talking about abuse in
general and certainly not abuse by priests.
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Probably the single greatest act of re
victimization, though, came at the hands
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of my bishop, Um, because
I was suing my brother Kevin's employer,
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the Jeff City Diocese. I chose
to file as John DOE originally, and
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when the newspapers contacted the Bishop,
uh, he did not protect my privacy.
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In fact, he said to the
newspapers, well, I don't know
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who this John Doe is who claims
he was abused, but I do know
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that another guy had come forward to
US years ago making the same claim,
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and that guy was David Classy.
So, in essence, I was I
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was immediately outed by my bishop.
Ultimately, I had planned to disclose my
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identity but um, I thought I
would file as John Doe in part to
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protect my family. So that was
pretty pretty shocking and and pretty upsetting,
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Um, when he did that.
And Luckily these days that does not happen
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very often at all for the most
part. Defendants, uh know that.
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You know, when somebody files this
Jane do or John Doe, they deserve,
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you know, that kind of privacy
and that kind of protection and and
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yeah, honor it. How has
this impacted your career? Oh Gosh,
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I would my immediate responses in every
conceivable way. Um, I've spent my
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life basically working for social justice in
one form or fashion. Um, I
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think that, even though I was
not consciously aware of my abuse, Um,
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initially because I repressed it. After
each and every episode I woke up
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the next morning no recollection ever whatsoever. Still, I think in my got
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and in my heart of hearts,
I had developed, uh, some sympathy
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for the underdog, you, pressed
suffering, Um, and that certainly affected
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my career choices, Um, in
a very negative way, I think,
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because I was abused by a man
in authority. Um, I grew up
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with very strong dislike for authority and
looking back on my career, I realized
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I have done the best work when
I had a female supervisor, because when
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I had a male supervisor, every
single time I was treated well or complimented,
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there was a little voice in the
back of my head that says,
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be careful, you know, maybe
he's got a hidden agenda here, maybe
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he's not really looking out for me, Um. And I think that's directly
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tied to to my abuse. Tell
us about, oh, working with snap.
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Well, for the first fifteen years
or so, um, we were
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an all volunteer organization. Um,
small, scared, inexperienced, uncertain.
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Um, we very, very we
grew very, very slowly and really all
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we wanted to do. We had
no illusions about changing the Catholic hierarchy in
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any way. Uh, and all
we wanted to do was to meet and
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and share our pain and provide a
safe place for others to come and disclose
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their their pain. Um. But
eventually we, many of us, began
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to realize that it's gonna be hard
for for us to recover while our predators
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are still out there under the radar
in parishes and possibly hurting kids today,
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and the bishops who covered for our
predators were still in Chancery Office, is,
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still had power, still covering for
perpetrators. So that's what kind of
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led us to the activism part of
us. We did, we don't.
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We've done a lot of leafleting outside
parishes where Predator priests, Um, we're
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stationed, or or our station,
and and that's the side of snap that
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everybody sees, the stuff that gets
us in the news media, the news
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conferences and stuff. But nine of
the work that snapped does is just quiet,
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one on one UM, support for
people, not just survivors but,
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you know, also friends and family
who call in and are confused and scared
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and I want to know what they
should do. Um. How did you
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cope with the triggers of working in
that environment. Oh, for a long,
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long time. Not Well, for
a long time it felt, you
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know, the image it comes from. The image that comes to mind is
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that of a roller coaster. But
I don't think that's a great image because
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even when you get on the scariest
roller coaster in the world, some part
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of you knows that it will come
to an end and it will come to
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an end safely, right. But
that's not how it felt. With snap
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we were in unchartered waters again.
Very few people were talking about and acknowledging
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abuse by priests, and when it
was acknowledged it was always defined as kind
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of a one off. You know, what an aberration. You know,
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here's a here's a bad apple in
this otherwise Jack Antic and wonderful barrel.
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Um. So it was. It
was very emotionally rocky for the longest time
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for me, gradually recovering from childhood
sexual abuse as an adult male boomer and
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been in the field for thirty years. What trends have you noticed? I've
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noticed that in general, slowly,
sporadically, but in general, um,
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it's become less painful and difficult for
survivors to come forward. There's more support,
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there's more different kinds of therapy.
There are self help groups, there
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are more self help books available.
Um. You know, back in the
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day, in the eighties and nineties, we were out there on our own.
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Um, and it's still an uphill
battle. Right there are still parents
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who don't believe when they're when their
child discloses abuse, and there are to
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shoot. So there are UM.
So I don't mean to suggest it's easy
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for anybody to disclose abuse and to
deal with abuse now. It's not.
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It's awful, it's hard and it
always will be. But it does seem
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like gradually it's getting a little bit
easier for survivors. Um and are things
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improving? Are Getting worse for survivors? Getting better in all respects except one,
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and that is that, Um and
the sounds cynical, hard for people
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to believe. I think that parents, police, prosecutors, politicians, judges,
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juries, they're all much more open
to believing and helping abuse survivors.
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However, the exception is the church
hierarchy. I think the church hierarchy has
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changed very, very little, Um, and again that's hard for people to
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wrap their heads around. But Um, you know, if you're caught doing
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wrong, you've got two choices.
You can either stop doing wrong or you
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can double down and work harder and
smarter to conceal your wrongdoing. And that,
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unfortunately, is the path I think
most bishops have chosen and that's why
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there's been so little change in the
church hierarchy. But outside of it,
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in the secular world, there's been
tremendous change, and all all positive.
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How has this impacted your dating life
before you were married? Oh well,
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Um, I got started dating pretty
late. Um, I found it very
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hard to let any woman touch me. I sabotaged relationships. Um, I
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broke up with a woman I was
involved with for five years and I couldn't
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really explain to her why I was
wanted to break up. Um, because
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I didn't even know myself. Um. So it was. It was rough.
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It was rough and thankfully, Um, I found a woman who was
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actually working as a licensed mental health
therapist in a clinic seeing sexually abused little
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boys and girls. So she knew
all the right things to say and do
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and again it's been a tremendous part
of my recovery. Um. Hows has
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impacted your marriage? Well, Um, you know it. Uh. It's
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led to some very tough years.
I was dating more when I first remembered
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my abuse. So literally suddenly,
overnight, Um, I became a very
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print person in a lot of ways. Um, depressed, distrustful again,
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UM, uptight about sex and because
of the family issues involved. Um,
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that really complicated things, because it
was hard on Laura to suddenly have in
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laws who really kind of weren't in
laws. In other words, we distance
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ourselves from my parents and my family
in general very, very early on,
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and that was tough. That was
tough. My my dad, for example,
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didn't see our youngest until he was
about five years old. So we're
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you know, Laura and I are
in good shape now, thank heavens,
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but we've been the counseling as a
couple as well. But UH, yeah,
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it was very difficult in those early
years, for sure. Um,
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house, this affected your parenting.
Well, as you might expect, I've
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been a pretty hyper vigilant parent in
some ways. Um, we were pretty
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cautious about letting our kids spend the
night at somebody else's house. Uh.
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We we moved to a house on
a dead end street. Uh, and
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I was really reluctant to even let
the kids ride bicycles. Luckily, you
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know Laura, it's more reasonable and
Uh uh, talk me out of some
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of my I won't call it paranoia, but I would say my my hyper
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vigilance. Um. Yeah, and
of course then when I came to work
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full time for snap in two thousand
and two, which caused a lot of
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travel, I was gone a lot
and that was really tough for me because
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one reason I think I was susceptible
to being abused was because my father traveled
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a lot for his work, and
so my mother, I'm sure, felt
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overwhelmed. And here's clearly both of
my parents, uh, welcome with open
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arms, welcomed this priest into our
family, and so I felt a fair
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amount of guilt early on when I
was traveling and our kids were young and
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and Laura picked up a huge amount
of slack. Um. How did this
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impact your finances? Oh, Um, I think. Uh, you know,
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I I in conventional terms, H
if you look at somebody who's gotten
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me, been privileged enough to get
the education I got and and work as
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hard as I have, in conventional
terms, I've clearly sort of underperformed financially.
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Uh. You know, we've never
been poor, we've never been hungry,
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but there's been some financial instability,
and especially once I once I remembered
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the abuse, because for I don't
know, appear to maybe six months,
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I would get up in the morning
and shower and shave and get dressed and
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eat breakfast and start to walk out
the door and couldn't bring myself to do
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it. It was just hit or
miss every single morning as to whether or
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not I would be able to pull
myself together enough to show up to work.
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Luckily I was working someplace where that
was kind of tolerated. But Um,
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but again, I think uh,
in general I've made a lot less
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money than I would have otherwise made
had I not carried this burden for so
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many years. And what about your
expenses as far as like counseling and treatments
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and Um, it just boggles my
mind too to even think about how much
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money I've spent on counseling over the
years. Um, in more recent years
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we've had much better health insurance through
my wife's job and so that's an enormous
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health but again, I couldn't even
begin to put a figure, a dollar
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figure, on how much I've spent
on counting. And yet I would argue
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that every penny of it was was
worthwhile. I know many survivors can't say
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that. Many survivors have had a
very spotty record, you know, finding
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the right therapists and that sort of
thing. But Um, for me therapy
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has been a real godsend, even
though it's been extraordinarily expensive. When you
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add it all up. How how
has this impacted your your overall long term
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health? Um, you know,
it's it's hard to say. I mean
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I've Read I've read the book.
The body keeps the score and I certainly
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subscribe to the notion that emotional trauma
contributes heavily to the health issues. Um,
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I've always had minor health issues.
I've I've had I've struggled with insomnia
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for many, many years, um, but it's actually only been in the
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last five years, since I stopped
working for snapped full time, that I've
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that I've been hit with a slew
of health issues. I've had throat cancer,
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I've had prostate cancer, I I
currently have a non cancerous, asymptomatic
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brain tumor. Um. I once
added it up and I I think in
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the last four years or so I've
had three e Er trips and uh,
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seven operations and three outpatient procedures and
it just goes on and on. So
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the last few years have been very
rough health wise, but I'm in good
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shape now and uh that my my
health issues now are mostly time consuming and
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inconvenient and ever so slightly painful.
None of them are life threatening, Um,
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and so I can deal with that. The throat cancer was definitely the
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toughest and it was what I was
hit with first, and I feel very
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fortunate in that I got the worst
of my health issues out of the way,
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you know, at first, and
so everything else after throat cancer has
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seemed much less stressful and much more
manageable. But it's really hard to draw
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a connection, the direct connection to
the abuse. I mean, I always
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say to people that's part of what
makes abuse so pernicious and so hard to
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recover from, because you can't see
a direct cause and effect. Right if
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I break my leg as a kid
and a doctor sets it poorly, Um,
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I may walk with a limp the
rest of my life, where I
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may have pain when I walked the
rest of my life, but at no
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time in my life later on do
I say, wow, my stomach hearts,
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that's probably because the doctor set my
leg improperly right. With with physical
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trauma, the connection between cause and
effect is clear. With them sational trauma
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it's much, much less clear,
and that that makes it tough. Um.
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How how has this impacted your social
life? Oh, I think,
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UM, briefly put, I think
I went from being quite an extrovert to
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being quite an introvert. Um.
People who know me well or fairly well
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find it hard to believe that I'm
an introvert. Um, but I think
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I just once I had my memories, Um, I became much more skittish
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about meeting people and developing friendships,
much more skeptical of other people. Um,
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I feel like I have a great
many friends. I'm I feel like
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I've had a very, very good
social life. But clearly, especially early
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on when I remembered and was dealing
with my abuse constantly, I very much
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with through from people, friends and
family, Um, and only in more
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recent years have I become begun to
come out of that, I guess you
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could say. Okay. Um,
how has this affected you your long term
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mental health? Oh, I wish
I knew, Um, and that may
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sound odd to say given how much
I've been in therapy. Um, I
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think it's it's impacted, uh,
me, an awful lot. Um,
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I'm pretty confident I would have been
a more confident and relaxed and even keeled
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kind of person had I not been
sexually molested time and time again as a
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kid. Um. I look at
other people, for I mean my siblings
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in fact, who the ones who
haven't been and I I of course envy
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them and I, uh, I
just think that their path in adulthood is,
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it seems, less, Um,
you know, up and down,
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less emotionally fraught. Now, of
course, the grass is always greener,
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right. So, and we we
don't know what even people who are close
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to us, we don't know what
they're experiencing in their private lives. But
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I think I've clawed my way over
the years to have position of relatively good
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mental health. But of course the
fact is I shouldn't have had to claw
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any of it, right. Yes, UM, two other victims out there.
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What advice would you want to give
them? Oh, that's a great
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question, Michel, that is a
great question. Um, I would,
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of course say to them all the
things we say to a first time caller
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at snap. Uh, I believe
you. It's not your fault. It
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does get better. Um. But
I would say to people you know,
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this is not a burden you can
carry by yourself. It's just not.
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And you'll begin to get better.
Here's my advice. You'll begin to get
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better the minute you start sharing your
pain with others, not indiscriminately, of
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course, um, but with trusted
loved ones. And I think almost every
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survivor I've ever spoken to, and
I've spoken to hundreds and hundreds, almost
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every survivor I've spoken to in the
long run knows that disclosing their pain is
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good. It's good for themselves,
it's good for their relationships, it's good
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for their families. So and I
guess I would also say. I would
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say to survivors that thousand sex abuse
is a lot more like cancer than it
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is like the common cold. If
you get a cold and you don't do
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a thing, you will eventually get
better. Right, it'll go away.
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If you were sexually abused as a
kid and you don't do anything about it,
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it's not going to get better.
It's like cancer. It will keep
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growing and growing and growing, even
imperceptibly, but imperceptibly, but it will
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affect your life in ways that you're
just not even sure so you've got to
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face it head on, you've got
to tell somebody you you love and trust,
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Um, and you've gotta at least
try therapy. Um. But I
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would assure survivors that it really can
and does get better. The short term
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is rocky, but the long term, you know, I don't know a
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single survivor who has ever said to
me, looking back on it, I
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wish I had just kept my mouth
shut. Almost never have I heard that
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from survivors. Um. What was
the grooming process like? Oh, this
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guy, this guy was very smart. Um. It was slow, it
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was gradual. Um. He ingratiated
himself with our whole family. Uh,
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my mom and dad just absolutely loved
him. And it started with small things
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like, well, will you come
up to the rectory with me and help
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help me with this mailing, Um, you know, stuff and envelopes and
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licking stamps, and then it got
to go well, I have access to
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this cabin down on the lake of
the ozarks this weekend. You know what,
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if I take David Down there for
just a couple of days? And
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then it got to the point where
I was going on trips with him for
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a week long at a time.
Um. So He, you know,
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he, I think, very,
very carefully, won the trust of my
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family and won my trust and,
uh, and blurred the boundaries all the
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time. Kept praising me and saying
that I was much more wise than my
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years and kind of treated me like
an adult, and that felt really,
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really good. Um. It felt
great to get that kind of attention and
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to be treated you with respect.
But obviously a little did I know as
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a kid that all of that was
was just a setup, m very effective
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one. How has this impacted your
faith? Well, I consider myself,
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Um, sort of a reluctant agnostic. Um, I don't particularly I don't
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particularly believe in God and sometimes I
wish I did, but I stopped going
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to church in college pretty much the
first opportunity I had. Um and it.
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It, I think, is Ben
you know, every now and then,
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if I'm walking down the hallway in
a hospital and I see a whole
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bunch of visitors in one room,
uh, you know, bringing flowers and
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cookies or whatever. Or on a
Sunday morning, if I drive somewhere and
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I passed a church and it's a
warm day and standing outside the church,
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or at least songs of people,
and you can tell they're happy and they're
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among people who know them well.
Every now and then I feel a Pang
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of regret and envy, but for
the most part, quite frankly, the
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kind of community that churches try to
be or claimed to be, is really
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it. That's the same kind of
community that that we've built through snap and
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I really do feel like I have
found, Um, a real family,
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if you will, outside of my
own Um, you know, flesh and
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blood family, and so I found
the kind of fellowship and Camaraderie and like
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mindedness among survivors that a lot of
people find in a church or a synagogue.
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Okay, Um, is there anything
else you'd like to add? Oh,
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that's a dangerous question ration from grab
a cup of coffee, prop your
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feet up. Well, I would, I would just, I would just,
335
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I would just kind of echo what
I said earlier about it really does
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get better. Oh, I know
what I would say. I guess I
337
00:30:27.279 --> 00:30:33.799
would say that, Um, for
me, one of the toughest, toughest
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parts about recovery. I was feeling
helpless, feeling utterly helpless. Um,
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I couldn't turn the clock back,
I couldn't suddenly give myself a second uh
340
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worry free, non abusive childhood and
I couldn't protect my younger siblings who would
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already been molested by this priest.
So what I found is that, uh,
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the less I act ashamed, the
less I feel ashamed, and the
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more steps I take to protect other
kids and help other survivors, the better
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it makes me feel about myself.
Um, as you can imagine, after
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you know, thirty years in snap, fairly often I've heard the survivor say
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to me, you know, Gosh, thank you for what you're doing,
347
00:31:22.519 --> 00:31:26.880
thank you for all the outreach,
blah, blah, blah, and I've
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always had to just say look,
I have benefited as much as or more
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than anybody from the work of snap. Um. It's not something I do
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for other people, it's something I
do because it helps me, and I
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think that that's why I'm sort of
optimistic about the long term, because the
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more survivors have options to take action
against their creditor or against his employer or
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action to protect other kids, I
think the better the better will feel.
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Um. I know that that's been
the case with me. The more that
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I speak publicly, find other survivors
work together with them to Reform Archaic Predator
356
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Friendly Statutes of limitations, work with
them to perform support groups. All of
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that stuff has been extraordinarily healing.
All right, gay thanks so much,
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Pavin, for joining us today.
We're welcome, blackly and, as always,
359
00:32:32.759 --> 00:32:37.720
tune in on Thursdays Antenna am and, if you wanted to, always
360
00:32:37.759 --> 00:32:42.519
follow us on your favorite podcast platform
or social media platform. And if you
361
00:32:42.559 --> 00:32:45.559
have any questions or you want to
reach out, always go to Reachel and
362
00:32:45.599 --> 00:32:46.519
recovery DOT com. Thanks for listening.
