Xavier finds it unbearable to think that child sexual abuse still goes on
All names and identifying details have been changed.
Participants have given us permission to share their experiences.
Xavier was sent to a boarding school in the 1970s, when he was nine years old.
He was raped one night by two members of staff in an attack that was so violent, he thought he might die.
Xavier explains that the school presented itself as ‘a decent place’, but as soon as the parents disappeared after dropping off their children, it became a vicious, cruel environment.
He remembers that when the assault took place, it was pitch dark in the dormitory he shared with several other children. He never knew which two members of staff it was who held him down and raped him orally and anally.
He remembers the feeling that he was suffocating, and he tried so hard to fight them off, his collar bone snapped. He also vividly recalls the smells of aftershave and alcohol.
The following day Xavier was put in the sick bay and given some medicine. He realised now that he was in shock. No one asked him anything about why he was ill. When he went back to class he was so traumatised he couldn’t concentrate or write anything, and as a result he dropped behind academically.
He says that he never mentioned what happened to anyone and adds that the other children in the dormitory would have probably been too scared to say anything.
He did write to his mother and ask her to take him home, but he discovered later that the school censored the boys’ letters. For the time he remained at the school, he says he ‘shut down and kept his head down’. All the children lived in constant fear of being beaten, and Xavier was terrified the sexual abuse might happen again.
Xavier describes his life as ‘misery, bewilderment, frustration, chaos’ since he was abused. As a teenager he says he became ‘fairly delinquent … getting drunk and smashing things up’. He remembers feeling angry and blaming his mother for everything. He says he was very promiscuous, and found relationships difficult. He suffered PTSD and attempted suicide.
He suspects the men who raped him worked in that school so they could target children for abuse. He says it is essential that background checks are thorough. He says ‘We need to be 100% certain that if someone is working with children they don't have the potential to offend’.
After years of abusing alcohol, Xavier went into rehab and therapy, which he says helped him enormously. He says he now realises he is not ‘a bad person’ but is resilient and a survivor. He is now happily married with children of his own and works in mental health services.
However, he says he still thinks every day about the abuse he suffered, and he came to the Truth Project because he wants to feel he did everything he could to help other people in similar situations.