Once is Enough

One Man's Story

I was once convinced that sex was beyond my reach. I was prepubescent—maybe twelve years old. Why was sex an issue? I don’t know. But this presumption—not even clear enough to be a thought—set me up for victimization.

A counselor at a summer camp, a basketball and swimming teacher named Sandy, who looked after a cabin full of boys, made me feel special by simply acting friendly. Not that anyone was unfriendly—it just seemed that normal friendliness was not enough for me. I happened to be chosen for Sandy’s scavenger hunt team. This was not a simple scavenger hunt. The game lasted over a week, requiring concentration and teamwork. Our team won because we knew the clues before anyone else did. Now I’ve learned a term, “grooming,” for what Sandy was up to. Then I might have called it “attention” if I had thought of it at all.

After the camp term, Sandy invited me on a weekend trip. He stopped by my home in his full-size convertible to pick me up. What did I think and feel about it? What did my parents think and feel about it? I don’t know.

We would drink if I wanted to. I would drive his car. We would shoot rats with .22s at a garbage dump. We would go see a parade. Lots of fun, the excitement of disapproved activities with a figure who had authority over me—into whose care my parents had entrusted me—promised me a fulfillment I seemed to be seeking.

The first night we stopped at a Holiday Inn on Route 40. We ate dinner together in the dining room. Sandy showed me how to back-dive in the motel pool. We went to bed. He showed me about sex. Not sexual abuse, homosexuality. Not love, sex. He took lots of pictures with his state-of-the-art Polaroid on a tripod with a timer on the shutter. We would destroy the pictures at the dump, he said. We never made it to the dump.

A couple of years later I read The Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger. In one scene, Holden Caulfield, the main character, had a boarding school teacher come on to him. He was repulsed. Sandy was a boarding school teacher. I was repulsed. The Catcher in the Rye caught me.

I told my parents what had happened. They sent me to a child psychiatrist for a couple of sessions. I was pronounced OK. Last year I started therapy for depression. My counselor focused on the sexual abuse incident. I pointed out that it was just a single night. “Once is enough,” he said.

One analyst has said that sexual abuse of a youngster by a person in authority is tantamount to homicide of the mind. I have come to believe that I did suffer something of a loss of mind, because through therapy and medication for depression I sense that my reasoning, concentration, memory, and communication skills are improving. I’m beginning to feel with more constancy a sense of wholeness, which by contrast reveals the inadequacy that I have been assuming.

The areas of emotions, boundaries, trust, and authority are still problematic for me, but my counselor and I can plan strategies to identify improvements and practice skills that help me become a people person. I am learning to accept that part of me that is vulnerable to victimization.

Bob (pseudonym), Survivor

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