This story is deeply personal. I did not share it lightly.
I share it for two reasons. First, for survivors of child sexual violence who often learn to survive by twisting themselves into knots to keep the peace, to be liked, to fit in. We become experts at reading the room and accommodating others. That skill can keep a child alive. But later in life, it can disconnect us from ourselves. When that happens, we can forget the very strength that carried us through the worst moments of our lives.
Second, I share it for him, to hold up a mirror. To show that healing is possible, but it begins with the hardest work: sobriety, honesty, and a real commitment to doing the emotional work. There is no shortcut. The pain cannot simply be waved away.
I share it for the survivor who recognizes that pattern. For the person who has bent themselves so far trying to belong that they no longer recognize their own shape. Surviving child sexual violence takes extraordinary resilience. Thriving afterward requires something even harder, the courage to stop shrinking and start standing in your truth.
If this story helps even one survivor remember their own worth, or if it nudges him toward the work he needs to do, then telling it was worth the risk.
The Measure of a Person
I grew up in the 60s and 70s, and I loved Bugs Bunny. But whenever the homeless man wandered onto the set out of nowhere, Bugs would flip him a coin and say, “Get a job.” My throat would tighten. My stomach would knot. I could never understand why Bugs would be so cruel to someone struggling. How low can you punch someone desperate?
Yesterday, I felt that same sting, but this time I was the desperate man. It came from an 82-year-old woman, aka G-Ma, a retired General Motors executive. This was after her son bashed up my car, and it took days to get him to pay for it. When I asked her to help me get the $100 he still owed me, she told me to get a job. Her son called me “pathetic and rigid.” In that moment, I felt exactly like the desperate man Bugs once flippantly dismissed with a coin.
Growing up, even before the nightly sexual violence, I endured ridicule because I struggle with words. I can write, but when I am under stress I stutter and my mind blanks. Being judged for that again after all these years landed like a punch.
This man was not struggling in life. He owns two properties worth millions. He collects a GM pension. His late wife had a pension as well. He had read my book, sought me out, and showed up on my doorstep claiming to be a long-lost friend.
The first month he was clean and sober. I thought he was turning a new leaf. Like someone lining up the next shot, he slid into my heart. He said it was destiny, that he loved me. He even proposed that I become his business partner, managing one of his properties as a Vrbo rental while he remained the owner. For crying out loud, he was asking about wedding rings. I believed him. I want love in my life.
Looking back, he had me figured out before I even knew what was happening.
His wife had died. He told me himself that he had a list of what he wanted next. Someone to fill the hole in his life. Apparently I checked all the boxes. Of course I did. He had known me since we were 13 years old. We crossed paths at parties and weddings. He had also just read the most personal parts of my life in my book.
So yes, he knew exactly who he was dealing with.
This is the part that makes me furious with myself. I did not see the strategy. But calling myself an idiot would be dishonest. I wanted a boyfriend. It had been eight years for me. It had been five months for him.
In hindsight, that alone should have told the whole story.
I walked in with an open heart and a commitment to authenticity. He walked into it with a messy lake house and a long list of needs to be filled. His wife had been sick for a long time before she died. I imagine cooking, cleaning, and intimacy had been scarce in those final years.
He was looking for someone to step into that vacancy.
I have been living with brain damage since April 10, 2024. I have worked since I was 10 years old, full time since I was 15. Today, I go to food banks while I beg for help to make rent. Some people show up. I have loving people in my life.
All this came after I scrubbed his lake house for six weeks. He bought the groceries and scrolled on his phone while I cooked every meal. I twisted myself into knots to fit in. I even started smoking weed again and drank three times, which is a major red flag for me. Not to mention the mushrooms for that so-called “enlightening experience.” News flash: addicts aren’t looking for enlightenment, they want to get high. At least this author, who is an addict, does. I did it all. I made those choices. I chose to put his needs above my own. What I needed no longer mattered, and I made that choice too.
I had to mount him because he was that lazy. He took the fun out of making love, yet I kept trying. I was desperate and pathetic after all. Crawling into bed with a bottom feeder wrapped in fancy pajamas was always going to hurt. He discarded me when the work was done. I could have stayed if I was willing to keep my mouth shut about the daily beer and weed, but I wasn’t.
My substance use was brief, but it rattled me enough to snap some sense back into me. It was a moment of pause, a chance to see what I was doing to myself. Another choice had to be made. I chose me.
Over four decades ago, his father raped two 15-year-old girls, that the son knows of. It was never reported. Then his mother ran out to save herself and left him behind. When trauma like that goes unspoken, it does not disappear. It spreads.
That is how a family becomes riddled with addiction. Addiction is a coping mechanism. That is how, years later, his older brother’s son came at his daughter when she was still a young child.
I believe he told me these things because he knows the work I do. I advocate to end child sexual violence. Somewhere inside, he may have thought I could wave an imaginary magic wand and make it all go away. Or at the very least, that I could carry the truth for him and deliver the bad news he knows in his body but cannot say out loud. Because deep down he knows what many families refuse to admit: silence is a killer.
Child sexual violence is the original war, a war against children. Control the child and you control the parents. Control the parents and you control the family. Control the family and you control the community. Control the community and you control the world. This violence is learned behaviour. It is taught, tolerated, and repeated across generations. How we treat our most vulnerable is a reflection of how we treat ourselves and the world.
Back to control. I can control only myself. I take a breath. I listen. In the pause. In the silence. I hear his cryptic messages. I breathe some more. I know what to do. I fast. Just five days. I have been fasting annually for over thirty years. Breathe some more. It hurts to sit. Breathe. Listen for your brother’s voices. They are gone now. Go to nature. They wait for you in the trees. They live in the water. They are the wind. Listen. They say, “Adapt.” Breathe. I stop trying to sit still; it hurts. Breathe. Move quietly. Move slowly. Think back to the first day our paths reconnected. Pause. Breathe. Silence. In the pause we are golden. Breathe in. Breathe out. I see you. I see your pain. I love you. But I cannot love you enough for both of us. Therefore, I choose me.
And then I say it out loud.
When I finally named it plainly, “your father is a pedophile,” the power of those words rippled through his body. He choked.
Working through the aftermath of child sexual violence is hard work. It cannot be handled like a drive-through window where you place an order for healing and expect it to be ready five minutes later.
The day before I left, he told me he would have to settle for less with me. You might wonder why I was still there. I live with complex PTSD. I am a survivor of child sexual violence. I am an addict. I have brain damage. Put it all together, and even though I was clawing my way back to myself, I was still doubting. Still twisting myself into a knot, trying to be loved.
This isn’t a movie. No sky opens up, no guru floats down and drops ultimate wisdom in your head. This is my messy, raw life. I was still trying to fix what wasn’t mine to fix.
The night I drove home in a snowstorm, he refused to hold me for a few minutes, refused to say, “Everything is going to be okay,” before oral. Who does that? Someone cruel. A very sick, very sad human, that’s who.
Reflecting on this ridiculous ordeal, I am proud of myself. I spent 97 days with him and in the final days I saw clearly the person he was moving through the world as. There was a time in my younger years, when I was wrought with drug and alcohol addiction, that I would only leave if I had a black eye. But this time I honoured who I am and who I want to be. I left. I love myself more now.
Authenticity is foundational, and vulnerability is not weakness. It is wisdom. It is survival. It is what I seek in every experience. Finding the beauty in pain is my superpower, carrying me through even the darkest moments.
“The ultimate measure of a person is not where they stand in moments of comfort and convenience, but where they stand at times of challenge and controversy.” — Martin Luther King Jr. (The original version says ‘man,’ but I’m sure MLK would be cool with this inclusive redo)
P.S. This morning the $100 arrived. We’re all squared up now, Darrell. A carrot dangling for a hungry bunny—you were really enjoying that one, weren’t you? Enjoy the cat tree.