Chapter 11 — Current circumstances

Effects on adult life

The majority of witnesses reported multiple effects, as Table 53 indicates. A high percentage of both male (56%) and female (64%) witnesses reported being unable to trust others. There were some gender differences between the negative effects most frequently reported. For instance 50% or more male witnesses reported abusing alcohol, feeling angry, and being a loner. By contrast 56% or more female witnesses reported experiencing lack of self-worth and contemplating or attempting suicide and 24% reported abusing alcohol. In addition to the above-mentioned negative effects on their health and personality, 408 witnesses (52%) reported that they attended counselling either currently or in the past, and many commented on the beneficial effects they had experienced. A large number of these witnesses reported attending counselling through the National Counselling Service, which was established by the Government in 2000. The service was committed to working with adults who had been abused as children in Irish institutions. I won’t even go into the house some days. I was a right bastard ...(as a husband).... She’d ...(witness’s spouse)... find me facing the wall, she’d wake up in the morning and find me standing facing the wall ...crying.... It’s smashing to talk about it and the counselling is free. • I’ve had a stable life, but male pride stops me from saying I’m depressed. I get down, am a loner, don’t mix, have been on the drink in the past, but counselling has helped. • You can knock the walls down but can’t ease it from ...distressed.... I carried it in the pit of my stomach all my life.

Three hundred and twenty seven (327) witnesses (41%) gave evidence that the memories of the abuse they experienced remain with them to the present day. I wish I could get rid of all this, it’s in my head all the time. I used to have terrible nightmares, the only one I could see was this nun who used to hit me all the time. I did take an overdose, I did try to end my life. I was very confused. I never knew who I was. • He ...(Br X)... haunts me, I can smell him, I can see his gait ... not a week goes by, but I think of him. • The sexual abuse ... that’s irreversible. It’s the sexual behaviour that separates me from my family. I can’t work, I can’t go out, I’m nothing. Every day I want to kill myself. • I was not able to go to ...(children’s)... parent-teacher meeting because I didn’t feel I could talk ...crying.... I didn’t think I was able to speak like another ...(parent).... I wasn’t like another because of the way I was reared. I often cried when they were at school and he ...(husband)... at work.... I was afraid that if I told people, I was afraid I’d be locked up. I was afraid they would send me away. I always feel sad. • The other thing is, not being able to read and write was my downfall.... I didn’t tell my family until about 2 years ago. ... It can be very lonely ... even at Christmas time with my family there. I get lonely like remembering all the times I was on my own. I do have to go out for walks, I have to be on my own. • Thinking about it after I often wondered had we a right to complain, but we had no one to complain to. • Loss is the most significant word in my life. I lost my mother ... my childhood, my education and nothing will ever get them back.

Two hundred and nine (209) witnesses (26%) reported suffering from the effects of trauma and described themselves as constantly vigilant and anxious, having disrupted sleep and nightmares with little respite. I was going to take my own life, one of the other girls did, she took her own life. You are suspicious ... all the time, it’s always there, it will be there ’til the day I die.... You can’t put the clock back.... I’d like to have a childhood but I never knew what a childhood was.... That will be a nightmare ’til the day I die, I will bring that to the grave with me. • I hate anyone standing behind me, I still feel as if someone is going to go for me because I was beaten around the head a lot. • I was terrified with the beating I got. My ould mind went a bit that day I’d say. To me, I was never the same young fellow after that, I wasn’t the same young fella that went home. I wasn’t mental but when I went home I’d be looking under the bed and like that. I couldn’t be happy for years and years. I was squeamish and frightened everywhere I went.

One hundred and eight two (182) witnesses (23%) described themselves as having difficulty expressing affection or emotion to their partner and 175 witnesses (22%) stated that they had difficulty showing feelings to their children.

There were distinct differences between the reports of male and female witnesses regarding aggressive behaviour. One hundred and twenty six (126) male witnesses (31%) reported being physically aggressive compared with 30 female witnesses (8%) who reported being physically aggressive to others. I can be very aggressive, my children seen it, I should never have been a father. I can’t hug or show affection or anything. • I used to smack them ...(own children)... as kids, thinking it was the right thing to do, we were beaten all the time. I was bringing my kids up the way I was brought up. I was hit all the time.

Two hundred and thirty four (234) witnesses (30%) described themselves as withdrawn and also stated that they had difficulty relating socially and felt different to others. Many described feeling isolated, frequently moving home, and feeling generally disconnected. You had to survive on your own, always on your own.There was nobody to back you up. It’s been like that and I will die like that because I can’t change what happened. I can’t change my personality and the way I am. It’s been like somebody put you in a prison and you are expected to change when you come out. Unless there are services there to help you, and there’s nothing, you are not going to change. You are still going to have the mentality of being a loner and keeping people at a distance and being very anti-establishment. • I never had the equipment to survive any type of close relationship. I never had the ability to survive any close relationship, I couldn’t give enough of myself.

Two hundred and forty two (242) witnesses (31%) reported experiencing nightmares and associated sleep disturbance. It stays with you, it sticks in my mind. You still have the nightmares, they still go on, they haven’t left me yet, I still wake up in the middle of the night.... You went to bed at night you couldn’t move or couldn’t breathe ...(not knowing when)... you would be hit with the hand brush.

Sixty seven (67) witnesses, 42 male and 25 female, reported problems with substance abuse. Thirty nine (39) witnesses, 10 male and 29 female, reported having eating disorders.

There were a range of other adverse effects reported in smaller numbers, by both male and female witnesses. For example, between 75 and 150 male and female witnesses reported significant difficulties with parenting, sexual relationships, and feelings of being powerless and disadvantaged. When I went home I couldn’t communicate with anyone. I couldn’t sit at the table with the family. I used to eat with the chickens out the back, I did not know how to get on with people, I didn’t know what to do.... I only knew beatings. I went off to England, they told me they didn’t want me either, never to come back. I ended up inside ...(in prison)... many times, and tried to hang myself.

A small number of witnesses, both male and female, reported having difficulties as adults establishing their personal and family identity. The evidence reported to the Committee included accounts of having no official record of their birth place or birth certificate, names on birth certificates were found to have been changed by School staff, and requests for clarification of personal and family identity were withheld by religious and State authorities. The witnesses presented correspondence at their hearing that they reported having obtained under the Freedom of Information legislation in relation to these matters. Witnesses reported that they experienced difficulties when applying for passports or pensions in later life and when seeking to trace their parents or family of origin. I had been searching for her ...(mother)... and searching for her, it was my one wish in life to find her. I have done so much trying to search for my family. I had been trying to trace her, that was the sad part ... there was a brick wall every time. I have no certificate, this is what really got me.

A small number of witnesses described being contacted by representatives of the Schools or religious organisations by telephone, personal visits, and through arranged meetings in recent years. Some witnesses reported feeling threatened and intimidated by such contact that they described as being for the purpose of character references for forthcoming court proceedings, offers of compensation and apologies for past abuse. One male witness described a chance encounter in the following account: I met Br ...X.... I saw this man and he said “I know you”, he said “I remember you, you were a Mass server, you were quite good in school”, and he said “I gave you a terrible time in school. I am so sorry, I gave you an awful time and I’m sorry for all the times I hit you, I beat you around the place”. ...distressed and crying... I could have killed him, I felt like killing him, he said “I am so sorry. If it’s any consolation to you, I am sorry for what the School done”. I said nothing to him.

Thirty eight (38) witnesses, 28 male and 10 female, described being thankful for the good lives they have now. Nineteen (19) witnesses, 15 male and four female, reported they experienced no long-term negative effects as a result of their childhood experiences in Schools. Many of these witnesses described their good fortune to have met people who helped them when they left the Schools. Others described the abuse they experienced as an isolated component of their time in institutional care, aspects of which had been positive.

Religion now practised

Two hundred and ninety three (293) witnesses (37%), 156 male and 137 female, stated that they are practising Catholics and 11 others are practising members of different religious denominations.

Many witnesses described themselves as ‘lapsed Catholics’ who had disengaged from the Church, but whose belief in God was unchanged. Witnesses described the continuing anxiety associated with encountering members of religious congregations. ‘I cannot serve a nun now where I work they ...(colleagues)... call it “nun alert”.’ Others reported they avoided entering buildings associated with religious congregations, such as churches and schools, for fear of reactivating memories of their abusive experiences.

One hundred and twenty (120) witnesses (15%), 62 male and 58 female, described themselves as having completely rejected the idea of religion. Sixty three (63) witnesses did not comment on their religious practise.