June 10, 2012
Today marks the day of the actual publication of Amos Kamil very powerful article "Prep School Predators" in the NY Times Magazine in print.
I want to call everyone's attention to this blog/website:
HoraceMannSurvivor.org
This has been set up by a group of wonderfully supportive and caring people as a resource for all survivors of sexual abuse at HM and their
families.
I have been quite literally overwhelmed by the outpouring of love and support that I have received directly through this blog and thorugh other means. Thank you you all for your messages. I wish I could repond to each of them individually.
Despite knowing that going public about my abuse by Somary was the right thing to do, I have been experiencing a great deal of emotional upheaval and pain. I will be seeing a new therapist on Tuesday and hope I can start a new process of healing that way.
I truly wish to live a life that's full and satisfying. I don't want to feel like damaged goods without a central core of self love and confidence. I want to feel worthy of love and I want to believe that healing is possible.
Thanks to all,
EB
My thoughts and prayers are with you. My admiration, also. You've begun a process that will help so many others. Thank you.
ReplyDeleteThe hardest part of being a victim is , it never ends, it just recur, in the back and at times the forefront of your thoughts. My thoughts are with the millions of victims who walk among us, work with us , who suffer in spurts and in their depths ...with never escaping fully, whatever the form of abuse it be.Just bringing it to the open at least opens a channel heal.
ReplyDeleteI graduated H.M. in '64. I think Somary started there in about '62, and almost immediately, word spread that he was to be avoided. He would openly stroll through the locker room and take snapshots of naked students, during or after their showers. He would leer and lurk about, and was the reason a number of us started avoiding showering after sports practice, despite it being mandatory. When students complained, and many did, we were told, "He's not a homosexual, [as if that was the sole question raised by his inappropriate behavior] he's European," or, more ridiculously, "He just likes to take pictures, there's nothing wrong with that." There were other forms of abuse at H.M. which were similarly disregarded, such as violent assaults upon students. The football/wrestling coach choked me and slammed my head up against the wall after I told him one afternoon during my junior year that I would not be able to attend wrestling practice, as I was too weak from a recent bout with the flu. I never again attended practice or participated in the team, or even attended required gym sessions, but the cowardly bully marked me present for all gym classes, and I received a letter as a member of the team: he knew I would rat him out and he maintained an uneasy and fearful distance from me for the rest of my time there. The bio teacher regularly choked or pinched students, sometimes to the point of tears, and had done so on one occasion to me so severely that my mother noticed a red mark on my shoulder. After extracting the embarrassing story from me (he had done this in class as an impromptu punishment for inattention or talking) she marched her enraged 5'2" self down to his classroom and told him, "if you ever lay a violent hand on my son again, my husband will come here and knock your block off." He continued to be verbally cruel and smirk at me, but did not again physically assault me. As with all such dark and ugly places dedicated to creating "captains of industry" and other such dominant figures, there were "saints in hell" both faculty and staff, whom I remember with fondness and gratitude.
ReplyDeleteI feel for you . . . I had no idea Somary was doing this. I sang under his direction at St. Patrick's. I saw that he had far more interest in the men, particularly the young men, then he did in the women, but always attributed this readily apparent preference to his needing more men to stay in the choir than he needed woman. Interestingly, Somary was fired by Cardinal Egan as Director of Music at St. Patrick's Cathedral after a two year term, during the same period of time that the priest scandal broke. Shortly thereafter, the preist who was in charge of operations at the cathedral who had hired Somary, Father Clarke, was also fired after Rev. Clarke was caught with a girl in a motel room.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much Hope. I had heard vague rumors about Somary being fired by the Church. It seems you had first hand knowledge of that. Do you think the firing was related to abuse? The story never seems to end.
DeleteVery best to you.