af-The enduring legacy of Catholic Abuse in Irish Society and the Pain that still persists

The Irish nation was once dominated by an oppressive religious doctrine that formed the scaffolding of the country's institutions, culture and society. Although steps have been taken to at least acknowledge some of the hurt caused by this quasi-theocratic system, the generational legacy is once in which shame is pervasive, and the individual wounds and the suffering of those who were victimized by the system are often still, to this day, ignored or dismissed; not only by the people who inflicted the hurt, and those who witnessed the hurt, but also those who experienced the hurt themselves. 

The accounts of what women and children (boys and girls) endured during the decades post independence, till the 90s, are laced with the trauma of beatings (both at home and by religious orders), sexual abuse, social surveillance and vindictive/snide criticism, and brutal misogyny to the point of obsessive paranoia about women's behaviour that would be almost laughable if it weren't so ridiculous and abusive. 

Children being screamed at for not knowing their scriptures, regularly beaten, told their sexual abuse by priests and other authority figures never happened, told to get over their rape/abuse. Children, some as young as nine, but often 11-14 years old, thrown into magdalene laundries for the crime of pregnancy out of wedlock (whether it was the result of rape/incest or not), or reaching puberty too young and being seen as "tempting" or at risk of being "fallen", or for sexual activity outside of wedlock, or for being orphaned, or for being viewed as a burden on their families or the state. Raped by priests in these magdalene laundries and told that their resulting pregnancies were the result of immaculate conception, babies stolen and given up to adoption to couples abroad, with the mothers lied to and told their babies died. Birth records describing the babies born in these institutions as "it" instead of "he/she". Women accused of promiscuity for the crime of having a "dirty laugh" and similarly ridiculous accusations, girls/women exiled to the UK for forced abortions - either directly or by the looming threat of beatings by domineering parents and many many other abuses/atrocities. It was a time when brutality and evil prevailed, where repression of emotions and desire were expected, and where the weakest and most vulnerable of society - women, children and the poor - served as the collective scapegoat and punching bag for society's repressed fear, pain, desire, anger, and shame. 

I have met many women who speak about this time; the impact of the trauma of that time on their nervous systems and the way they view/approach life is palpable. Fear of being honest so as to avoid conflict, martyrdom, minimisation and rationalisation of their own pain, chronic anxiety, depression, addiction, and oftentimes undiagnosed chronic mental illness. Inner children struggling for decades to be seen and heard. 

What feels to me as the most acute pain in these testimonies is that which has stemmed from the abuse and betrayal people faced within their own families, and the ways in which they try to reassure themselves and others that they still love their fathers, mothers, brothers and sisters who beat them, abused them, dismissed them or who stood by and did nothing while the abuse was taking place. As if being angry with them for what they did is wrong. I see adults who endured this trauma continuing to dismiss/abandon their own inner children by trying to tell them "it wasn't their [mother/father/brother/sister's etc.] fault" "they had their own problems" "it was another time" etc. and in doing so they abandon themselves again and again and again.

The truth, in my experience, is that you can love and adore someone 98%, with the other 2% absolutely disgusted with them for the way that they refused to manage their own anger, their own fears, their own pain, and instead chose to take it out on you simply because you were an easy target, too vulnerable to fight back. You can still love them but on some level be furious with them for the pain and trauma they caused, the consequences of which you have had to endure and heal over decades. In fact, I would argue that you probably already are disgusted/furious with them on some level, and you're not letting yourself feel it, turning it inwards/repressing it. If you won't allow yourself to feel the fury on behalf of your own inner child, it can be very difficult to muster up the courage to stand up for yourself. To be brave and not fear conflict, or to overcome the fear of being the "bad person", or to transcend co-dependent relationships where you constantly give and give and give and get very little in return (which is also self-abandonment). 

A lot of us talk a big talk about standing up for ourselves, and then cower in the first instance of conflict/challenge. The subtle shame and disgust we feel as a consequence of that cowardice drives a further wedge between us and an inner child that is sick of being abandoned for everybody else's benefit to the detriment of ourselves. We can do all the healings and treatments that we want, but we will never fully heal the wounds of the past so long as we keep lying to ourselves and trying to manipulate our inner child into believing that the abuse wasn't that bad or the people we depended on that abused us are good people, when our inner child has direct experience to the contrary. 

What would be more honest would be to acknowledge and allow the inner child to feel the anger that he/she has about the pain that they endured and how everyone, including ourselves, has continued to deny and dismiss it. It's ok to love the men and women who were hurt and acted in abusive ways towards us in what was a very difficult social environment, but at the same time hold a little space to be angry/disgusted/furious with them, because of the impact their behaviour had on us. It's not to say you need to abandon them, cut them off or even confront them if you don't think it would do any good, but to acknowledge to yourself that "Yes this was bullshit and I didn't deserve it, and I'm angry at the people who did it". You can hold both profound love and that anger at the same time, and not need to reconcile/solve either. You may find that once you do this, eventually, you're able to let go of that pain, truly forgive and move forward.