Everything Under My Sun - Part 1

[R4G03]

My goodness, where to start. Short and sweet of my life? Sure. Why not? I’m sure I’m not the only one with this story. From the beginning? Keep in mind I am not a practicing Catholic. I used to be. I am not an atheist, or even agnostic…here we go…and this is far from a casual conversation.
Born into this world in the year of our Lord, 1987, to an incredible military family.
I have three older sisters.
My father was the son of a doctor, who became a fighter pilot and married a farm-raised Protestant convert from Michigan.

Moved to the suburban hellscape of Northern Virginia in 1991…I hated it. As a 6 year old, I hated where we lived. Moved from one area of the suburban hellscape to another in 1994.

1994-95…catholic hell school
1995-96…same catholic hell school but I met my best friend (and later best man at my wedding)

1996-97…start homeschooling

Same year…new neighbors move in. I make friends with a slightly older kid
Same year…new friend manipulates and sexually abuses me.
1997-98…continued sexual abuse
I hide it
I bury it
I knew it was wrong but I didn’t fight it.
I promised I would take it to my grave.
I tried to protect my brother from it.
I don’t know that I did.

I confessed it to a priest once (I think)
I become an altar boy and I have never been closer to Christ in my life.
Sexual abuse continues
I don’t remember when it stopped…the year the neighbors moved away.
I continue being strong in my faith. Frequent sacraments, daily mass.
Dad was working in the Pentagon from before we got out of bed until late supper time. Then it was homework and bed.
I couldn’t talk to him. I never knew how he would react to anything. He did read stories (when he felt like it) to my little brother and me, C.S. Lewis and Tolkien.
I always respected and loved my maternal grandfather. He taught me golf and other important life skills throughout the summers we would vacation up there as a family.
I eventually took up golf a little more seriously around the 5th or 6th grade. It was a good outlet. Focusing all your energy and concentration into one shot.
My dad took up the game as well.
I think he knew he needed to be closer to me.
7th grade…another catholic hell school.
My grades aren’t the best
I get yelled at
I join the golf team, the swim team and tennis team.
I don’t understand the concept of being a team member. It was all individual effort anyway.
8th grade…noticeable signs of severe depression
I still get yelled at for mediocre grades.

 

[R4G03]

Part 2

September 11th, 2001. My dad is not at the pentagon that day. I vowed to to serve when I became eligible.
I follow the war closely

2002…the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal begins…I don’t know what to think
I felt threatened, betrayed, stereotyped, shamed.
I stick to and believe the church’s stance and response to it…only a few bad apples…right?

9th grade…depression worsens…I golf…I swim…I quit tennis
I seriously contemplate suicide. I wrote a note to my best friend. I threw it away. I was going to hang or bleed myself
I would cut myself to get used to the feeling…
10th grade…I abhor this catholic hell school though i am still strong in my faith and continue to serve at the altar. Forgot to mention all the upperclassmen stopped serving at the altar when the scandal broke out.
I hate the teachers. You know that Pink Floyd song? “When we grew up and went to school, there were certain teachers who would hurt the children any way they could. By pouring their derision upon anything we did, exposing every weakness however carefully hidden by the kid.”? That’s what it was like.
I had been seeing a family counselor for a little over a year from 9th-10th grade.
I dropped his business card in class intentionally so that another friend of mine could see.
She picked it up, looked at it and handed it back to me. She asked if I trusted my parents. I told her no.
Spring semester of 10th grade…she pays me a simple act of kindness and I break down crying later that night.
My mom takes me to her house. She doesn’t ask questions.
I tell my friend that if it wasn’t for her, I would have probably killed myself.

My parents FINALLY let me leave that school after asking and pleading with them for over two years.

I go to public school my junior year
I am happy and recovering for once.
I join only the golf team thinking I might try to play in college.
I don’t play well my senior year.
I make friends with a small circle of people (one of whom is now my wife).
I get a call in the fall near the end of golf season from a Marine Corps recruiter.
I don’t hesitate much
I prayed a novena about it (I’m still an altar boy at the time).
I talk to my mom and dad about it
The battle of Fallujah was over.
Afghanistan was quiet at the time.
They agree with my decision.
My girlfriend (now wife) and I start dating two weeks before graduation.
I go to boot camp in July, 2006
She goes to be with her dad who was working in Germany at the time.
I go to infantry school in November (depression tries to take hold)
I get orders to California.
I train.
I deploy to Iraq on my now fiancée’s birthday. We had slept together when she came to visit me in Cali when she got back from Germany. I proposed two months later. We were mature beyond our years (at the time…hindsight is 20/20) and knew that we would get married even before we graduated high school.

 

[R4G03]

Part 3

Iraq is hot…and then it is cold.
It snows for the first time in about 50 years there.
A father and his 8 year old son are kidnapped, tortured, decapitated, and their bodies dumped in a ditch.
We were just over the horizon that night.
February, we lose a Marine in a firefight.
March, we kill and capture a significant group of foreign Al Qaida in Iraq fighters.
Two weeks later we go home.
My mother is there to greet me.
I get drunk that night and throw up.
My paternal grandmother dies right afterward. I can’t go to the funeral (didn’t know her very well anyway) because I’m going through mandatory debriefings.

My buddies and I drank a lot that summer.
One of them nearly died when he crashed his bike into a guard rail. He lost both his legs as a result.
I go home on post-deployment leave.
My future mother in law only has the wedding on her mind.
Symptoms of PTS start to show. I can’t sleep, I’m jumpy. I’m quiet. I don’t talk.
I get anxious to get back to the guys in California.
We train.
I get married in December.
I go back to Iraq in March.
Ninewah Province (as in Nineveh where Jonah was supposed to go).
Tel Afar, Iraq
Sinjar, Iraq (where ISIS would later begin their treachery about two-three years later).
Summer is mother fucking hot. I’m sorry but there’s no other way to describe this god forsaken land in the summertime. Frequently over 130 Fahrenheit.
I would raise my middle finger to the sky and curse God because it was so hot… and then quickly apologize and make an act of contrition.
I had made my last confession (as in I have not been since) in March before we left for Iraq.
No one from my unit got hurt. But people still died…as a direct result of the agreement between the US and Iraq (look up Tal Afar bombing July 9th 2009.)
We had those fuckers. But we couldn’t detain them without a warrant (thanks Obama).
We train the younger marines for Afghanistan because that’s where all the action was. It had started heating back up on my first visit to Iraq.
We get home
I finish out the remaining months of my 4 year contract, and then I go back to the suburban hellscape of northern Virginia.

 

[R4G03]

Part 4

I go to school at the community college
I have straight A’s for the first time in my life.
My wife and I get news we’re expecting.
I tell my parents and they are overjoyed.
That night, my father suffered a massive brain hemorrhage and died a day later.
We were just starting to heal our wounds, settle our differences, and become great friends.
I transfer to a four year school.
My daughter is born before we move.
I do well though we suffer financially and struggle, but we kept the lights on and food on the table.
My wife and i were at a party. I drink too much and suffer a sever flashback to Iraq. I was not wandering the streets of town, but was boots-in-the-dirt back in Iraq hunting the fuckers who killed that father and son.
My wife is able to contain me to the bath tub.
I see her on the phone with 911
EMT’s show up after a police officer had been in.
They look like Iraqi’s to me and I threaten to kill them.
The police officer goes down to the apartment parking lot where there’s a fire response unit. Knowing the situation, he asks if any of them are veterans. One is.
A marine
He comes up and starts speaking my language. I snap out of it. I would periodically fall back into my flashback but he kept me coming back to realit.
I get in the ambulance and go to the hospital where I’m sobered up with an IV.

$3000.00 bill when all was said and done.

I go to the VA and start some counseling. It’s too far to drive and the wait for an appointment is ridiculous.

I go the the counseling center on campus and am able to get the effective help I needed.

My grades slid, but I salvaged myself my senior year.

My son is born a week before graduation.

I took a crappy job because I didn’t have anything lined up and all the campus job fair vendors were recruiting for the northern Virginia hellacape.
My wife and I had vowed to never live there again.
This job has crazy hours and my wife threatens to leave me because I’m never home.
I take a new job working for the university. It’s a great work life balance with decent pay but no benefits because it’s technically a part time job.

It’s time to live on but I’m up against competition that prefers to remain happily single with “friends with benefits” and who thrive on adderall and have all the time in the world to work themselves to death for big $$$$.
I am now 30. Married. Two adorable living children.

Where do I go?

What do I do?

And on top of all this, I just came back from Riverside National Cemetery in California; attending the funeral of one of my brothers in arms who killed himself…

What is this world we live in?

How can I succeed?

I still pray, and I’ve only attended Mass a couple times in the past 9 years.

What should I do?

 

[Greenfields]

You have two beautiful children and a wife,concentrate on them ,live in the moment,know God loves you very much.Enjoy the little things in life,sometimes the littlest things are the biggest.
Praying for you,God bless.

 

[Roseeurekacross]

Start taking your wife and children to Mass, are they baptised yet? If not, start that journey. See if you can volunteer and use your skill set to help the Church. You would hav a wonderful skill set, even if it means speaking the same language as one who needs to hear it

And charge whomever abused you. Get justice.

 

[R4G03]

They are baptized, but I’m still too angry with the Church to attend regularly. There is no apology or amount of money the church could issue that will ever atone for the abuses they have committed. And although I wasn’t abused by a clergyman, it was clergyman and the church that I turned to in that time.

 

[0Scarlett_nidiyilii]

FWIW I will remember you and your dear family in my prayers.
You are on a spiritual journey and a painful one.
You also have the blessing of wife and children.
You need time to sort all this out…
ray:t2:ray:t2:ray:t2:

 

[upant]

They are baptized, but I’m still too angry with the Church to attend regularly. There is no apology or amount of money the church could issue that will ever atone for the abuses they have committed. And although I wasn’t abused by a clergyman, it was clergyman and the church that I turned to in that time.

the church is made up of fallen people, it has let many down and it probably is going to continue to let some down. however, God is also in the church. you may not like his answers, but, He will not let you down unless you choose to reject him.

don’t go to the church for the church, go for yourself, go for God. i find it most peaceful after the mass is over and almost everyone is gone.one can talk to God anywhere, but it seems different when one is talking to him at the foot of the cross on their knees. it is a Holy place for a reason.

 

[tad]

@R4G03 I don’t have any advice for you but I did want to let you know I read your story and I think you’re an incredibly strong person. Just your presence here is a testimony to your heart. I shudder to think what would have happened to me if I went through what you went through.

God bless you. You’re a good man.

 

[1Lord1Faith]

How can I succeed?

It sounds like you are succeeding. I would recommend moving away from the east coast states. Try Ohio.

Some parishes have men’s groups of one kind or another. I’m not referring to the Knights of Columbus. But it’s hit and miss depending on the parish. Oh, I forgot you don’t like the Church. You might be surprised by how many people in the Church aren’t very fond of the former hierarchy in the Church (Pope Francis is very different from his predecessors). Anyway, some of the men’s groups contain folks like yourself. Like I said, it’s hit and miss. But that’s one way to go if you’re interested.

 

[Irishmom2]

You have been through a lot. I don’t know if you said it and I missed it, but have you ever gotten any counseling?

What should you do? Take your family to mass. Listen to God speaking to you. Forget about any abuse the church’s members or clergy have caused. They are not why you should go.

Go to mass and receive our Lord, body and blood. Listen to His word. Let it fill your heart and lead you to His peace, the peace that only He can give .