UNITED STATES
Joyful Heart Foundation
Peter Pollard
The commencement speaker at my niece’s graduation this past weekend startled some in the audience when he noted that having to overcome adversity is a normal part of a achieving a fulfilling life.
I was reminded of my own rocky road to a college education and how critical it was for me to address my history of childhood sexual abuse before I could confidently pursue that or any other dream. As he spoke, I found myself thinking about the chasm between the poles of feelings of isolation and feelings of connection, of powerlessness and competence, failure and success, of shame and of pride and the process of healing that made it possible for me to move from one to the other.
I was just 18 when I dropped out of college in 1969. The world that year offered lots of legitimate reasons for challenging authority and for dismissing traditional concepts of success. My beliefs then certainly weren’t hollow or invalid. But the energy with which I immersed myself in my rebel identity served a much more personal purpose than simply changing the world.
What I know now with certainty (and didn’t recognize even slightly then) is that all my thinking, all my attitudes, all my decisions in those early years of adulthood were strongly influenced by my reaction to the sexual abuse I’d experienced at the hands of a trusted mentor, just a few years earlier.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.