Abstract
This month's book reviews begin with three books of psychological interest recommended for your holiday reading. Wishing you the best for the festive season,
Jo Beatson
The abuse of children, emotional, physical or sexual, constitutes one of the gravest crimes perpetrated against the dependent and vulnerable young. As psychiatrists, we daily bear witness in our work to the devastating and often prolonged, indeed often lifelong, results of this ‘soul murder’. But while victims of childhood abuse may find a safe sanctuary in which to speak and cry of their pain in the consulting room, outside of that environment a taboo still exists against the open and honest discussion of these horrendous experiences. Shame, guilt and fear silence too many victims, condemning them to struggle alone, perhaps not realising that others have known the same pain and devastation. The relatively powerful positions of the perpetrators, and the traumatic difficulties of pursuing legal redress further silence the abused. In his willingness to speak so openly and honestly about his own experience, David O'Neill has made an important contribution in the war against the silence and secrecy which so envelopes the issue of childhood abuse. He has written a courageous and poignant book which will show those who suffer that they are not alone, and that a way through the mire and pain may be possible.
O'Neill's book deals with the decade that followed his daughter's revelation that her paternal grandfather had been sexually abusing her. His daughter, Amy, was three years old at the time. O'Neill recalls that with her announcement, a door that had been closed for many years opened in his mind. Beyond the door was a profound darkness which seemed to O'Neill to have an evil life of its own. Over the next 10 to 13 years he would journey through that blackness and discover terrible secrets hidden from him for many years.
O'Neill and his wife made the decision that they would not subject Amy to police investigation of her grandfather's abuse, fearing it would be traumatic and harmful. They decided to wait until she spontaneously recalled the events in later life and to deal with it then. (Amy did recall the abuse in mid-adolescence and received professional help.) At the same time, they were not prepared to let the matter rest as far as O'Neill's father was concerned.
Amy's announcement acted as the trigger for O'Neill to acknowledge much that had been difficult in his own childhood with a rigid, authoritarian, ‘pillar of the church' father. As he and his brothers struggled to deal with the knowledge of Amy's abuse, they began to admit to their own histories of emotional and physical abuse. They also recalled old rumours and accusations made against their father by young girls who had grown up with them. O'Neill confronted his father and eventually helped one of the girls to bring a criminal charge against his father, leading to his father's imprisonment.
As O'Neill allowed himself to recall his childhood and to explore what lay in the darkness beyond the now opened door in his mind, he found himself falling into the first depression of what was to be a decade's battle with Manic Depressive Psychosis (MDP). Finally, with the help of therapy, he was able to confront the darkest secret of all, that he, like Amy, had been sexually abused by his father. During his decade-long struggle with MDP and its final casting up of memories of his own abuse, his life was a roller-coaster ride of despair, blackness, intermittent elation, drug-taking, self-mutilation, suicidal longings, struggles with cancer, bankruptcy and the nearfailure of his marriage. However, he did find a way back through these years in which he and his family were consumed with loss, grief and turmoil. Many years of therapy and, finally, a powerful discovery of spirituality, quite different from the rigid and dogmatic religion of his childhood, brought him through the darkness into an overwhelming and life-giving light. His lesson, so hard won, was that he had to walk through the darkness to get to the light.
David O'Neill writes with courage, power and, often, a poetic quality that conveys the despair, pain and terror of his experience with exquisite clarity. At times, the urgency with which he wants to tell his story makes the writing raw and in need of some editing but this is a minor quibble. O'Neill makes no apologies for his writing, saying that he writes only to tell us his truth and to get his message across. That message is that secrecy is the molester's most powerful weapon and that, in order to break the abuser's power, the stories of abuse must be told. ‘All you have to do is tell someone the secret’ (p.16). O'Neill has told his story of abuse with great honesty and courage.
David O'Neill deals with difficult and painful matters: his daughter's sexual abuse; the terrible family confrontations; the police investigations; the court case; the marital breakdown; his madness with all of its destructive features; his fight with cancer; the realisation of his own abuse; and the long and lonely struggle to overcome this terrible legacy. The ultimate message is, however, one of hope. The second part of the book is titled ‘The Angels Smiled’, and is a moving account of O'Neill's recovery and spiritual growth.
When Angels Cry is a book that will offer hope to all who live in, and struggle with, that terrible darkness so graphically and movingly written of by its author. It deserves to be read by those of us who seek to help our patients, those who suffer, to move through and beyond that darkness.