Readers in the US are encouraged to contact RAINN, or the National Sexual Assault Hotline on 80.This website contains information, links, images and videos of sexually explicit material (collectively, the "Sexually Explicit Material"). Rape Crisis Scotland’s helpline number is 08088 01 03 02.
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If you’ve been affected by the issues raised in this story, you can access more information on their website or by calling the National Rape Crisis Helpline on 08. Rape Crisis England and Wales works towards the elimination of sexual violence. If you’ve been affected by the issues raised in this story, you can access support for LGBTQ+ people via Galop and support aimed at men, including queer men, at 1 in 6. Patrick Sandford’s film Groomed will be screened at the Garden Cinema on 15 June. It’s every bit as big as AIDS or COVID, it’s a health pandemic, and we should do something about it.” “We think that perpetrators are evil men in white coats – perpetrators are everybody. Now that the IICSA report is published, Patrick is hopeful wider society can start having a more grown-up, honest conversation about what a perpetrator of child sexual abuse looks like – and what we can do to prevent the abuse of children. “That is what my mother told me, unless of course he had lied and disappeared into the ether, but as far as I know he never faced anything,” Patrick says. Patrick believes he died shortly after the abuse ended from cancer. Tragically, the man who abused him never faced any repercussions. Three years later, he reimagined that play as a film. In 2016, he tackled his abuse in the autobiographical play Groomed, which won critical acclaim for its unwavering exploration of trauma. Ultimately, Patrick was able to find himself in the theatre – and therapy helped him to confront his past head on.
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I blame what happened to me.” Patrick shared his story on stage and screen It’s taken me a long time to reach that – now, younger gay men, they feel surprised by that, but I’m not ashamed to admit it, because I don’t blame myself for that. “It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that sex is something good and healthy and thoroughly enjoyable.
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Looking back at my first gay relationships, I feel sorry for the men now because I think I must have been rather difficult to be with because I was so shame-bound around anything to do with sex. “It was in my late 30s that I began to understand the abuse had had catastrophic effects on me in terms of forming relationships and trusting people. “I knew it was horrible and I knew I hated it and I knew I could never tell anybody about it because it was so bad and so shameful,” Patrick says. It’s taken me a long time to come to terms with the fact that sex is something good and healthy and thoroughly enjoyable. Patrick always knew that his teacher had done “bad things” to him, but before he went to therapy, he didn’t know just how destructive and harmful it was. The therapist, to do him justice, said: ‘OK, so you’re gay, what’s the problem?’ I happened to hit on a good therapist and he was terribly reassuring, but then of course my problems didn’t stop because that’s when I realised they were much more about something else – they weren’t about being gay, they were about abuse.” “When I first went to therapy, my presenting symptom was: ‘Oh my God, I’m a shameful, guilty homosexual – can you help me?’ I can’t believe it, but that’s what I did. At the age of 35, he started going to therapy – at that time, he still thought all of his problems were because of his sexuality.
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He wasn’t able to speak openly about his experience for around 25 years after the abuse occurred. While Patrick found acceptance and love in the theatre, he still had to come to terms with the abuse he had suffered as a child. I could get a new identity, and as soon as I was in the theatre when I was 25, 26, I was among people where there was much more sexual liberation, where being gay was accepted.” “It meant I could act and be somebody else. Things finally started to look up for Patrick when he discovered the theatre. Being gay was such a shameful thing, but that just compounded the shame of the abuse.” Patrick Sandford. I think I was probably mentally ill, although I didn’t go to see any therapist at that stage. “I actually got to the point where when I was on the tube in London, when everybody got off the train at Oxford Circus, I used to think it was because they couldn’t stand to be in the carriage with me, that I was smelling or there was an aura around me. That gave me a core identity that anything to do with my body was bad. “In fact, now I can see that all that body shrinking and body shame was because of the shame put into me by my primary school teacher.