If anybody is wondering why I am such a hard ass about PSU and Paterno,
Last edited Sat Jul 14, 2012, 02:57 PM - Edit history (1)
it's because I was abused by a close relative when I was a kid. It isn't a marty's badge, a victim's badge or a badge of shame. I think of it as a badge of survival and empathy.
I didn't have anybody I felt I could tell. My abuser was regarded as a wonderful person. I told a cousin 20 years later and she thought my meds for depression were making me hallucinate. I can imagine what would have been said or done if I had brought it up at that time.
It never goes away. Let me repeat that - IT NEVER GOES AWAY! I don't dwell on it, but it is always somewhere near. When I hear about a case of abuse, I can suddenly be thrown back into that very time. It is beyond scary and disorienting.
This is not an unusual reaction. People who work with the abused see it frequently. I think it's a form of PTSD. Something will act as a trigger and boom, I am that kid again. I can't control it.
Imagine you are an abused person and you go to a PSU football game. That statue of Paterno is not a reminder of the winning tradition. It is a reminder of a terrifying, lonely time. On top of that, a very powerful person is fervently honored even though he could have stopped the abuse.
The most disgusting thing is the how this situation is discussed. People express worry about Paterno's family, his legacy, the university, punishing innocent football players and soon and so on. Then suddenly, the victims are mentioned. They are an afterthought.
The first words out of people's mouths should be a meaningful statement about their welfare. These were kids who were behind the eight ball to begin with. Sandusky knew that and picked those who were most vulnerable. Who stepped up for them when they most needed it?
These kids were treated as things by Sandusky and others. They are still being treated that way. People do this to disassociate themselves from what happened to them. That's how unbearable this is to outsiders. Think what it does to those that it happened to.
Some of those kids probably remained victims and never got beyond it. They were trapped in a miasma of shame and anger. The lucky ones became survivors. Somehow, they were able to move far enough away to function. The abuse is like a shadow though. It is there.
So I don't give a happy damn about the punishment that befalls that culture. Because that's exactly what it is, a culture that thought football was so important that kids were expendable. I have yet to see or hear real change in that culture.
What I hear is denial, minimization, why bother now?, Joe didn't rape them, Joe was a saint, only a few people knew, and on and on. Stop it! Unless people face what happened, that culture will remain.
Kids were raped by a trusted person. They were RAPED. I don't think people have faced that head on. If they had, I would hear something different.
I sincerely hope that you and those you love never face abuse. However, too many of you will. Think of the person you care for the most and imagine this happened to them. That is how people should frame this. Then you might have a glimmer of the horror. The tide of a demand for complete change would be a tsunam.
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I was abused as a child, by a male babysitter. So was my brother.
What really sux is that my fiance ignores me when I want to talk about it....which has be twice in 10 years. 
But it also angers me that most Catholic priests are thought to be molestors....cause my bro was an altar boy and we both went to Catholic school for 13 years......never touched by them....never approached in any strange way
don't know why I'm posting this.....just getting it off of my chest I guess
I was sexually abused when I was six. I've said it here many times over the years because it's necessary to educate people and to open the door to those who have kept such secrets because of the shame. Sometimes I despair at the cavalier way the victims are dismissed but I think most of them do it out of ignorance, not malice.
I commend you for your OP. 
If he was even remotely involved in any cover up activities or if he just flat knew about it and did not act, his "legacy" will be a deservedly shameful one and PSU deserves what sanctions, penalties, fines and awards are levied against institution. The trouble for PSU is a shame for the thousands of students and athletes who will suffer for it, but there are other schools, and this level of institutional wrongdoing cannot be swept away.
Thanks for sharing your story. It surely must be difficult to discuss, but it's powerful as a first hand experience and brings this whole terrible affair into perspective. I wish you the best as you continue on your healing journey. 
and don't know what is important and what is not. some stupid game is NOT.
from all of us.
You are reacting exactly the way we all should be reacting to this crime, and now the exposure of a monstrous cover-up of the crime.
Your excellent OP deserves to reach 500 DU recs and you deserve 5000 hugs for posting it. I hope that you have many more peaceful days than anguished ones....
Expose all of them because we know they are more right across the globe preying on people's children while talking about character building and sport.
You have 100% support from me.
Bravo Grits!!!
- And yes, Grits are groceries! The best!
K&R
Hugs from a sister on this road
I entirely understand what you are talking about regarding abuse and being emotionally put back into a time and space - even when the abuse isn't sexual.
It is a form of PTSD.
People associate PTSD with the military because it's easiest to see and understand the manifestation of it there - but there are other circumstances that also bring about the cluster of symptoms that people know as PTSD.
The stories of vets who act out in ways that relate to their trauma are not the only way such traumas are revisited.
Most people are not violent and would never be - but they can be and are justifiably angry and deeply sad at the same time.
You don't have be have been a victim of child sexual abuse to know and understand exactly what's going on with you - and know that what went on at Penn State is an example of how American society has serious problems with priorities - and those priorities are based upon money and power.
Money and power matter more than people in American society. We see this over and over.
Until laws protect people - we will see this dynamic acted out in various ways over and over.
Last edited Wed May 18, 2016, 12:43 AM - Edit history (3)
to the editorial that Paterno's son Jay wrote in USA Today:
- This is nothing but blind devotion to a parent. I think deep down (he) knows his dad was (a) football-at-all-costs hypocrite.
- Dude is in DENIAL! Your daddy was a scumbag who helped another RAPE KIDS! Penn State needs to take his statue down and melt it down for SCRAP!
- He might not have covered up for Jerry Sandusky, but his indifference to the situation made him just as complicit to these horrible crimes against humanity.
- Paterno's son Jay, makes no mention of the fact that the 2001 incident was at least the second time the issue had come up -- in 1998, Sandusky was accused in a case that went before District Attorney, Ray Gricar who reviewed then decided to drop it. Joe Paterno knew about this incident, and that makes his failure to look toward the welfare of a child, the second time around even more grievous. Fool me once... shame on Sandusky, fool me twice... well, you know.
- Oh Jay, I know that this is a nightmare. Young children raped, bullied and tossed away, and your father being part of the cover-up. The sins of the Father weigh so heavily on their children. Jay, accept the weight, and do better. If you continue to deny your father's part in this nightmare you will never be able to do better. Good luck!
rocktivity
I don't doubt that Penn St is going to pay dearly for the unbelievably callous and calculating misfeasance of its top officers -- and the erstwhile sainted "Joe Pa."
There are enough victims coming forward, that the settlements that will have to made from myriad lawsuits will undo the creepy place financially. I feel a little sorry for the alumni whose bubble has been violently burst by the sordid revelations of serial child rape and its subsequent cover up by the university. It may be that PSU will have to shrink its offerings back to academics and athletics (with a small "a"
-- or maybe it will be allowed to die as an institution.
Child rape is a heinous crime. Walking away from it, knowing it has happened and will doubtless continue to happen, shit, abetting it, is a worse crime.
If Sandusky does multiple life sentences -- as he should -- the rest of the craven, heartless, calculating crew that allowed him to continue his activities; that worried about the "image" of the school and, worse yet, about Sandusky's feelings in the matter, should at least do life.
(Of course they won't. They will do time, hard time I hope. But they'll be out in a few years (maybe a few months) and get busy writing their memoirs of the affair. And those memoirs, sadly, will be bought up by thousands of PSU alumni who think that the school's inaction was -- god, it's hard even to think it -- understandable and proper.)) No, I don't mean that ALL PSU alumni are sympathetic to the bastards. Not even a majority, I'm sure, feel in the least supportive. But there are enough of them -- the real hard core -- who will support Joe Pa's record and think of him and the other degenerates who covered up for Sandusky nothing but find thoughts and gratitude.
