A Shared Testimony

I would like to tell you all a short version of my story involving CSA. It has been by all accounts the most difficult and traumatizing event that I and my young family have ever encountered, but it doesn’t only stop with myself and my family, the suffering and pain involves my extended family and then the ‘church’ family followed by the greater community, especially in a small country town like the one we live in.

We had known each others respective families for approximately 9 years. He was the charismatic Pastor whom was well respected and highly regarded in the local community. Asked to participate on local matters and involved in respected circles he was ‘untouchable’, his wife who had health issues was always seen to be the ‘perfect’ Pastors wife, quiet, wholesome and a woman of morals and virtues, but behind closed doors it was a very different story.

My Pastor whom I will refer to as M asked me to come and work for him at his local business, I declined at first as I did not need or want a job, be he persuasively asked again and in agreement with my husband I said ok. I had only started working for him about 1 month before the ‘sexualization’ started. Comments made in ‘jest’ by Pastor M became normal, what started out as uncomfortable ‘gut’ instincts were overtaken by a ‘normal’ kind of occurrence. This I now know was what the ‘grooming’ process involved, it is a gradual insidious overtaking of your mind, body and spirit and then to mix it with spiritual phrasing from the Word of God you are stirring up an incredible concoction of self doubt, insecurity and trust in your abuser that no one can even fathom to understand. To this day (8 months post abuse) I struggle with the events that have transpired. Someone whom I trusted with my life used the abuse to gratify his own egotistical needs, I was his mere plaything. Not only was he my Pastor, but he was my employer and Creditor. See the ‘power imbalance’, who was I compared to this man? He interwove himself into my family, playing tennis with my daughter (was this man also grooming her?) Befriended my husband and would ask him if ‘it was okay to take my wife out for dinner’, see how they work, they have that ‘inherent trust’, my husband would say to him, if you cant trust your Pastor, than who can you trust?’.

I would be having dinner with Pastor M and his wife, he would sit opposite me and be touching me inappropriately under the table whilst his wife was their) Let me reinitiate to you that I would never in my life have let another man do this, but we had an unspoken agreement, I could never say anything, as I would lose my reputation (remember I was the seductress as he had told me) and he was ‘above reproach’. I never said a word to anyone. He asked me to go off my anti depressants, and told me he would help me get through them with the help of God and with him by my side. I would call him at night desperate for his help as I lay on the ground hyperventilating and having panic attacks and my husband laying next to me, I couldn’t possibly have got through them without his help, I relied on him. He had total control of me, I was his mere plaything. He would plant doubt in my mind, my husband didn’t treat me well, not the way Pastor M did. I started to ally with my abuser, my relationship with my husband deteriorated, I would cry and beg for my husband to ask me what was wrong, he would ask, and I would say I couldn’t tell him. We were not only running a farm, but a new business as well, we were mentally, physically, emotionally, financially and spiritually exhausted. The enemy always seeks an opportunity to destroy.

Pastor M offered my husband and I money (no one he said should know about this only my husband and I) and then I would just pay him off by working at the shop, working off my ‘tab’. I refused to take the money, he had used a tab system on me for months, I was in the position where he had total control over me. The sexualization increased, he would ask me to perform oral sex on him, he would masturbate in front of me, he would put his hands down my pants and ‘digitally rape me’, he would touch my breasts.

I had planned to commit suicide on Dec 27 2014, I watched a tutorial on how to plan it and do it correctly. I believe God sent me an Angel, I had planned the act for 1.30 pm when I knew my husband had the children. I couldn’t bear the thought of my husband and children coming home and finding me hanging in the shed, and then having to live with that image for the rest of their lives.

It would be another 48 hours of inexplicable anguish and torment, before I broke down and told my husband and parents everything. Pastor M has admitted something sexual happened to the church union, then denied it to friends of the church, he has refused to speak to the police and moved away in the hope this will go away. We are currently in the middle of a legal battle, I’m so tired and mentally exhausted. I have received 19 counseling session and will need another 12 months at least to try and heal. My life will never, EVER be the same, I am no longer the trusting, carefree, naive young woman I was, I am now suspicious, untrusting, anxious and reclusive. This is now my new life, and he gets away with it….for now.

Thank you THOS for all you do, you also helped save my life!

Author: Ms K. Australia.

If you are a survivor of clergy sexual abuse, we would love to hear your story and possibly make it available on this web site for others to read and renew their hope. You can use a pseudonym if you choose and rest assured that all personal information will be kept private and strictly confidential. Please contact us.