I have just been privileged to attend and participate in the wonderful “Religious- Right, Secularism and Civil Rights” conference in London at the weekend.What an amazing experience! What brave and inspiring people! What connections,shared tears, laughter,strength and resolve.
There are many Tyrannical regimes, they may have different faces and names but their tactics and inhumanity are the same. To be part of this was an honour,I wish you could have all shared ! So here is what I presented.
Peter Tatchell chairing the panel introduced Sue Cox this way:
“Sue is the Co-founder of Survivors Voice Europe,a self funding organisation of catholic clergy abuse survivors , Sue was herself the victim of catholic clergy abuse as a child. She describes herself as “a 67 year old grandmother with nine life threatening or life limiting conditions, who has been in her time an alcoholic, addict, serious self harmer with an eating disorder, a victim of clergy sexual abuse and rape , suffered domestic violence and attempted murder and was single Mother of six children! “
Sue Cox :
I bet you cant wait to hear what I’ve got to say after that introduction!
When Peter asked me how I wanted to be introduced, I asked him to do it like that to demonstrate something; How we all are very quick to make assumptions!
Having described me this way, you may already have a picture in your head. A little bit like the charming man had who, after hearing me talk about this at a similar conference, thought it was his civic duty to keep me away from the bar!
And although it is quite true that I am a recovered addict, what that description doesn’t tell you is that it is thirty eight years since I had a mood altering chemical, that I have worked in the addiction field for 35 years and am considered an expert in my particular field.
I have developed a programme which is used in the Health service, prison service and military health.In 2010 I received a lifetime’s achievement award for my contribution to addiction treatment.
I head a large teaching organisation, and I have personally taught thirteen thousand healthcare workers, including many consultant psychiatrists!I teach in 127 UK prisons.
We all make assumptions!
Peter also told you that I was the single Mother of six children! So the image now may be of the old woman who lived in the shoe! Churning out children and living on benefits
What that image doesn’t say is that although that is perfectly true, I was left with 6 children under twelve when I was 32, I never received benefits or support from my violent ex husband, I worked -and I worked very hard , and now my children are all incredibly well rounded professional people who are an asset to the community.
We all do make assumptions!
Then we come to the bit about having been abused by a catholic priest as a child.
Last Time I spoke at an event like this someone came up to me afterwards and said when they saw it was “Clergy Abuse” survivors, their heart sank because they thought it was “yet another “victim” story”
I can assure you that isn’t what I am going to talk about. My personal story has been told many times, and that is not what this is about, in fact if we continue to dwell on the physical aspect of abuse we are missing the point.
If you look up here and see an old woman who should be pitied then you are making a big assumption!
When we simply focus on the sexual aspect of abuse we are so busy pitying people that we miss the broader more sinister issues.
Survivors voice Europe is very different from other “victim”
groups. For one thing, we focus on the empowerment of survivors, and we are the only organisation to do that very definitely from a Secular, Humanist, Atheist perspective. Today’s event offers my organisation a unique opportunity to delve a little deeper into one of the core principles of Survivors Voice Europe and to illustrate how our ethos keeps all of us that are involved away from that victim label altogether
We are talking today about many different flavours of tyrant! all equally sinister, but I can only speak with authority from the perspective of my dealings with the catholic church. Whilst we talk about the rise of new religious factions and break-away groups and the religious right, I feel that we cannot overlook one of the oldest and largest and most man manipulative religious organisations in the world.
And I say Organisation because that is precisely what it is – a man-made, narcissistic structure who’s tentacles of control and indoctrination go in deep, go in early and are hard to shake off
The catholic church has been destroying peoples lives for two thousand years. And they are still doing just that
.
Their rule is total and they exercise this through humiliation and subjugation (lets not forget that in catholicism even babies are born with original sin!), FEAR – not only of repercussions during our life but fear about what is beyond! The catholic church wants to own us before, during and after our brief moments on this wonderful earth.
And they don’t look like barbarians, in the accepted sense of the word, although their tactics certainly are barbaric. They are educated, high functioning narcissists and like all narcissists they are often charismatic and charming. In that way they “hijack” peoples lives, they take us hostage.
When I was first recovering from addiction I was given this image:
Now, I don’t believe in the devil any more than I believe in god, but it was a very useful analogy..
Imagine your life as a beautiful, fully equipped ship with the potential and everything you need for the voyage in front of you, with the promise that you can go anywhere in the world that you want.
Then the devil hijacks that ship, and while ever you are in the grip of addiction you are powerless to stop his cruel and tyrannical rule. You are in chains, and he continues to rule with cruelty and terror. You are trapped and in dangerous seas.
But in recovery and with a LOT of very hard work, you overthrow that demon, and take back the ship to regain your power.
The devil is then relegated to a slave scrubbing the decks, But he is still barking out instructions! He still thinks he is in charge!
If we even consider listening to that voice for even one moment, we will be soon back in the grips of this narcissist.
Religious organisations, especially the catholic church do exactly the same!They hijack you, they take you hostage!
And then they are the ones deciding the course of your journey, and people like me find ourselves gazing into the horizon at a flotilla of self-driven, un-hijacked vessels heading off into the great unknown! – There is no such thing as the great unknown in catholicism! Everything is planned and steered and woe betide you decide to try to escape, because even then they will threaten you with eternal damnation.
This no different from the many famous hostage situations throughout history; the Normallstorg bank robbery in Stockholm in 1973, Bovensmilde Elementary School, Entebbe, the Libyan Embassy Siege, the taking of Opec or the 3-day crisis for Air France Flight 8696 in 1994 – there are many crises of this nature, some even happening in your average street in your average house.
One elderly survivor of the Air France Flight profoundly described a hostage takers tactics when he commented that ”There was an art to their terror; 30 minutes of relaxation, 30 minutes of torture, you never knew what was next’.
What we know about the brain now is that it is hard-wired to survive at all costs, and the only way to do this is to be hardwired to be afraid of anything that threatens us.
So when, after three days the hostages were released from Normallstorg, it was not inexplicable to us why they would empathise,sympathise and even support the people that had taken them hostage.
Through a studied process of intimidation, death-threats, random seeming kindnesses, isolation then re-integration into the group, lies, secrets etc. the hostages took the safest line possible – get on the side of the threat to stay alive.
Supplication was the only way, this kind of behaviour is something we see in other species too.
We know we integrate as groups, as packs, we now know that this is an important part of social development and cohesion. But what is REPREHENSIBLE is when this unique and inherent skill is used against us.
This is precisely the way that many religious organisations work, and is particularly true of the machinations of the catholic church.
Through cynical observation of the human dynamic, our need to belong is used against us. What happens is that as people who have been ‘taken hostage’ we end up dancing with a charismatic, Svengali-like narcissistic demon,
in a sick and twisted eternal tango which is hard to extricate ourselves from.
At Survivors Voice we KNOW that extrication from the dance is not only possible, but is CRUCIAL. We know also that lack of confidence, lack of self-belief, lack of personal agency, lack of opportunities or hope are not how we started on that beautiful boat full of potential at the beginning of life.
We KNOW that these traits are a direct symptom of the toxic and potentially lethal effects of religious intimidation and menace.
We show that steps to pull away from the need to belong to our captors are NECESSARY we consider that every time we engage in “dialogue”, or in trying to convince our captors that what they are doing is wrong, or trying to plead or beg for recourse – we are continually giving our power away.
We are back to taking instructions from the deck scrubbing devil. We are feeding that narcissist and giving it back it’s power,
Our power as survivors lies in going back to our inherent skills of belonging – but belonging to something authentic, somewhere safe where we can be without fear, where our human curiosity is not only celebrated but positively encouraged rather than repressed as sinful or ex communicable!
This is why for us secularism is so important, that deck scrubbing demon which is the catholic church STILL thinks it is in charge, that it can dictate the terms.
We will NOT be entering into “dialogue” again with these narcissists, we will NOT be “exploring the issues” for years on end to no avail, being exploited or re-abused
We will not be standing in front of churches with pictures of our childhood faces, we will not be joining “focus groups” created by churches, we are DONE with them
So when you see pictures like these PLEASE resist the urge to make assumptions!
What you see is definitely NOT what you get.
There IS NO CHANGE in the vatican, they just swapped a rat faced snake with a smily faced one, both equally slimy! Just a smily faced PR man wheeled in to give a better image to a failing regime.
So having extricated ourselves from the grip of the church, it has allowed us to use our skills to empower others, we are now connected with many like minded survivors in Canada, USA, Africa, Australia, Poland, Italy, Russia,Hawaii,Ireland,England,Tasmania,Holland, Spain France and beyond !! Wherever those catholic tentacles have reached, there will be many people who have been damaged.
No longer constrained by that malignant doctrine, we are free to regain our true potential and to take our place with the rest of the human race, using the skills we have acquired to help others.
I cannot categorically prove that all of my health issues and addictions were as a direct result of my childhood abuses, but the scientific research and evidence is compelling and says it is more than probable.
So in my teaching role I am able to teach others about the severity of abuse, and more importantly, what can help.Our courses “Winning the Battle of the abused brain” are doing just that!
In the same way as I didn’t get sober to sit around talking about drink all day, we didn’t get free from the church to sit around constantly talking about our abuses! We have survived, and survivors of abuse are strong people.
These aren’t innate skills, they have been acquired through dreadful adversity, and now they can be used as fertiliser for growth.
We can stand shoulder to shoulder with others who are fighting similar tyrants and together we are a force to be reckoned with!
Sue Cox
0781 380 8026
