Читать книгу Predators Live Among us - Diane Roblin Lee - Страница 22
Оглавление2. Who is the Predator?
Who can know the darkness of heart that dwells within anyone? Until outed through charges being laid against them, predators are usually impossible to spot. They lurk behind masks designed to look like everyman or everywoman.
My research was not limited to libraries or news reports. I gained valuable insight from individuals who were willing to expose their hearts in interviews in hopes that their sharing would assist in the battle to protect children.
One of these contributors was Matt, a middle-aged professional man who lost his wife, family, home, profession, reputation, dignity, friends and total sense of worth when charged and convicted of molesting two young girls. While not an example of a sadistic pedophile, he is typical of a multitude of predators who started out dabbling in pornography and ended up destroying the lives around them and losing everything.
We met one cold, fall morning. I plugged in my equipment to record the sad legacy of this man’s life. He was broken and totally open to exposing his deepest shame if it could in any way dissuade anyone thinking of targeting a child from acting on fantasies, or if it could in any way bring healing, insight or prevention into the epidemic of child molestation.
D. Let’s go back to the beginning. Where did this all start? What was the root?
M. Pornography was certainly a major contributing factor.
D. Was there anything else at the root of it?
M. Well, the absence of a healthy adult sexual relationship was not a good environment for me to be in.
D. How do you account for that? What was wrong with your relationship with your wife?
M. I think that on our honeymoon when I was more open about wanting to do the kind of stuff I saw in pornography, and I realized that she wasn’t into it, I disconnected and took the easy way out in more pornography and fantasizing and other relationships. We just grew apart. Instead of working on a healthy relationship, I replaced normal, healthy sex with more and more degrading pornography.
D. So you had no desire for normal sex ?
M. No.
D. Do you think that if your wife had participated in all the things you wanted to do that you would never have gotten involved with the first young girl?
M. There’s no way of knowing that. I never had any thoughts of kids. All the time I was messing around with other women while I was travelling so much, it was all about adults. The thought of kids never crossed my mind.
D. In terms of the root, do you feel that there was anything generational, or anything in you that led you to be attracted to children? Do you feel that you were born with that sexual predisposition?
M. I don’t think so. Psychologists have determined that I am not a real pedophile. Not all people who molest children are pedophiles. True pedophiles just go for kids. That is not my preference. I was always into adult sex but got involved with the two young girls because they were there and I was so selfish that I cared more about self-gratification than anything else at the time. I think that in both cases, with both girls, it was a matter of convenience. I was in a trusted position for a long time.
D. When you were a child, did you have sexual experiences or were you molested by anyone?
M. When I was about nine, I was molested by a counselor at a Scout camp. I called home and tried to get my parents to come and get me, but they didn’t and so I told the senior camp counselor. Then my parents came and got me. Other than that, there were about three instances of experimentation with other children who were older that I, but in talking with psychologists, they seem to think that those circumstances were just normal childhood curiosity.
D. What did your parents say to you about it?
M. We never talked about it. It was as though it never happened.
D. Do you feel that had any effect on your sexual development or your relationship with your wife, or...
M. I don’t know. It wasn’t a good situation. I felt very ostracized at the camp because I was treated like the snitch who had caused this fellow who molested me to be sent home. Everybody was mad because this fellow had been very popular. They didn’t know what he had done to me. I just wanted to go home, to get out of there. I was there for about a day before my parents came.
D. Do you, yourself, feel that the incidents with other children were normal childhood occurrences—or do you feel that they had an effect on your development?
M. It’s not something that you can qualify. I don’t know what I would have been like had those things never happened.
D. Research speaks of the “grooming process” child molesters use to gain the trust of their victims and families. Did you intentionally groom your first victim with the intent of molesting her?
M. While I had begun to fantasize about schoolgirls, I never intended to actually get myself in a situation of molesting a child. The first time it happened, I was leading a children’s church group and a young girl who was a foster child of a family in the church used to want to be around me all the time. She had been sexually active in a previous home and was very clingy with any male leader who would pay attention to her. She was mentally and emotionally weak and just wanted someone to love her. She wanted males to love her. One of the other leaders had to have a talk with her foster mother about how she was constantly making plays for the male leaders. I played on her needs. One day when I was at her home, she flipped her top up out of the blue and exposed her breasts to me. That’s when I should have just told her to pull her top down and left the situation, but I didn’t.
D. Did the foster parents not suspect anything?
M. The girl’s foster mother was very observant. I felt she was always on the outlook for the kids because she had had a previous situation where someone was suspected of molesting one of her grandkids and so I never pushed anything, simply because that would have been a red flag to her. I could sense that she was always very protective.
D. Did you ever feel that she had any distrust of you?
M. No. Not at all. In fact it was exactly the opposite. I was very much in a position of trust with the kids.
D. You must have begun to feel very isolated after all that began to happen. You became isolated from people who could have helped you. Can you talk about how that was?
M. It just reinforced the behavior. It made me go deeper into unreality and interact more with the kids than with the adults. It was a real catch-22 situation.
D. How did you see yourself in relation to other people?
M. I always felt that in a funny sort of way I was superior to other people—that I was smart, that I was clever. I was getting away with it. Did I like me? No. But deep down I always felt that I did a good job at a lot of things. I felt that there weren’t a lot of people who could do certain things as well as I could do them. Believe it or not, I thought I was spiritually astute. That was a total deception, obviously. I was proud to the extent of being vain. Not a very nice person. I worked at trying to appear to be a nice person, but it was all a sham.
D. How long did that situation with that young girl continue?
M. I’m not exactly sure. She eventually went to another home in Toronto. Then there was a church party of some sort and I volunteered to go to Toronto to pick her up and that’s when it ended.
D. Why did it end?
M. Because I took her to a secluded spot on the way and proceeded to molest her and she started to cry. That’s when I stopped. I snapped out of it and took her home.
D. There were quite a few years between the first girl and your neighbour’s daughter, Linda. Why did you choose Linda?
M. I think Linda was the most vulnerable. She was always very clingy and wanted to be around me. She was at my house a lot with my grandkids. Linda was very bright, but she was emotionally needy because of her circumstances and she craved the attention. Other kids who were strong characters never entered my mind. Never even entered my mind.
D. How old was she when you began to touch her?
M. I think she was about ten.
D. Was she frightened?
M. No, I don’t think so. It began as a back rub and just progressed from there. In my mind, she was enjoying the attention. I was obviously rationalizing totally inappropriate behavior. It was totally about self-gratification.
D. So her discomfort wouldn‘t have stopped you.
M. No. The best thing Linda ever did was to tell, because even though I stopped over a year before she told, I’m convinced that I would have started again at some point.
D. Your desires were progressive, then?
M. Yes. I never went beyond touching the girls with my hands, but towards the end, I was fantasizing about being touched and I know I was moving in that direction.
D. When you were touching them, were you physically aggressive? Did you force yourself on them?
M. I did with Linda. I wasn’t violent, but I knew that she didn’t want to do certain things and I did.
D. Would you have progressed as far as rape?
M. No, I wouldn’t have forced her like that, but if she hadn’t cried, I would have gone further and if she had given any inkling of wanting to participate—which I know was a ridiculous thought—I would have gone further. That’s just how low my mind had sunk.
D. How old was she then?
M. She would have been twelve or thirteen. But in both cases, with both of the girls, when they cried and said stop, I stopped. I think when they cried, they broke through the veil of being objects to me and became children and that’s when I stopped.
D. When you were molesting a child, how did you feel about the child?
M. I didn’t really have any... I think I felt that I was giving them pleasure, or that was what I told myself, which was of course not true. It was all about self-gratification. While I was touching them, I really thought of them as objects, not as children. When you’re doing that you don’t think of them as victims. It’s just as though they’re nonexistent. They’re not people. They’re objects.
D. Did you ever have a real relationship with Linda? Was she ever a human being to you—or was she always just an object?
M. Oh no, I cared very deeply for her. It was only when I was trying to self-gratify myself that she was an object. But there were so many times when I felt so close to her. I was almost like a Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde. I was very deceptive. Extremely deceptive. There are perpetrators who basically target a kid on the street and use violence but that wasn’t my thing. It wasn’t anything I ever did or would have done. There was always something deep inside of me that said that wasn’t ever going to happen.
D. What were your thoughts after you had molested a young girl?
M. Regret. Deep, deep regret. I felt very unworthy. Like a real heel. A real schmuck.
D. So after Linda cried, it never happened again?
M. That’s right. It never happened again. And I think it was over a year before she reported me. If I hadn’t gotten caught, I know I would have tried again. The victim needs to tell.
D. If she had been questioned, do you think Linda would have told about it earlier?
I think that communication from adults to the child is extremely important. Because I have a feeling that if anybody had sat down with Linda and asked her if everything was okay in the relationship between her and me, I think she would have spoken up and said that there were some things going on. I doubt that she would have said anything to her teachers at school or whatever, but with someone she really had a relationship with, I think she would have said something if she had been asked.
D. Did you ever want to confess—and if you did, what stopped you?
M. Yes, I did, but fear wouldn’t let me. I was trapped. There was nothing I could do about it without blowing my family apart—which has happened.
D. According to the research I’ve done, one of the characteristics of child molesters is that they don’t pay attention to normal societal boundaries. Were you aware that you were breaking societal barriers, or did you just not care, or what?
M. I don’t think I was aware that I was breaking societal barriers.
D. So you weren’t aware that it was improper to go into a child’s bedroom?
M. No. Not really. I was much more comfortable with children than with adults. I think it’s because with adults you can’t be totally open and honest, but with kids you can and I enjoyed that. So it was a lack of maturity. That and the fact that my guilt prevented me from being able to relax with adults.
D. Did you feel you could express yourself more with kids?
M. No, I would draw them out. I wouldn’t talk about my deep feelings with them. I would just talk about them.
D. What would have stopped you from touching a child in the first place?
M. If they had said no. Saying no and crying. In both cases, with both of the girls, that was it. That was what stopped it with both of them. Now—will that stop every child molester? No. I don’t think so. It’s just that I have a soft heart and when reality sunk in that I was hurting this child, then I stopped.
D. Did you ever hear on TV or on the radio about the consequences of molesting a child?
M. All the time.
D. How did that affect you?
M. I’d just quiver and shake inside and be glad that I hadn’t gotten caught.
D. But you proceeded anyway. Why?
M. Just lack of self-will. I’d just always make myself think, well, she appears to like it, so... I mean it was delusional, but that’s what I did.
D. Did you want to be caught?
M. I wanted to stop. I didn’t want to get caught. I just couldn’t figure out how to stop.
D. Did you ever try to seek help in any way?
M. Yes. I would constantly pray that the Lord would get me out of it. I knew it was wrong and felt very guilty after the fact, but just wasn’t strong enough to stop it.
D. So if you prayed that God would help you to stop, why do you think He didn’t?
M. I think it was just a hollow prayer. It just wasn’t sincere. My desire for what I was doing was stronger than my desire to stop.
D. How did you hide your sexual preferences all those years?
M. Just by being very manipulative.
D. Did you feel guilt?
M. Yes.
D. How did you handle that?
M. Just tried to put on a brave face—be someone I wasn’t. Basically a mask. I couldn’t ever really have an in-depth conversation with anybody for fear something would slip. There was no honesty in anything. It was very depressing. I just buried myself in work projects and so I was never really around anybody for long. I just kept working and working so I didn’t have to think about it. That was my self-preservation mechanism.
D. Do you think people have to be cautious when they see a strong bond between a man and a child?
M. I think people have to be perceptive—not cautious—perceptive. For instance, I have a bad feeling about a fellow at my church now. There is a woman there who has two young daughters and a boyfriend. They left the church and he took one of the girls with him—not both girls—one girl. To me that was an instant red flag. I wondered why he separated those girls. So I think that if you want to protect a child, you have to watch how things are orchestrated and understand manipulation.
D. When you questioned that, should you have confronted that, or should you have just let them go as you did and hope for the best?
M. I am going to speak to the pastor about it, but I am in a very delicate position in that church. There are certainly people, I would say the majority of people who are spiritually mature, rational people who understand the nature of forgiveness and are giving me a second chance. There are a few, however, who are really upset about me being there. They haven’t actually vocalized their concerns to me, but I certainly sense the vibe. They have spoken to the pastor about it, but he’s giving me a chance. It’s a hard situation.
D. So you feel that in your position you really can’t address it. But for someone else who was concerned, do you feel that the fellow should have been challenged?
M. Well, it was with the full approval of the mom. She went out to his car and opened the door for the little girl to get in and then let them go off on their own. I guess that in my situation right now, I’m just paranoid. I could be over reacting to this situation with the mother and her boyfriend, because friends of the pair who seem to be people of good judgement don’t appear to have a problem with it. They seem to think it’s okay. Anyway, a parent just has to be wise.
D. Did you ever feel that there was any kind of demonic presence influencing you or harassing you?
M.. No. I think Satan gets blamed for a lot of things he doesn’t do. This was just totally selfish human nature.
D. What was it like being accused of child molestation?
M. Gut wrenching. My heart stopped. My mind was spinning thinking, well, this won’t be that hard to get out of, because there’s no hard evidence. That was my initial instinct, but before I admitted that I was guilty, I started realizing that whether I was proven guilty or not, people were going to think I was, because I had been accused. Reality was slow to seep in, but when it did, I started to realize that I had to do the right thing.
D. Describe your experience with the law. What was it like when the police came to the door?
M. Initially I had no idea what was going on, but my heart went into my stomach. They were very professional. I don’t think they believed the accusations at all at first, mainly because they were so nice to me. I would have thought that if they had believed it, I would have been incarcerated, at least overnight. But after taking me to the station for an interview, they took me home. They were very good to me. There were two uniformed officers and one plainclothes. They were very professional. I lied through my teeth in the first interview. I was very scared. I think I did a pretty good job of hiding it, but I was scared.
When I went back the second time to confess, it was a huge relief. I felt much, much better about the situation. I finally felt I had done the right thing after a long, long time.
D. What led you to turn yourself in and confess?
M. I realized that this was not going to play out well. That it was going to totally divide the family and betray them more than I already had. By me denying everything, it was more abuse on Linda. To drag her through a trial was unthinkable. I most likely could have won, if I had played it totally cool and calculated and denied, denied, denied. If I had totally lawyered up and done everything they had told me to do, I could probably have beat it—but there would have been a big mess in the family and I just really.... I knew I was going away for a long time and I wasn’t coming back. I wasn’t going to incur any lawyers fees for my family. I was just going to plead guilty to everything. I didn’t care if I went away for life. I knew the best thing for me to do was admit it. Take the lumps. That was my intent.
D. In case someone who is fantasizing about molesting a child reads this interview, I’d like them to understand the price they’ll pay. Could you tell me exactly what happened from the time you turned yourself in?
M. After making my statement, I was put into a holding cell by myself at the O.P.P. station. I was so relieved to finally have the truth out. There was a nice old lady working there and so I started to talk to her and told her how good I felt to have done the right thing. She stood there and asked me what the charges were and I told her. She just went white and became very belligerent and got right on the phone. The constable who I had been talking with came up to my cell and said, “I’m only going to tell you this once. When you go over to the jail, keep your mouth shut. People do not want to know about this charge, and so for your own self-preservation, ... and it was very good advice.
But then, when they took me over to the jail, the guards over there already knew. And so all of this stuff started to happen.
D. That lady told them?
M. I don’t know. The guards who carry you over have a record of what you’re charged with so that they can process you in. So it started with the strip-search with the guards berating me and marching me naked, carrying my jail clothes, in front of everybody in the holding cells with them all yelling at me about how they were going to get me.... I really... I really don’t want to go there.
D. Remember, the reason why I’m asking you about the details of this is in hopes that it will be a deterrent to anyone else who is thinking about molesting a child and so that victims will feel that they have had some justice.
M. Yeah. It’s hell on earth. You can’t believe how alone you are. I basically went nuts for a little while. They psychologically broke me. I was totally delusional for a couple of days at least.
D. What did they do to break you?
M. No sleep. They put me in a padded blanket-garment sort of dress thing with straps made from safety belt fabric over my shoulders. I was strapped into it. I had no clothes. They had taken everything I had. They control the temperature in the cells and so they turned my heat right down so that it was a very cold cell. All I had was a tiny little blanket about two feet by four feet, made of the same fabric as this dress thing. It was basically what they call their “suicide watch.” There was one guard watching me. I don’t know his name, but I’ll never forget his face. He was a guy who was big in the union and very belligerent. It was that guy who made the decision that I was going to go into the cold cell. I was taken to a nurse and of the corner of my eye I caught him give her a big wink that this was going to happen.
So they kept me there for three days. Basically, they would stay outside my door and taunt me and tell me how terrible I was. They’d carry on conversations outside my door about all the horrible things they’d heard I did. If I did go to sleep at all, they’d bang on my door to make me wake up. So I’d had no sleep at all and was very, very cold for three days.
Then at five in the morning, they took me down to a holding cell to wait until 8:30 to be loaded into a paddy wagon to go to the courthouse. So I was just left there to wait in this absolutely filthy cell. I think they must smear these places with excrement on purpose so that they are as miserable as they can possibly be. The walls are just covered with feces.
D. You mean in the cells below the courthouse?
M. No—in the Super Jail, but the courtroom cells are the same. There are some cells that are okay, and then there are others that are just terrible. When I was first going through all that, I was always put in the worst ones for obvious reasons. It’s like a game to some of these people. The worst guards were the women, by far, but in general, there a lot of very, very good people there.
D. Earlier, you spoke of the “perp walk.” What was that?
M. After they strip search you, they’re supposed to give you an orange jumpsuit with underwear and slippers and you should be able to put those on, because there are five or six low-walled cement cubicles so that when you return from court, you’re supposed to strip out of your street clothes back into the prison wear in those cubicles. But instead of that, when a prisoner like me is taken from the holding cell to the regular cells, they make them stay naked, just carrying their prison clothes and walk past all these holding cells, some of which can hold as many as 30 men. Some hold ten or twenty and then there are some cells with just one man. They let these guys know what the charges are and so as I walked down the hall, all these guys were yelling profanities and threats about how they were going to get me. It was.... So that was the perp walk.
D. So that happened when you first got there?
M. I turned myself in on Saturday morning and spent Saturday night in a holding cell in the O.P.P. Station. Sunday morning, I did video court from there. Then I was transported to the Super Jail Sunday afternoon and that’s where the perp walk and everything else started. That’s when I was taken up to the psyche ward and put in the cold cell for three days, supposedly on suicide watch. But every time I was taken back and forth to court, it was like a perp walk because the other prisoners were made aware of what the charges were.
D. Did you ever find yourself in grave danger?
M. Yes. Many times. There were times when I could have been killed—people who wanted to kill me. But God was there and protected me the whole time.
D. You’ve talked about being active in a church. How could you call yourself a Christian?
M. I had committed my life to God and believed everything in the Bible. I just wasn’t following what it said. I put my own desires ahead of everything and didn’t work at applying Scripture to my life. I was just a guy sitting in a pew saying all the right things but doing whatever I felt like doing.
D. Did you feel as though God had left you in prison?
M. No, although I certainly deserved to have Him leave me. There were so many occurrences when really bad things could have happened. I could have died. Just on my pod there were several guys who would have killed me as quick as they would have looked at me if they could have gotten their hands on me. I feel that God gave me wisdom in what to say, what to do and how to react. Whenever I would ask Him what I was to do in a particular situation, I would just feel a flood of peace and I knew He was with me. I’d do whatever it was I felt He told me to do and I was protected.
D. After all of that, do you still have an attraction to children?
M. No. Quite frankly, I’ve gone overboard the other way. I’m frightened of children now. If I’m in a grocery store and there are a couple of kids in an aisle without their mother, I’ll turn my cart around and go the opposite direction. It’s just common good sense. It’s not that I’m afraid of re-offending, because that’s not going to happen. My fear is that I’ll be perceived as doing something inappropriate. I’m extremely careful not to put myself in a position where anyone could get the wrong idea.
D. How do you feel about yourself now, generally?
M. I’m just a work in progress. I have difficulty with some things. For instance, in my work, I can’t get overly friendly with anybody or invite them to church because if they come to my church, I’ll lose my job. Someone there will ask if they know about my background—and that will be it. I’ll be history. Any effect I have on people just has to be through the way I live my life, through being a person who is not profane, who is honest and helpful—but I can’t invite them to come to my church. And that’s just the facts of life. That understanding comes through the first job I got after I was released at a trucking company. I was the best night watchman they had ever had—until one guy found out that I had been in prison and that was it. So it makes that part of it difficult.
D. How do you feel about yourself now in relation to other people?
M. I feel as though I’ll always be in a fishbowl. Everybody is reading behind the lines, wondering what I’m doing. I know my pastor and his church board are pleased that I’m doing everything to earn their respect and keep people comfortable and stick to the reintegration plan without being reminded. For instance, I’d never go to the washroom in the church. If I had to go, I’d leave the building and go home and go there. It’s just staying away from any perception of acting questionably.
It’s difficult because I can’t just go out anywhere and socialize and tell anybody about my past and expect anyone to be supportive, because it’s just not going to happen. So I’m isolated. I can’t just go out and be a normal person. I’m just coming to grips with that now and realizing that that’s always the way life is going to be for me. It’s my fault – nobody else’s.
I do feel very good about my relationship with my parole officer and my psychologist. They are very positive about the support group I have. The fact that my sister and my aunt have been so incredibly supportive says a lot to them and has meant so much to my ability to rebuild my life.
Most of the guys like me don’t have the support group I have. They’ve lost everybody and they just give up. They basically re-offend so that they can go back in to get off the streets. They’re with out any means and life is just too terrible on the outside.
D. Are you still a manipulator?
M. I don’t think so. I hope not. I try to be totally frank and honest about everything and I think that is the key. If someone asks me a direct question, I’m not going to lie about it. For instance, if some one asks me at my work if I have been in prison for child molestation, I’m not about to lie about it. I’ll say yes and then I might as well go out and get in my car because I’m going to lose my job. So from that standpoint, I’m not that same person anymore.
I think that’s why a few of my old friends and my sister and aunt have stuck by me, because there’s been a trust factor built up which I very much cherish. Without it I’d be totally lost. I’d be totally out of my mind, I guess. That’s all I can do.
Now, I recognize my lot in life. If I didn’t have the backing of my support group, I know I’d be in big trouble. I think I’d just collapse. But I do think that God has brought this support group together. It just seems supernatural to me. I was never that close to my aunt or my sister until this happened.
D. What role does remorse play in your life? How do you deal with the shame?
M. I don’t call it remorse. That may sound strange. I call it reality. There are realities that I have to live with for the rest of my life. There is an awareness of how deeply this has adversely affected the people in my life. Their woes right now are caused primarily by me and I’m aware of that.
Remorse and shame? This has taught me to see the girls as real people with emotions, thoughts and needs. I betrayed their trust and I feel very badly because I took advantage of their vulnerability.
D. What will you do if the temptation returns?
M. I’m going at life in such a way as to not allow the temptation to return. I’ve purposed myself to walk away from any possibly compromising situations.
I read a lot and keep myself busy with work and church. When impure thoughts come into my mind, I replace them with positive, healthy thoughts or good memories. The key is not ignoring bad thoughts—it’s replacing them. I know that I can talk to my pastor about anything, anytime. We have both come to the conclusion that man, left to his own desires, is very dark. We are all tempted, but left to run rampant, the imagination can be a disastrous thing.
D. So you’d say it’s all about renewing the mind?
M. Knowing exactly what the pitfalls are and how to avoid them is critical. Replacing dark thoughts. That’s why Philippians, Chapter Four, is so important to me. “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.” If a temptation comes into my mind, I immediately capture that thought and replace it with something else. Often a memory, like laying on my back, looking up at the stars with one of my grandchildren...that was such a wonderful, solid memory. Or driving down to the lake with my old dog, Jack. The point is that you can’t not think about something, or it becomes the elephant in the room. It becomes bigger and more important. You have to replace it with something positive. Something better.
D. If you could say anything to your victims, what would it be?
M. That I’m very sorry. I know that sounds like a very trite thing to say. I wish there had been an opportunity for them to confront me – for everyone who this touched to confront me and be able to express how I hurt them. I know that the victim impact statements are meant to do that, but the girls weren’t there when I read them. I would like them to know how sorry I truly am. I don’t deserve forgiveness, but in the long haul, it is the only thing that will bring peace to them.
D. Is doing this interview an effort on your part to make some restitution?
The best thing I can do for my victims is to never offend again. As the perpetrator, nothing I say means a hill of beans. It’s only what I do with the rest of my life that could make some small possible bit of difference to them. I’m aware of that. It may never make any difference and that thought makes me very sad, but it’s a valid thought. It’s a reality.
D. Is there anything I haven’t asked?
M. There are no excuses for anyone to molest a child. No reasons. Every individual is responsible for his or her own choices. Mine were detestably self-gratifying. The road to healing starts with taking responsibility for your own actions. All of the repercussions I face were brought on by my own hand. They are no one else’s fault.
