By Donna Freitas
Wow, what an incredible memoir. Donna did a brilliant job analyzing the past from so many angles. She writes very intelligently about consent, also from various angles, opening my eyes to the complexities of the topic.
I also really appreciated Donna’s honesty about perceiving herself as two people: victim and survivor. This is exactly what trauma does to us, it divides our personalities so that there is someone to deal with the abuse, with triggers, with shame, with fear, with things we want to call “weaknesses” or perhaps victimization. I can relate to this fracturing very much.
I can’t help wondering if Donna’s obsessive stalker was a victim of sexual abuse himself. The fact that he mutilated himself for the priesthood screams of sexual repression. And I’ll be honest, I can relate to the abuser for becoming obsessed with the thing he repressed (sexual desire), thinking it was God’s call on his life to deny his sexuality. His actions are no less abusive, unacceptable and reprehensible. And the Catholic church cover-up is complicit in it all and, in my opinion, needs to make celibacy only one option and not treat it as superior to marriage or a healthy consensual sexual relationship!