Intimate Expressions: An Orphan's Experience of Healing is a book about the path to survival and love. The book chronicles Dennis's bleak childhood as a ward of the state and his subsequent struggle to find a path of spiritual enlightenment and healing. Losing his parents at the age of four, Dennis is thrown into a world of sexual, physical, and emotional abuse in an orphanage. Growing up without the love of parents then hurled into a world indifferent to his sufferings, Dennis manages not only to survive but to help others along the way. Dennis shares his years of healing in a way that draws you in, touches your soul, and helps anyone on a similar journey of healing. At thirty-one, Dennis sought a new path to free himself from the nightmares and suicidal feelings that plagued his early life. For the next twenty years, he walked a new path that changed his behaviors, beliefs, and attitude about life, eventually emerging as a new person inside and out. This book will tug at your heartstrings and point you toward a life of love and happiness. Today Dennis continues to guide lost souls to find their own peace and wisdom.
INTIMATE EXPRESSION
An Orphan's Experience of HealingBy Dennis J. DodtTrafford Publishing
Copyright © 2012 Dennis J. Dodt
All right reserved.ISBN: 978-1-4669-1191-8Contents
A message of acknowledgement...............................................................................viiIntroduction...............................................................................................ixThe Major Turning Point in my Healing Journey..............................................................xiChapter 1 My Story.........................................................................................1Chapter 2 My Early Childhood...............................................................................5Chapter 3 Orphanage Years..................................................................................12Chapter 4 Foster care......................................................................................18Chapter 5 Freedom at last..................................................................................22Chapter 6 My Healing Begins................................................................................29Chapter 7 Emotional healing................................................................................41Chapter 8 Facing my fears..................................................................................45Chapter 9 Love and Intimacy................................................................................54Chapter 10 My Overview on how I healed myself naturally from Depression and Addictions.....................66
Chapter One
MY STORY
As I sit here typing, I recall a conscious dream that has been with me for most of my life—I see myself sitting on the ground on the hill of the orphanage, with my legs crossed and my elbows on my knees, and my chin resting in my hands. I'm waiting for my Mum and Dad to come driving up to take me home and I see my Mum reaching out to pick me up and hold me in her arms saying, "Dennis you're O.K. Son; you're not bad." I still dream that dream.
I am the 8th born child—born in the Central Queensland town of Rockhampton on the 11th of March, 1960—out of ten of us; I have five brothers and four sisters. We were a fairly poor family, but not an unusual fact for most of the people in our community. I lived a normal little boy's life, playing with the other kids in our neighbourhood. We played toy soldiers in the dirt, and made mud cakes, baking them in the sun, later pretending to eat them. I grew up with heroes like Ned Kelly and Captain Thunderbolt—a couple of famous bushrangers from our Australian History—Geronimo the American Indian, and Gandhi.
As a very young boy, not yet in school, I looked up to my older brothers, who made it look fun to slide down the hand railing of our house. As I was climbing up to the top rail I slipped and fell head first onto the concrete drain pipe; cracking my skull from one side to the other. (I still have a hole in my head from the incident.) My brothers, sisters, and several others from our street would also go up to the local Electrical shop and watch TV through the shop window. I only say this because in some ways, we were a normal family.
On my first day of school, wearing a white cotton shirt, I had been given a sixpence for my lunch. But on my way to school I saw a shop and decided to go in and buy a chocolate ice-cream. I managed to get the ice cream all down the front of my white shirt.
I went into the schoolyard to see two of my older brothers and ask them what I should do about my white shirt. They said "You are going to cop it when you get home for buying the ice cream and getting it all over your shirt instead of buying your lunch." This terrified me, as I remembered the beatings that happened to my mum. I decided to run away from school. I went and hid in the park with the Aboriginal wino all day until dark. I was scared and terrified of what my fate was going to be. On returning home that evening on my first day at school I never got into trouble.
The beatings, I am told, happened regularly to mum but I only have the memory of it happening once. Maybe my survival instincts kicked in and I started to live in denial of it happening. For instance, I remember there was a party in our back yard and all us young ones were made to stay upstairs and watch from the windows. Later I remember hearing my mum and dad yelling. I heard the sound of my mum's screams and furniture smashing. I was so frightened. I went over to their door and tried to help my mother, but I was only three years-old and I couldn't reach the door handle to get in.
My heart was breaking because I was not able to help my mum and stop her from being beaten.
When I do think of my younger years, I don't recall any memories of my mother or father ever holding me, hugging me, touching me, or looking at me with loving eyes; or even saying they loved me. My needs for love and attention came from somewhere else.
Whenever I was in emotional pain or needed some affection I would yell to the lady next door, "Lu Lu I want lollies." Sweets were what she used to give me to calm me down emotionally. If she wasn't home I would just have to live with whatever was going on.
Today when I feel fear, anger, sadness, hurt, pain, grief, or any other upset or conflict I still occasionally use sweet things to comfort myself. I have had to lighten up on myself for using sweets as an emotional coping tool; just as I have had to let go of so many other addictive substances over these last twenty years. This is a large problem for anyone to deal with when going into healing and recovery from childhood abuse, neglect and the associated depression.
I still strive for the need to be loved today and on rare occasions I still revert to using sweets to calm my emotions. Through my years of recovery and healing, I have come to see that I have been addicted to sugar as a coping mechanism for my emotional problems. This has been one of the hardest addictions that I have had to recover from.
As much as my younger years were an emotional roller coaster, little did I know how much the course of my life would change in the years to come.
Chapter Two
MY EARLY CHILDHOOD
My mother died and was buried on the 4th of March, 1964, seven days before my 4th birthday. No one ever explained to me that my mum had died, nor had anyone supported me through the grieving process. It wasn't until thirty years later, when I lost a close friend who had become a mother-like figure for me that I was able to heal from the effects of my repressed grief from my mother's death. I felt that my whole world was turned upside down.
For the first few months we lived out of town with our Uncle before being put into an orphanage for girls and boys. This was situated on the outskirts of Rockhampton. The Church, under the guidance of the State, ran the orphanage. I—and five of us younger children—was signed over to the care of the State and admitted to the Orphanage on January 3, 1965.
My father didn't have anyone to care for us while he was at work and he couldn't afford to support us.
I felt that there was something wrong with me. I felt that I was trapped within the confines of the orphanage, like I had been sentenced to a long-term jail sentence. I felt like I was a prisoner. That my Freedom had been taken away the day I was put into the orphanage. We weren't allowed outside of the orphanage grounds except to go to school, which was just across the road.
For the next two years, the six of us lived at the orphanage. Not everything was bad at the State School; I learned to walk on my hands with my brother, and my older brothers became altar boys for the church, which made me jealous to not have been chosen.
We used to have chickens and I remember feeling sick while watching the chickens get their necks broken in the hands of the older kids. Then they would chop the chickens' heads off and the blood would squirt out everywhere. I felt really sick at the site of all the blood. I still to this day have a very weak stomach whenever blood is involved.
I would play a lot with one of my older brothers and sometimes did artwork making a paper Mache' bird head that I could wear on my head. It was painted white and had black eyes and a yellow pointed beak.
For the most part, though, I felt lost; and that the other kids and adults at this school were treating me differently, now that I was in the orphanage.
After two years of being in the orphanage, we were put on a train to Brisbane where we were handed over to the people in charge of another church-run state orphanage in Brisbane on April, 1967. Our lives were once again about to change.
By the time I had reached 7 years-old, I felt that my life had been pretty bad; I had been through my mother's death, separated from my dad and brothers and sisters, and still not knowing what happened to Mum. But as bad as it was, it was about to get worse.
The train to Brisbane was to be the last time I would see my two younger sisters for several years. My sisters weren't able to stay in the same orphanage as us because it was only for boys, approximately eighty of us. Instead, they were temporarily staying with my father and his parents
Upon arrival at the Orphanage my brothers and I were split up into what we were told would be our new family. I was introduced to five other boys, aged eight to fifteen years old, and told that these boys would be my new family. I felt shocked and scared and all alone, not knowing whom to turn too. The House parents sounded like very scary people. There were four elderly people who ran the house and looked after us; all eighty of us. There were two sixty year-old house parents, an old lady who was the cook, a middle-aged caretaker, plus a trainee policeman, who helped out when he could.
I had no idea that during the next two years, these House parents who were in charge, would put me through numerous abusive experiences.
My Life Was About to Become Hell
After having settled in to my new `home' I realized that the life I had known before—which I thought was so horrible—was nothing compared to the life I was about to experience. I was threatened, punished, hurt and belittled.
One day I was forced to fight another boy until one of us could not stand. We were eight years-old and had been racing each other to see who would be first in line to go into the Gym. As punishment we were made to put on the boxing gloves and fight each other till one of us couldn't go on; if not, we would be flogged with the leather strap. I told the House parents that we didn't want to fight, and that I knew I was the best fighter so it wouldn't be fair.
So reluctantly, we fought. I had knocked my friend to the ground and he was pinned up against the concrete wall of the gym with blood coming out of his nose and mouth. I said that he was beat but I was threatened again with a flogging because they said that he wasn't flat on his back.
I asked my opponent to just lie down, but he was pinned against the wall in a corner. So I had to hit him again and push him to the ground without any luck. Then I turned to the House parents and dropped my gloves and told them I couldn't fight him anymore because he was beat and that they could beat me if they wanted; they flogged me with the leather strap.
Even though I won the fight I still felt bad; but on the other hand, I felt good because I had beaten the House parents by not continuing to fight when my friend was beat.
In second grade I won awards for being the best writer in the school, but because I was left handed I was told that I was being lazy. I had my left hand put flat on the desk and hit with a wooden ruler. Then they tied it to the chair behind my back and told me to write with my right hand and to stop being lazy. I felt so ashamed. I feared for my life, as I trembled using my right hand.
I kept getting into trouble for being so messy whenever I had to write. Thankfully the next year I was able to use my left hand.
My physical abuse was bad enough, but the torment and anger that I experienced was nothing compared to what I was about to experience; and that I would be unable to do anything about.
As if the torment and physical abuse I encountered at the new orphanage wasn't enough, I was now going to meet an abuser that would do more than that to me. The Police officer who was supposed to be caring for us came into my room one evening when I was asleep and started to sexually abuse me.
I was in total shock and terror with millions of sickening feelings and thoughts beginning to hit me from all sides of my mind and body; and I was not able to yell out for help because my of the fear of being flogged by the House parents. Plus, I was gasping for air while I was pinned down by my abuser with his penis in my mouth blocking my airways and I felt like I was about to die. I split off from my body and what was happening to me and went someplace else. I learned in healing that I had disassociated from my body. That helped me to survive the traumatising sexual abuse.
Eventually my abuser would let me be. I would lay there in shock and terror.
I had never been through anything like this in my life. This first attack really shattered my world and my trust in adults, especially because the sexual abuser was a Police officer; someone who is supposed to protect people from criminals.
It all started out so innocently. He would always have seven or eight of us on his bed in the afternoons playing with us, we took turns at sitting on his lap, and in what I used to think was just caring behaviour. Especially as all of us boys looked up to him as a safe adult role model.
For the next two years this abuse happened regularly. But I wasn't alone in this. I also saw this happening to other boys and I was always relieved that it wasn't happening to me. On the night after my first experience of sexual abuse I went to hide under the bed of one of my older brothers and I told him what the Police officer was doing to me. My brother was concerned for me and the flogging I may get from the House parents for making a noise, so he told me to get out from under his bed. I went quietly and hid under my other brother's bed without him knowing until my sexual abuser had left my dormitory.
I was living in constant fear of being sexually abused during the night and living throughout the day experiencing physical and emotional abuse by our house parents. Being publicly shamed every day while in public and at school forced me to shut down to the point where I felt like I was just an animal to be used and abused, whenever others wanted to.
Five of the boys who were being sexually abused decided to go to the House parents and tell them what the officer was doing to us. One of them volunteered to go first while the rest of us waited outside the office. We could hear the House Parents going berserk at him, so we all panicked and ran for our lives. My mate copped a flogging every day for the next month for all of us.
Whenever I was found to have had wet bed clothes (from the sexual abuse), I was made to sit on the hot bitumen in the hot midday summer sun with my hands under my bottom, and my legs crossed with my wet bed clothes on my lap. While in this position, all 80 boys were marched past me under the angry voice of the House parents, saying that I was a dirty little animal. I felt so humiliated and ashamed of myself that I hung my head. Each time that I would hang my head one of the house parents would yell at me to lift my head, or they would flog me with the leather strap.
There were two other boys who had wet their beds copping the same treatment as me. But actually I had not wet my bed as they were saying—my bed clothes were wet from the sexual abuse that I had experienced from the police officer, and I believe this was also the case of the other kids.
Every day there were threats of being belted with the leather strap, but then we were belted anyway; if you were in the range of the House parents at the time. Living in constant terror of being belted at any time of the day, for little or no reason, was very confusing.
As the result of this continual sexual abuse, I lived with the nightmares of the Devil coming to get me, the moment I would close my eyes. I never got much sleep up until I went into foster care at the age of twelve where I discovered pills and alcohol. The move into foster care was initially on a temporary basis and then more permanently when I had settled in.
Chapter Three
ORPHANAGE YEARS
I never knew that my brother was also being sexually abused by the Police officer. I only found this out in 2002 when we were brought together with thirteen other boys to try and get a conviction against my sexual abuser, and my brother was one of them.
After four of us, now adults came forward we finally won the case against our sexual abuser and he was convicted to seven years jail. The sad thing about this is that he only has to serve seven years for crimes against at least fifteen young boys, when we have to live with the effects of what he did to us for the rest of our lives.
The Head Prosecutor said that because they had one conviction against this Police officer, they weren't going to pursue any of the other eleven cases against him—mine included. The reason they gave me was that the Police officer couldn't be charged again for the same crime.
They strongly advised me to drop my case because it would be highly unlikely to get another conviction on the same charges. It would also cost a lot of money to go ahead with my case and the other cases. I felt abused by the legal system.
I got really sick at the age of nine and had to be rushed to the Hospital with suspected Hepatitis but I recovered quickly. The House parents never believed us if we told them we were sick, so when we were sick, we would have to keep it to ourselves rather than get a flogging for lying.
I visited a World War 2 concentration camp called Shaushen-hausen outside Berlin in Christmas 2001 and I saw how forty or so prisoners were hustled and flogged every morning when they washed themselves and cleaned their teeth in a tiny wash room. It reminded me of how we were treated by the House parents.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from INTIMATE EXPRESSIONby Dennis J. Dodt Copyright © 2012 by Dennis J. Dodt. Excerpted by permission of Trafford Publishing. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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