My Journey
Trigger warning: this article contains references to childhood sexual abuse.
It was when I turned 24 that my life began to change. I began having severe bouts of sadness that seemed to come out of nowhere. They would leave me feeling low and upset. I was confused, asking myself what was going on? Why was this happening?
They started lasting hours, coming at the most unexpected times, and they came coupled with memories of my past. Memories of when I was a young 8 year old boy. I was in disbelief that this was happening after all of this time. Why now?! I had come so far since the abuse. I had a good job, great friends and life was generally going well. Of course, I had never forgotten about what had happened to me. Occasionally something would come up on the news or somebody would say something that would remind me of it, but I didn’t care, life was good and I wanted it to stay that way.
I decided the best thing to do was to fight the memories. My strategy was to keep pushing them away until they gave up and disappeared. But it seemed that the more I pushed, the more strength it gave them. They started attacking me from all angles and I couldn’t hold them off. They even made their way into my dreams where I would wake up screaming that he had snuck into my room. It was at this point that I knew the fight was over and I needed to do something about it.
I spoke out for the first time to a close friend when I was 27 years old, which was just short of 20 years after the abuse happened. As soon as I did this I felt an incredible lift, like I had really achieved something great. This encouraged me to continue telling one person at a time as the years went on, and with each time I could feel myself growing in confidence. This was a fantastic feeling and to add to this, as the confidence grew, the fear of what other people may think was reducing.
I began spending a lot of time reflecting on the journey I had been on to get to this point. The different stages of coming to terms with my past and figuring out how to move forward with it all. I started to wonder what other people may be going through. How were they doing? How were they getting on?
I started searching online to try to find out. I came across a chat room where people were writing their stories and expressing how they feel. There was one message in particular that struck me so hard that I had to re read it a number of times. It was from a 70 year old woman who explained that she had never told anybody what happened to her as a child. She feels that it is one of the main reasons that held her back in life and now her time is over she will take this secret to the grave with her. I just couldn’t believe it, I felt so sad for her. It made me realise how fortunate I was to have people around me that I could tell. I felt a sense of gratitude for this situation and it made me feel like I should try to do something about it.
I began to think about what I could do and how I could be of use, and I came to the conclusion that the first thing was to begin telling my story in public. I remembered that I had been to an open mic night earlier that year which was an open event to the public where you could sign up on the door and perform that night. I decided this would be a good starting point. I could go as a storyteller and begin sharing my story this way.
These events were in the pubs and the bars all around London. They were busy venues where people came to have a drink with friends and listen to the musicians and singers who
were performing. It was the wrong environment for my story. The audiences looked uncomfortable as I spoke and things were not going well at all. I had one venue cut my microphone half way through and told me that I had to stop and come off the stage. This felt terrible. I then had a guy from the audience stand up halfway through my story and shout ‘this is meant to be a night of entertainment and you’ve come here talking about kids getting touched’. I literally couldn’t believe it, I felt completely defeated. It was like I couldn’t take one more night. But I knew I couldn’t stop. It was the only platform available to me and if I wanted to make anything out of this I had to keep going.
I knew I needed to improve my performance. I needed to be more creative with how I told my story if I stood any chance of getting somewhere at these venues. I started experimenting with different ideas. I wrote a performance that explained why I never said anything at the time the abuse was going on, and I delivered it over music. It was catching people's attention. There was one night where I started with 2 or 3 people watching and by the end of my performance I had the whole venue's attention. They clapped and cheered and I will never forget that moment. From here I knew I was on to something.
I began performing at every night that I could. I didn’t care what type of venue it was anymore. If the night went ‘badly’ then so be it, it was all helping my confidence on stage. I started recording my performances on my phone and uploading them onto social media. Somebody saw my work and told me about a poetry and spoken word open mic night happening in London, so I went. I couldn’t believe it when I arrived. It was a room packed with a supportive audience who were there solely to watch the performers. Everybody paid full attention to the stage and showed overwhelming support. The night was fantastic. I felt like I had finally found the correct platform to share my story on.
I have now been performing for 2 years and I have a variety of performances that I am proud of. I have also been collaborating with filmmakers, illustrators and photographers to be as creative as possible in communicating this topic. I believe if things can be kept engaging and interesting for the viewer then we can bring more attention to the subject which is essential if we stand any chance of breaking the stigma and the silence.
Thank you for listening to my story. My name is Jeremy Gunetilleke and if you would like to see the content I have been creating on this topic please go to @jeremygune on Facebook/Instagram/Twitter.