Memories of boarding school coming back suddenly

[Anonymous]

Somehow I read something today about claims of sexual abuse and inappropriate teacher-student relationships at a boarding school

I was triggered in two ways. First, my dad was also a teacher who had inappropriate relationships with his students. It was the 1970s.

I could probably chronicle 20 ways in which I remember why that was all bad but the worst story I never posted but how it was so well known in the HS that my dad was having sex with his student at the HS was that some other kids spray painted their names on an overpass near the highway exit towards the school. So everyone commuting on the highway was able to see it.

All the same I was sent to a boarding school where I entered as a 15 yo sophomore. One of my first things I wanted to do was to go on an "outward bound" type trip which my parents had never done. A teacher in one of my classes was sponsoring it, there were 3 of us girls and it took a whole weekend of camping out.

Sooooo a report came out in the last decade from my school and the whole history of faculty predating on young girls ... and I recognized myself in it. The male teacher that took us on this trip had been banned the previous year (or earlier) from ever taking students into private (and remote) situations like that.

He was also the same guy who left his wife who was also a teacher. She had pain written all over her face every day, and by senior year I found it hard to look at her knowing her ex-husband had tried to kiss me and spoon with me in a northern NY wilderness camp tent "to keep me warm" and who told me I was a very special student. (I didn't do anything than let him spoon me for the night - just to keep me warm etc)

When I looked at the eventual school report I was ashamed of never having reported anything.

He had apparently been targeting girls all along. He was even married to a girl from a graduating class only 10 years before me, and there were rumors of him sleeping with her even while I was taking his classes. I didn't believe them.

I was wrong.

[Anonymous]

Ugh so sorry OP! We had a similar teacher in high school for English. He was the field hockey or girls lacrosse coach, married a former student and was always rubbing girls backs and giving hugs. He was very popular with the sports girls, but I always got the ick from him. He would come up next to girls and do this weird sideways hug. This was the early 90s.

I think a long time ago, things like this were just tolerated and looked at as part of being a girl. You may not even have seen it as grooming or abuse at the time and just have been a little uncomfortable or even okay with it at the time. All those feelings are fine. You were a kid/teenager.

A lot of this stuff rises it head in mid-life (it did with me) and therapy can help, but forgiving yourself helps. You may have not believed the other people as a defense mechanism protecting yourself from processing the camping trip or your dad’s behavior. That is a completely understandable reaction.