'My grandfather sexually abused me and my dad but I've forgiven him'

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A man who experienced sexual abuse at the hands of his grandfather while growing up in Chiswick has said he wants to use his experiences to open up a conversation about sexual abuse in families.

Perry Power, 26, was subjected to a string of sexual abuses by his now deceased grandfather for over a year when he was just 10 years old.

After his grandfather’s behaviour was discovered, Perry says he kept the memories of what had happened to him locked away, which led to him experiencing feelings of shame and self-loathing in adult life.

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Following his father’s death in 2017, Perry discovered that he too had also been abused as a child by the same man.

Now for the first time, Perry has written about his experiences in a new book which draws on other testimonies from sexual abuse survivors.

According to Perry, a key feature of sexual abuse within families is the secretive nature of the act, which at first doesn’t seem out of the ordinary.

He explained: “It started when I was 10 years old and lasted for about a year and a half.

“I didn’t know there was anything wrong with it at the time.

“16 years ago sexual abuse wasn’t really spoken about, it’s getting better today but it’s still a taboo subject.

“At the time I didn’t know what he was doing was wrong or if it was sexual abuse.

“It was also my granddad so I was under the assumption that everything he was doing was OK.”

'It didn't matter if people were in the room'

Perry told MyLondon that his grandfather abused the trust he had placed in him as a child.

At his hands, Perry suffered a range of abuses that likely would have continued had his parents not discovered what was going on.

He said: “He would touch me, play with me, press himself up against me and whisper things in my ear.

“It didn’t matter if people were in the room or not.

“When I was 12 my parents found out.

“I was sitting on my granddad's lap at the time and we were all watching TV.

“The armchair was arranged so you couldn’t see what he was doing. He dropped a cigarette. My step mum assumed he would pick it up, when he didn’t she thought why.

“She called me out of the room and asked me what he had been doing. When they found out I stopped going round there.

“I didn’t see my granddad again, he died two years later.”

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'I blamed myself for being a 'sick kid''

In the aftermath of the abuse, Perry says he was told to keep what had happened to him secret.

Perry’s parents never pressed any charges against his abuser and his actions were never revealed publicly before his death.

Perry now believes that bottling up what had happened to him affected his development throughout his teenage years.

He explained: “My dad told me to keep it quiet, I did that and it affected me when I was growing up.

“I looked back on those events and developed feelings of shame.

“I started blaming myself and not liking the parts of myself where I was an abused boy being done by his granddad.

“In my early 20’s I was confused, I blamed myself as it happened for a year and a half, I thought I was a sick kid.

“I was asking my own inner demons and it caused me to wear a lot of masks in public. I was trying to overcompensate by pretending to be an alpha-male womaniser and that wasn’t me.”

'My dad lived his life in silence'

Following the death of his grandfather, Perry’s life was marred by more personal tragedy as his father slipped into alcoholism which lasted until his death.

As his father’s condition worsened Perry found himself wondering what demons his dad was battling.

As it turns out he says, they were strikingly similar to his own.

He explained: “I moved out of home when I was 19 and saw my dad develop into an alcoholic before he died. I never knew why.

“One day in 2016 we were watching the film Spotlight, he had asked me to watch it. It’s about a team of Boston journalists who investigate catholic priests molesting children.

“At the end of the movie, a list of catholic churches with documented incidents of molestation are named and my dad said my granddad’s school was on there.

“That was the first time I realised he had also been molested.

“My dad turned to alcohol to break the pain of a life time living in silence.

“When he died, I decided I needed to break that generational cycle.

“I went through a healing process of owning my story, confronting my demons and revisiting that chapter of my own life.

“The biggest thing that helped me through all of it was forgiving myself and forgiving my abuser.

“It allowed me to move forward by not being negatively tied to his story.”

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'95% of my memories of him are negative'

Although Perry says he has forgiven his grandfather for the abuses he suffered at his hand, he has very few positive memories of him.

He told MyLondon that understanding and accepting why someone harmed you, isn’t the same as accepting them.

He said: “95% of the memories of my granddad are of the abuse.

“The trauma has blocked out the good memories.

“The only positive one I can think of is he used to play pool with me at the pub. He’d buy me a diet coke and crisps while he drank his ale, but that’s it.”

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'I worried my grandad would visit me at night'

Perry’s new book ‘Breaking the Silence’ is a mediation on what it means to be abused and how sufferers and examine the fragments of their experiences in context.

He said the experience had been a ‘healing process’ for him and the other contributors, but had taken him to dark places in his memory he had long since locked away.

In particular, he references one memory of his grandfather that still unsettles him to this day.

He said: “Writing the book was mostly a healing process, but it did unlock one painful memory of my childhood where I remember feeling especially vulnerable.

“I was staying around at my grandparents’ house. I only did this once and it was during the abusive period.

“I was in the spare bedroom and they tucked me in.

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“I remember worrying that my granddad would come in that night, I was worried about things escalating even though I didn’t know what that would mean at the time.

“The book is divided into self-help sections, my story, the stories of other people and a section at the end for people who have also been affected to write their own experiences.

“It’s a guide for people who live in silence to break it.

“That’s the key thing, if we talk about this, cases of sexual abuses will go down.

“We need to raise awareness and make them afraid to try it.”

If you would like to order Perry’s book, you can do so here.

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