That pleasure is partly what provokes guilt, she adds.
The book had its genesis eight years ago, when Ms. Armstrong reread her journals and attempted to make sense of her life. When she told her mother about her recollection of the abuse when it first surfaced, her mother believed her – but only the part about her grandfather. When she told her about what her father (who had died in 1968) had done, her mother refused to listen.
“My mother handled my disclosure by saying, ‘Poor Mary. She’s unbalanced.’” Her mother, who was in her 80s at the time, has since died.
Ironically, Ms. Armstrong’s only sibling, an older sister, could understand the revelations about their father – her sister didn’t recall sexual abuse toward her, but said he often acted inappropriately, Ms. Armstrong explains – but she was horrified to hear about their grandfather. Soon, she withdrew her support for any of the allegations. “She started to step backwards, saying: ‘I think you’ve been thinking too much about it because of your work.”
Her sister’s withdrawal of support for any of the allegations made Ms. Armstrong hesitate about publishing the book, but in the end she felt it was time to speak the truth. “I was so compelled to write the story because, generally, our society is willing to accept that sexual abuse happens to girls who are uneducated and poor, but there’s still denial about it happening in affluent, professional families. But it does.
“We know there are two ways to attack the endemic situation of child sexual abuse,” she continues.
Her husband, who has “the same mission,” goes to court as an expert witness; he testified in the sexual abuse trial involving the prestigious Toronto boys’ school Upper Canada College.
The other way, she says, is by telling. “And for someone like me to tell, who is obviously successful and fine and has a good life and came through it, that’s important for others to hear and to know.”
