What could be worse than being abused by religion as a child?

Soon we will have a plethora of reviews by those who undertake this process on an annual basis - meanwhile the rest of us continue to do this once a day as a minimum.

Always a nice experience after the annual get together where old scores and regrets get remixed and fueled by high volume central nervous system suppression. As a child I got to wonder that if this guy was born in December and dies early in the year then he would spend most of the time dead after aging 33 years from Christmas to Easter.

A Catholic Easter is the culmination of a gruesome horror show and they all celebrated this. Once you had asked yourself for the first time if it could all be a fantasy then the only answer was a definite Yes;Christmas was even weirder as there is no more strange a get together than a religiously dysfunctional Catholic family.  What an environment that turned out to be.

It was not until later when I worked as a coach driver doing both Interstate express and outback safari tour work which brought me in touch with a new sample of society that would last for up to 30 days at a time; that gave me a working sample of society to engage with on a continuing basis for almost 20 years.  It does not take many Christmases working when all the Christians are celebrating and what a horror they showed themselves to be. I suppose the knowledge that I was an atheist never occurred to me despite having had contact with some stunning examples of real human beings and many glaring examples of stupidity and ignorance. Some of the best of my education came from those many long late into the night discussions with people that were knowledgeable at the highest levels of a science through to people who knew the country from a myriad of perspectives.

Seriously bad events were the stories of legion from others living similarly. You get to talk to people living in the desert spending nights with a battery warming on the fire to give it enough pickup to power a car radio and all its entrails laying in the sand so they could listen and discuss parliament in Canberra as it was broadcast. A central Australian warrior who took me under his wing in his own way telling me that I was only a boy and that I would have to wait until I got as many grey hairs as he had before I would get to the stage where he could say I had a bit of knowledge, until then we laughed over many things including his statement re the dream-time and spirits and Christian gods. On Christian gods his answer was that one is a bad one; better you meet a bad black fellow at night who tries to kill you,  you just got to kill him first. On the dream-time there was some that women do and some that men do. Those parts were private black fellas way for the people living in his country, there were many old people telling stories how to go here go there, they been telling em that way for long times. Put him near a geologist, anthropologist, archaeologist and he sucked it up and had an understanding of how modern geology matched into his knowledge of the history of his country.

Coming out of 20 years of that and finding myself in Toowoomba looking to get steady full time work that did not entail being away for weeks and months at a time. I was prepared for that, buying a house, building up a reputation and developing a long-term business. The best incentive of my life came with the knowledge that I had a child coming. I had that built into my business. The one thing I was not prepared for was that my re-introduction into the community was in fact a re-introduction into primitive cult based religions of more varieties than you could think of. Toowoomba had them in spades they were simply off my safe list. You can do that when you have a different target audience.

The shock came to me that I was living with Christian neighbors on every side. One of the highlights was to have become the subject of the neighboring Christian outreach combo group or coven as I referred to them as. I must have been their worst nightmare come true. I put them off evangelizing me after they had a meeting to discuss the fact that I was not being a good Christian. This came about after I was entreated into going to a service at the rear neighbors church. When I saw what was happening with the children I had to leave as I was beginning to throw up. They must have been certain by then that I was possessed or at the least in the hands of the devil. David the neighbor at the rear was elected to confront me about this issue.

I had just come back from doing the afternoon school run to Highfields when David strode into my office in quite an agitated state and stood shaking with anxiety and in aloud voice exclaimed that he took his biblical responsibility as a father seriously and that he was there to talk to me about my not being a good Christian. I told him to fuck off.He ranted about my son not being circumcised and not being baptized. I told him to fuck off and get out. He began to go on. I told him I hadn't lost my cool yet but if I got out of this chair then I was going to help him out one way or another, now fuck off out of here.

I learned that you do not say that sort of thing to a religious stalwart in Toowoomba as god has his ways of dealing with these sorts of things. That sort of experience helps you coin the phrase god works in the mysterious ways of the dysfunctional, the delusional and the psychopath. With that coming after almost 3 years of insanity from my in-laws because I would not pray and looked upon the many gods of Renee's Indian female partner.in the same way as the Christian one. The dysfunction was similar to my own childhood with the exception that there was much more open physical and sexual violence and blackmail towards and amongst one another.

I recall saying just that to my father in law in an email. His daughter had at that time the hope that it might act as a wake up call to ease the abuse levels down a peg or two and let some sanity survive. Of course that did not happen and things just got stranger from there. Not that they were not strange at that time anyway as that situation had been building since shouting at my mother in law when I encountered her with my 4 month old on his back having a nappy change where instead she was sucking on his penis and dribbling the most obscene sexual mutterings that I had encountered (have yet to to encounter anything like it since). My shout of of Oih. Get out of that. Did not go down well as I was to learn that my mother in law and my extended family appeared to agree with her that she had the right to fuck my son at anytime she chose. Where do you go in your life for a highlight better than that.

The only thing dysfunctional in amongst all of that was me according to my neighbors and a growing number of locals who were only too willing to step in and do the good work of the lord as they saw fit and for them I was fit for hell.

Can you think of anything worse as I sure can. Add into that mix dealing with the Catholic Church which I had been encouraged to do after having arranged to have around 2 years of counseling to help me through my childhood abuse. I managed the childhood abuse in sessions with my counselor although I was resenting the increasing amount of time I had to spend dealing with the increasingly bizarre events happening in my own life and on into my business courtesy of neighbors and a good Christian community extending right up and into it seems every level of politics and policing as well as government departments and members of parliament including the editor of the local news and the good Catholic support systems I visited to tell my story always remembering to remind them that it would need to be handled carefully as I was related to the bishop through my sexually abusive mother in law.

Now you would think that that would be enough for them to try to lock you up but that did not come from the community, that came in the shape of the currently popular rape drug by a caring ex wife who told me was acting under instructions from a policeman (I still have the number as in hindsight I got to disbelieve this).

In the midst of this I was encouraged by a new Community policeman who explained to me that he was recording our conversation and how I could do the same as I needed to document everything that was going on. Initially did the bulk of that via many emails to my counselor until learning how the important shifts in policy or implementation came by telephone or in a direct conversation - the emails that made those conversations official never mentioned many of the topics and aspects discussed - that was handled again via telephone and was always expressed as being in my best interests and in confidence. The Melbourne process and I had sufficient understanding of each other that I openly rejected all forms of confidentiality after penning my initial terms and conditions which I published on my website http://www.tfyqa.biz which was a growing collection of news articles from around the world of the sexual abuse of children by Catholic and other clergy.

Peter O'Callaghan the so-called independent commissioner for sexual abuse had ignored my original offers and in fact he and others found increasing issues with my having a web presence though my eventual 3month enforced stay in the Toowoomba Mental health facility was specifically about my speaking about the bishop to any Catholic in the Community who would listen to me.

A highlight of that period for me was to be able to be a part of the Garden Festival parade in front of 60,000 people although local policing took a dim view leading into having my own person policeman friend sent by the then Premier according to him. Not that that mattered as there was a good Christian on the front desk ready to filter out anything that might discredit the Catholic Church. I am wondering about saying to the Minister for Communities that I would put her up for nomination for a charge of crimes against humanity after one bout of spin  from her on the issue.

Much has transpired since that time and much has been documented on video, audio, email, and other forms of electronic data. The story of that in my opinion is a more important story to tell the Royal Commission due to its currency and the insanity of being able to freely deploy religious bigotry and hatred openly in society is not what I consider to be socially and morally functional.

Today I find myself in a changing worked where for the first time I am able to not only tell that story but to back it up with evidence. Today the question "What could be worse than being abused by religion as a child?" for me is no longer relevant as today that has become how good  it should be to tell the story of how religion abuses children and how it continues on in every aspect of religion and society today and is the main cause of the institutional failures that the Royal Commission is addressing.

I hope to convey to them in the most convincing of ways that that is why we have this mess on our hands today and why it is so widespread and ignored by so many in the community. .