A Winnipeg sexual abuse survivor targeted by a teacher speaks out
'I was a painfully easy target,' says John Sadoway, who was just 17 when he was abused by teacher
This First Person column is the experience of John Sadoway, a Manitoba writer and adult survivor of sexual abuse. He wrote this column following allegations by a Manitoba man who says he was sexually abused by a teacher.
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A small part of me blanches at the presumption of describing my abuse story during a global pandemic and at a time when thousands of Indigenous families are still waiting to find the bodies of their kidnapped and murdered relatives.
Nevertheless, to a person sitting at the bottom of the hole of their own abuse trauma, it seems like the deepest, darkest hole in the world.
And until you can get your eyes up over the edge, you don't think much about how many other deeper holes there are and who's in them.
I grew up with an alcoholic father and a depressed mother, 10th of 11 children. All of us were desperate for approval and affection. We moved to Saskatoon days before I started Grade 9 in a high school of 2,000 students.
I had no friends and my remaining four older sisters had moved out and away.
By Grade 12 I had fit myself into a social circle, but it felt more competitive than supportive.
School had always been my solace, a place where the adults behaved consistently.
Many teachers became my heroes, including the one who became my seducer. I had a mad crush — as did most of my male peers — but never imagined anything more.
I was a painfully easy target when she told me that, even though it was wrong, she could not resist me, she wanted me to father her child and she wanted me to save her from her emotionally abusive husband.
I ended up spending a decade buying into that distorted reality, desperately defending my confirmation bias against anyone who spoke against the relationship or my commitment to it.
When I finally discovered her cheating, my house of cards collapsed rather rapidly.
"How could I have been so stupid?" became my steady internal dialogue.
I had spent 10 years participating in my own brainwashing, and bad habits of thought became entrenched.
Lost relationships
My resulting self-destructiveness wrecked my next relationship and likely would have ended me eventually, had I not found a good talk therapist.
I will never recover that time. I had lost most of my meagre friendships through the lying and secrecy, or through plain atrophy.
WATCH | John Sadoway speaks about being targeted and sexually abused:
When I left her, I intended to maintain my relationships with her daughters, to whom I had become devoted — even though I was no longer sure I had sired them.
When she started using them to control me and my time, I had to cut myself off or become her minion. I lost the relationships with three lovely women who may or may not be my daughters, and of course any possible grandchildren are off the table as well.
I spent a decade out of sync with my contemporaries and their lives and often feel adrift because of it.
And while counselling helped me survive my losses, my siblings and parents became invested in those children as well, and when I made my necessary break, all of my familial relationships suffered as well.
I also had to learn to forgive myself for falling for it.
I became a teacher after leaving her. I believe I became a pretty good one, certainly one who understands and respects professional boundaries more than the average.
I also know that for a teacher to be effective with a student, they must forge an intimate, trusting relationship.
Helping young people learn how to think effectively and digest the horrors of the world without being digested is a monumental, demanding and necessary task.
That intimacy, however, never requires complete privacy.
A responsibility to prevent abuse
Team teaching and increased investment in educational assistants are two of the most practical ways of ensuring students are never alone and vulnerable to power abusers.
A student need never be alone with a teacher.
In my opinion, the school division's abdication of responsibility in this latest case is nothing short of despicable.
Statistically speaking, in any large group of employees you may find one or two capable of abusing power, if given opportunity.
It is therefore the job of every superintendent, every principal and every vice-principal to eliminate that possibility (without becoming fascists in the process).
Popular culture continues to suggest that boys having a sexual experience with a female teacher are getting lucky, are somehow enviable — while girls similarly involved with male teachers are victims.
Gender, however, has nothing to do with the inappropriate nature of teacher-student sexual relationships.
The key to abuse is the power imbalance.
If you or someone you know is a victim of sexual violence, Klinic Community Health offers a 24/7 Sexual Assault Crisis Line.
Call (204) 786-8631 in Winnipeg, or 1-888-292-7565 (toll-free) elsewhere in Manitoba.
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