“When I first went to therapy, my presenting symptom was: ‘Oh my God, I’m a shameful, guilty homosexual – can you help me?’ I can’t believe it, but that’s what I did. At the age of 35, he started going to therapy – at that time, he still thought all of his problems were because of his sexuality. He wasn’t able to speak openly about his experience for around 25 years after the abuse occurred. While Patrick found acceptance and love in the theatre, he still had to come to terms with the abuse he had suffered as a child.
I could get a new identity, and as soon as I was in the theatre when I was 25, 26, I was among people where there was much more sexual liberation, where being gay was accepted.” “It meant I could act and be somebody else. Things finally started to look up for Patrick when he discovered the theatre. Being gay was such a shameful thing, but that just compounded the shame of the abuse.” Patrick Sandford. I think I was probably mentally ill, although I didn’t go to see any therapist at that stage. “I actually got to the point where when I was on the tube in London, when everybody got off the train at Oxford Circus, I used to think it was because they couldn’t stand to be in the carriage with me, that I was smelling or there was an aura around me.
That gave me a core identity that anything to do with my body was bad. “In fact, now I can see that all that body shrinking and body shame was because of the shame put into me by my primary school teacher.
