Surviving Soberly

(Parts of this editorial were originally published in June 2016): Today is Father's Day but I don't acknowledge my father, Anthony John Persico, born in Brooklyn, New York, whose ancestors were from Sicily, Italy, though I am proud of my heritage. A year ago, I wrote: Tomorrow is Father's Day and I write this with tears streaming down my face. Not because my father is deceased, though he is. But because he lives in my nightmares eight years after his death and because his sexual abuse of me and my three sisters still affects me daily. I had nightmares about him before he died but since his death I wake up every hour with them. Sometimes he's alive in my nightmares but sometimes he's not. He's still very much alive in my life. And now the flashbacks are back, too, as of yesterday, though they had gone away. I want to make it clear to anyone who is reading this that thinks that when a child is sexually abused that it doesn't affect them when

I'm going to say this and I don't care who unfriends me or who doesn't like it. In light of the Orlando shooting, I feel compelled to post this. I have 2 relatives who are gay. Nothing makes me sicker than to see some of my friends, long-time and short-term, and relatives say things like "God has a reason for things" in terms of what has happened. You are talking about people who I love. God did not do this. A sicko did this. It hurts my heart and makes me want to cry in sorrow. In 1998 I was with a gay person in a parking lot. Her neighbor knew she was gay and came at us with a broken off beer bottle. I was so scared. She told me to go in the house but I said, "I'm not leaving you." That was just a taste. She told me, "Terri I've been going through this all my life." He terrorized her all the time. So, don't tell me what happened in Orlando was God's will. Or that every time a gay person is hurt or is threatened that God h