Eleanor Cowan

By Eleanor Cowan I picked up my sweet, chubby grandson and cuddled him in my arms. He’d reached up to me and, thrilled to respond, I held him close. But ah, a colorful object on the floor beckoned, and instantly, he wanted down. Wriggling only once and issuing a single sound, he found himself back on the wool carpet crawling towards a plastic lamb-shaped cookie cutter. It claimed his full attention. With no hesitation, he’d signaled his wish and I honored it. Simple as that. Not so in my childhood. Responses to me were, “What do you want now?," "Go away," "Get lost," or, "What a pain in the behind.” So today, to say no when I mean no, or yes when I mean yes, without compromising m …

Once I was groomed to be compliant; now I’m reclaiming my own lifeRead More

By Eleanor Cowan January 1973 - Quebec At the college where I worked as a secretary, I smiled up at the chubby cherubs fixed along the ancient oak hallway, their alabaster gazes uplifted in hope. I knocked on the chaplain’s door. We’d arranged to meet during my lunch hour. Anxious to hear about the results of his appointment with my fiancé’s mother, I took the same wooden chair Edna sat in only hours before. That morning, my future mother-in-law begged Father Price, the priest booked to officiate our wedding, to dissuade me from marrying her son, Stan. Edna explained that while she liked me, I was emotionally unreliable. I’d been raped and molested. Sometimes I binge drank and my mot …

My husband’s entire family knew what he was, but nobody talked about itRead More

By Eleanor Cowan I awaken this first day of 2018 to a winter world of snow. Outside my window, sunshine brightens a yellow bus full of passengers lumbering over a mile-long overpass. Even though layers of heavy slush still cover its roof, it’s plowing along. The bridge, dripping with glistening icicles, allows the access to town that otherwise would require a long overland trip. Thanks to hard-working night time crews, the road is clear. It’s been twenty-eight years since I awakened from a freezing burrow of long-term disassociation and managed, with wonderful help, to escape the pedophile I married — a confused, disturbed exploiter who hid behind the respected academic letters stuck …

Healing after the sociopath — a long bridge over painful memoriesRead More

During my fourteen years of marriage, even though I could see and hear, I was blind and deaf to the messages coming in all the time, information that slowly, over time, eroded my hope that marriage and children would solve the unresolved grief in my life. One morning in July 1976, I was nursing Teddy while watching the Montreal Olympics on the TV our landlord had kindly loaned to us. In an instant, the pillows that supported my back against the attic wall felt like stone as I listened to a flash news report. Our newborn was asleep when I whispered to Stan, “A child has been sexually abused by her own grandfather in Guelph. What a horrible, unspeakable thing.” All conscious memory of my …

My sociopathic husband and isolation in my marriageRead More

In our tiny upper flat, I took all the vitamins and folic acid tablets never available to my pregnant foremothers. I ate well, our table a rainbow of green, orange and yellow every day. I drank a concoction called Tiger’s Milk, thrilled to nourish the growth of my child within, a baby I loved with all my heart. One sunny day, while Stan, my then-husband, subbed for the Toronto School Board, I sat on the carpeted floor near our tiny attic window, a pillow to my back, and gazed at an astonishing Time Life photo of a baby inside a mother’s womb. I had no idea how it had been taken, but it inspired me to draw a woven basket so full of colorful spring flowers they toppled over the sides, a wel …

My sociopathic husband denied – with outrage and tears – what turned out to be the terrible truthRead More

By Eleanor Cowan One bitterly cold winter’s morning at the Vendome metro in Montreal, I hopped a bus that would take me to a lecture on "Attentiveness and Developing Awareness" — and got a complete lesson well before I arrived at the class. The driver of the vehicle, an unsmiling muscled-bound individual, closely examined my transfer for the minute expiry hour stamped upon it. With a curt nod, I was permitted to take my seat. About two minutes later, the driver revved up the ignition for departure, but not before an elderly lady rapped on the glass door, asking for entry. The driver looked down at her, examined his watch for the ten seconds it would have taken to open the door and adm …

Overcoming the residual fear from sociopathic abuse — two steps forward, one step backRead More

When I said that “god was my first abuser,” at our regular meeting of Parents of Sexually Abused Children, no one sucked in their breath or exhibited shock. A tough group, no one even blinked an eye. That week’s topic, “Grooming” was assigned by Aidan, our lead Social Worker who, while she listened to us, liked to re-shape lifeless paper clips into unconventional characters that she’d stand up on an enormous art canvas she’d been creating for years and years. I shared with my group that, in Grade 1, when I learned that god ordered his own kid, a boy, to save the world, I instantly thought of Gordie, my teenaged brother. As Sister Brebeuf pointed to a bleeding figure nailed to a crucifix …

Grooming: How the religious and cultural ideas of my childhood conditioned me to accept pain and abuseRead More

“Was it the sex?” a new member asked me at our weekly meeting of Parents of Sexually Abused Children. “Is that why you stayed with your user for 14 years?” Three faces swung to me, including the lead social worker of our small assembly, a tall, serious senior woman who encouraged us to ask and answer questions. Aidan didn’t smile a whole lot, but over time, I came to respect her genuine sincerity and tremendous breadth of knowledge. “You mean, knowingly trade family wellbeing for my sexual pleasure?” I asked, disheartened at a question that I found hurtful. “No, the truth is that my husband showed no interest in me. He called me 'Mum' despite my frequent requests that he use my name. I …

Recovery from the sociopath — learning to count what truly mattersRead More

By Eleanor Cowan My husband liked to discuss discipline. The importance of it. The intrinsic value of restraining one’s impulses especially when such personal control would benefit the greater good of mankind. My two children and I’d eat dinner while listening to his serious value-driven talks about what would please God and advance the salvation of this sorry world. Sacrifice and service topped the list. Politeness and containment followed. It’s very hard to look back at those years of my disassociation – to calculate the degree of blindness and emotional paralysis that, unresolved, characterized my life since childhood in my first abusive family. I considered my husband to be a religio …

When sociopaths use righteous indignation to exert controlRead More