Survivor Stories – John Capra

Journey to Clarity

My journey was on a positive path up until the 6th grade. I was at the top of my class in elementary school. I was working at 2-3 levels higher than the grade I was enrolled in. My mother than enrolled me into Boy Scouts to help further my knowledge and skill set. For most of the part that was true and I did enhance my skill set. It also was a forum to enhance my survival and life skills. In the end two different set of survival and life skills. One set was great and still use those today. The other set of skills set me on a path that led to a spiral of events that totally turned the direction of my life. It took me several years to turn those around and give my clarity in life.

It started with simple sleepovers with several Boy Scouts and a Scout leader. It led to that Scout Leader sexual molesting me. That molestation lasted for several years. That stated the spiral of events that changed my life and my personality. After the abuse I can became very introverted and was not able to talk about anything. I became very suspicious of people and some people that I was arrogant because I did not speak to people. There were other factors as well. The family structure was not supportive; my parents did not foster or show much love for each other as well as the rest of the family. I think the Scout Leader was aware of the family dynamics and choose me because of that. My grades also started to slip and I became the class clown, which led to being in trouble throughout school. I played sports and that was the thing that help me with my abuse and kept me from spiraling into a cycle that I might not have been able to recover from. I think playing football let me take my anger out on the events that had happened. After football I did not have that outlet and sent me into a deeper introversion.

It led me into a marriage that I was not able to deal with all the issues a marriage has over its lifetime. While dealing with marriage counseling to deal with issues I was able to tell the counselor what happened to me as a child. I thought that was good but my wife did not have skills to cope either. As a survivor I was worried about the supposed theory that I would abuse somebody. Well my wife accused me of abuse on my own daughter. After a full investigation I was cleared of all accusations. Needless to say that was the end of the marriage. Although it ended it started my journey to healing and changing my behavior. Which is very positive and life changing, and gave me the opportunity to believe and trust people again.

I met a beautiful woman who I was able to share my life events with and gave me the confidence I needed to survive in life. The journey with her has been inspiring and continues to grow on a daily basis.

Even though Boy Scouts brought so much pain and loss because of the behaviors I learned from this event, I can’t blame the Boy Scouts for that. I did learn the positive life skills that the Boy Scouts teaches which helped counter the bad skills that were thrust upon me because of the abuse.

In the last few years I was dealing with some eye issues that caused me to have corneal transplants in both eyes. My vision has been restored to better that 20/20 vision. With these operations and the journey from the abuse to recovery, I think that I have more CLARITY than I have at anytime in life and can’t wait to see where the journey takes me.