Hardly anyone knew about it, but the sexual abuse from his youth certainly marked the life of Bert Hemsteede (70). After years of therapeutic sessions without results, he made peace with the dark chapter in 2021. By making his traumatic experiences public in the book Signed for Conversation, report of a Psychotherapy the silence is finally broken.
It started as a 14-year-old boy for Hemsteede in Groningen, the city where he grew up. A German malevolent man, known to the neighbors, got a hold of him.
Everything that happened from then on brought Hemsteede into a struggle from which he was only released a few years ago. “If a hand goes down your pants and you are given to understand: you don’t say anything about this, then you are on a path that you think: how do I get out of here?”, he sketches in the Radio Drenthe program cassata.
“Like a hare in the headlights”, the resident of Rode continues about the plight of his position from which he could not escape. Numerous therapies that passed in review offered no solace. “I couldn’t find words, got sick and walked away,” he recalls. “But what should you do if you’ve experienced something so unpleasant? You put it away.”
Watch the full conversation with Bert Hemsteede here