I learned from the media about the abuse you suffered during your junior hockey training. I was all the more horrified because too many adults who have or had the responsibility for your training knew about and behaved as if they approved of these sadistic gestures perpetrated on you.
I’ve been thinking about you ever since, and would like, if you allow me, to share with you some of my thoughts about what happened to you.
First of all, let’s name what you have suffered: you have been and/or are a victim of sadistic initiation rituals. You must know that these barbaric acts perpetrated on young men like you are not new; they go back to the mists of time. They were established with the aim of building the image of the strong, insensitive and courageous man, above all suffering.
This thousand-year-old tradition has always had the primary objective of ensuring the continuity of the myth of virility: the real man, capable of dying and killing for his country without qualms. You understand, we prepared the young people to make them valiant warriors, who by their bravery would serve their country, without forgetting their leaders who, themselves, would receive decorations and honors for the bravery of the young people.
Have you noticed that we decorate and erect monuments to the generals of wars while the soldiers, those who served as cannon fodder on the battlefield, will only be entitled to a collective monument “to the soldier unknown ” ? Have you thought that, for the courage that we wanted to instill in you through this abuse, the chances are that you will be one of these unknown soldiers?
During this training, just like your ancestors of previous civilizations, you were subjected to enslaving and degrading rituals with the aim of making you a programmed being and subject to the hierarchy, that of your current and future superiors and that of the values that this hierarchy advocates: to be the strongest and to defeat mercilessly weaker than you.
Needless to add that the counterpart of this axiom is without appeal: the one who complains or claims to suffer from mistreatment is not a real man; he is only a wimp, the most shameful attribute for any young man who, in addition, will wonder about his true masculine identity.
Don’t forget that being the strongest will above all serve the celebrity of your leaders. You and your hockey buddies have surely dreamed of becoming a hockey star, an object of admiration for all. Maurice Richard, Jean Béliveau and Guy Lafleur are among our national heroes and you have good reason to admire them.
Marked forever
However, it is also true that you will not all become as famous as them, as true that all of you will be marked forever by the humiliations and abuses suffered. These punishments, for your simple survival, you will try to forget them. They won’t forget you. Camouflaged deep inside you, they will come back one day thanks to some event, presenting themselves in the most diverse or unexpected forms. They will then be very harmful for you and yours.
These various forms may be bursts of anxiety, panic, sudden rage, suicidal thoughts, destructive violence, or medical problems of a psychosomatic nature. In the meantime, you may experience difficulties in your life: in your romantic, parental interpersonal relationships, perhaps. Will you try to drown them in alcohol, in drugs, in compulsive work?
All this to encourage you to direct yourself towards the social and psychological resources that you will need to heal yourself from the traumas of which you have been a victim, to become a full-fledged human again, and not truncated from the precious human resources that are your sensitivity. and your empathy.
So, young man, help break the chain of sadism that a millennial male culture has instilled in you. Breaking this murderous chain of our evolution is quite a challenge. You will be among those who have helped start to end it. This is where you will truly be a hero to society.
With all my wishes for the courage that this step will require from you,
A grandmother who cares about peace in this world