Heather Latter
When local resident Armand Jourdain heard about Theo Fleury’s “Victor Walk,” he knew it was something he wanted to get involved with.
Next month, the former NHL’er will initiate a 10-day walk from Toronto to Ottawa to bring awareness to the horrors of child sexual abuse.
Like Fleury, Jourdain was sexually abused as a child and because of that, he has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
Unable to participate in Fleury’s walk, Jourdain decided he would stage his own walk for the cause—travelling through all the First Nations’ reserves in the area.
“I want to turn it into something positive; to help others who have been sexually abused come forward and seek professional help,” Jourdain explained.
“I want to show people that those who have been abused are police officers, doctors, not just people who have thrown their lives away with drugs and alcohol,” he stressed.
Jourdain, a Treaty #3 police officer, has been off the job for nearly two years now due to his PTSD diagnosis.
“I was molested as a kid from the ages of five to 10 by a family friend and relative,” he recounted, noting he suffered from PTSD as a child but it was never diagnosed back then.
“Then when I became a police officer and was dealing with issues of violence, it amplified the issues I had with PTSD as a kid and it overwhelmed me,” he admitted.
Due to all of the counselling he has received over the past two years, Jourdain said he now is able to talk about the abuse and what it has done to his life.
He was sent to Toronto for a two-day evaluation and other testing to confirm the PTSD diagnosis. And has since been travelling to Thunder Bay for counselling and cognitive behaviour therapy once a week.
“I didn’t know what PTSD was or that I was suffering from depression,” Jourdain noted, saying it was his spouse who ultimately brought it up.
And though it angered him that she would even suggest it, it was the push he needed to seek help.
“I’m at a much healthier spot than I was two years ago,” he remarked.
“Now I want to bring awareness to PTSD and the scars that sexual abuse leaves.”
Jourdain said he sees the relative at family events and wants to tell him how he ruined his life.
“It’s affected my relationships,” he noted, citing it has been difficult for him to be affectionate.
In addition, due to the nightmares he has from the PTSD, he cannot share the bed with any of his three children for fear he will try to hurt them in his sleep.
“And I don’t know if the nightmares will ever go away,” he said.
Jourdain admitted he never told anyone about the abuse until he was 12 years old.
At that time, he told his dad, but said that he would kill himself if he told anyone.
“I didn’t want anyone to know,” he stressed, adding once as a teenager, in a drunken stupor, he nearly tried to jump off the Five-Mile bridge.
But Shane Beckett stopped him and he is forever grateful.
“I’ve seen through policing kids I have dealt with who are suicidal . . . and they tell me there are underlying issues that I know are sexual abuse,” Jourdain said.
“I encourage them to talk about it and deal with it.”
However, he knows it’s not an easy task.
“I’ve been living with [PTSD] since I was five and only now am I getting my stuff together,” he remarked.
“Now I’m comfortable with myself and where I am,” he added. “Before, the thought of [talking about it] would make me tremble.”
Jourdain hopes staging a walk throughout the First Nations’ reserves he polices will help bring awareness to childhood sexual abuse and PTSD.
“Nobody likes to talk about it,” he conceded. “They don’t want to believe it or turn a blind eye.
“It’s hard to come forward to get help,” he added. “But if you don’t, you will probably end up throwing your life away with the abuse of drugs and alcohol or contemplating suicide.
“And I don’t want to see that happen to anyone.”
Jourdain plans to talk to the chiefs in the First Nations’ communities to make them aware of his walk, and he is inviting anyone who wants to walk with him to join in.
He is planning the walk to coincide with Fleury’s “Victor Walk,” which begins May 14 at the Child Abuse Monument in Toronto and will end on the steps of Parliament in Ottawa at noon on May 23.
Jourdain added there likely will be a fundraising component to the walk that will raise money to help survivors of childhood sexual abuse by providing programs and counselling.
Anyone who has ideas or suggestions, or would like to offer support by walking with Jourdain, is asked to contact him by leaving a message at the Treaty #3 detachment (274-1565).
“This is the final chapter for me,” Jourdain said.
“I’m closing the book on PTSD and just getting a fresh start.”
