{"id":128,"date":"2026-08-19T08:45:24","date_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:45:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/localhost\/english-joy\/?p=128"},"modified":"2026-08-19T08:45:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-19T08:45:46","slug":"i-was-abused-as-a-child-and-thought-i-had-healed-then-i-began-drinking-in-lockdown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/?p=128","title":{"rendered":"I was abused as a child \u2013 and thought I had healed. Then I began drinking in lockdown"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ot so long ago, Frank Spinelli seemed to have sorted out his life. He was happily married, working as a doctor and had a sideline writing medical thrillers. He thought he had dealt with the sexual abuse he had suffered as a child \u2013 not only had he helped bring the man who groomed and abused him to justice, but also he had written a memoir about it. \u201cI felt that I had closure,\u201d he says. \u201cI had the good fortune of working with some amazing therapists and I believed I had done the work and moved past it and I was a healed person.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Little did he know that his recovery was fragile. The Covid pandemic took away his routine and structure: \u201cAll the external pillars that were tightly holding me together \u2013 the engagements at the office, the work trips.\u201d Two years earlier, he and his husband had moved from Manhattan to a leafy suburb, from where he is speaking to me over a video call today. He was dealing with uncertainty and felt isolated. \u201cWe know one thing about shame: shame breeds in isolation.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>ot so long ago, Frank Spinelli seemed to have sorted out his life. He was happily married, working as a doctor and had a sideline writing medical thrillers. He thought he had dealt with the sexual abuse he had suffered as a child \u2013 not only had he helped bring the man who groomed and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":129,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-society"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/Screenshot-2026-08-19-at-14.27.44.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130,"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/130"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/129"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/joynepalen.kantipurinfotech.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}