Little Tim, Big Tim: The Ultimate Betrayal of Innocence

by Tim Roy

This is an incredible true story that stirs the deepest of inciting anger, frustration and eventual relief, and takes you on a journey that eventually proves that with acceptance of the past, the future can change. Set in Australia 'little tim, Big Tim' is the extraordinary account of a young boy who suffered the unspeakable horrors of being physically, emotionally and sexually abused by both his parents, while also being rented out as a sex toy to members of a paedophile ring. His father collected the money while his child was used and abused by the ring's deeply religious members. Abused from the age of five, Tim Roy learned to disassociate from the horrors of his actual life by creating imaginary friends and these followed him into adulthood in the form of 17 different personalities, although he (Tim) was unaware of them. In adulthood the success of his various personalties allowed him to reach the highest level of professional soldiering - the elite SAS. Told from the perspective of several of Tim's personalities the story traces the events from tortured childhood, acceptance into and then discharge from the SAS, subsequent drug and alcohol abuse to the eventual therapy that saved his life. Tim Roy shares his discovery of the past and his unswerving commitment to recovery and rehabilitation.

226 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Iamshadow · Rating 3 out of 5]

It's been a long time since I read this one, and it is one that I remembered as middling, but on the revisit, I liked it better than I thought I would. A solid three and a half stars. It's not a book for everyone - the content surrounding the trauma is unrelenting and graphic - but what is written is written pretty well.

The early life section, in particular, has a fairy tale-like quality to it. Don't think that means it's an easy read; it's by far some of the most brutal content in the book. What I mean is that there's a tone to it that feels like a fairy tale, something I'm not alone in seeing, given the absolutely gorgeous cover art, a painting done by an artist of Big Tim and the rest of the system as characters from the Wizard of Oz.

That fairy tale quality is probably suggested because their system members have incredibly rigid system roles, some of the most rigid I've read about, though of course, that kind of rigidity is not unheard of. Peter is created to take pain, Shane to take shame, Troy, to be the 'bad boy', Gary, to carry guilt, Mark, to prevent marks to the body (abuse damage), and so on. Each performs that role and little besides. If another response is needed, there is an automatic switch. I don't generally like it when literature on multiplicity refers to system members as 'characters' or 'personas', because I think it belittles and minimises how rich and complete system members tend to be, but the way the system members are presented here, it makes sense those words would be used by both Big Tim and his therapist. They are shown as very one dimensional, almost as caricatures. It's the way their system has grown and developed, the way each of them individually has developed in their constricted role. I do wonder how much the different system members have grown and changed with increased communication and flexibility in roles and front time in recent years.

Downsides to this book - it really needed a proper edit and proofread. There are basic errors like 'disassociate' and 'Disassociation Identity Disorder' that probably came from running spellcheck in Word and clicking 'correct all'. For a small vanity print, that's not really unexpected.

There's also an unfortunate section early that basically says homosexuals and paedophiles are the same thing. It's kind of refuted later, in the last section of the book, by the adult host 'understanding now' that there's a difference, but that's a long, long time after the early section, a long time for that negative correlation to be stuck in the reader's psyche like a burr. I understand that to the child selves, in childhood, in an era where society didn't discriminate between the two, it made a lot of sense for them to hate homosexuals. But they weren't attacked by homosexuals, men who have consensual sex with other adult men. They were attacked by paedophiles, men and women who rape children. I think a more pronounced moment was needed to untangle the two from each other, perhaps illuminating how the adult self came to recognise the difference. Maybe I'm just more sensitive to it, as a member of the queer community, but we are far from being beyond the day when gay men and other queer people being equated with paedophiles is out of living memory. It's a stain on society that has ruined a lot of lives, when the data shows us that most paedophiles are well-respected, middle class, white heterosexuals with families, not gay men.

[Miss Fluffykins · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not for the faint hearted. A man's personal story of the sexual, physical, and emotional abuse he and his siblings received from his parents. Horrifying.

[Leana Döring · Rating 5 out of 5]

Horrifying and sad story but excellent writing

[Davida]

The is the most intensely disturbing book I have ever read, so much so, that I could not finish it and only read about 1/3. The story of a young boy, the worst kind of abuse ever perpetrated by his family and the church and his psychological journey to recover. Gut wrenching and sickening.

[Kyla Campbell05 · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing and fascinating story