Former Ottawa councillor discusses sexual abuse as a child and the road towards healing in new book

We hear from an author about his harrowing journey through the difficult times of his life with the launch of a brand-new book.

Former Ottawa Coun. Keith Egli admits it’s not easy for him to share his experience of being sexually abused as a child, but he hopes his new book helps raise awareness.

Egli went public with his story in the Ottawa Citizen in April 2023. Now, he has published a book called “Tenacious Little F*****. A Survivor’s Story.”

“It was recommended to me by my therapist that I do some journaling to help vent and deal with what I had gone through as a child,” Egli told CTV Your Morning Ottawa on Wednesday morning.

“And then one day, I just sat down and I said, ‘I’m going to try and pull all these pieces together and write a book.’”

In the Ottawa Citizen op-ed, Egli opened up about suffering from chronic pain, which went undiagnosed for years.

“As a very young child, I was sexually abused,” Egli wrote in the April 28, 2023, article.

Egli said that writing the book has been “good and bad” for him.

“It was good to get it out, you know, vent it, barf it out, basically, get it on paper,” Egli said.

“But it was also hard, because every time I wrote something, then it would remind me of something else. This happened to me a long, long time ago. It would trigger something else, and then I would think of something else. And so, it was very much like opening that Pandora’s box, and everything just kind of comes floating up.”

According to the book overview on Indigo, Egli chronicles his journey through “unexplained hurt to rage to self-forgiveness and, finally, to the road he has taken towards healing.”

Egli says since sharing his experience in the Ottawa Citizen, he has sat on a few panels.

“Whenever I do something like that, inevitably, somebody reaches out and says, ‘This happened to me, or my brother, my sister. I didn’t know what support was out there for folks. Now I do; thank you for doing that,’” Egli said.

“So, it’s not easy for me to do, but as long as I can get that reaction that somebody else knows that there is support out there, they’re not alone. I’m going to keep doing stuff like this.”

Egli is hosting a book launch for “Tenacious Little F*****. A Survivor’s Story” at Ben Franklin Place on April 16, which will include a question-and-answer session about his experience and how he has “been dealing with it.”

“An organization that helped me quite a bit is a local organization called Voice Found, which is a peer support program for survivors of childhood sexual abuse. They will have a presence there as well,” Egli said.

“They will say a few words, and also have some people there, just in case somebody says, ‘I need help. I need to know where to go next.’ And they’ll have some people there to answer questions. So, it’s a book launch, but it’s also really an awareness event about this topic that, even though we’re both men talking about it here, we’re in the minority. Men don’t talk about this and they need to. They need to; they need to know that they’re not just sitting in the dark by themselves.”

Egli has a tattoo on his right arm with the letters TFL, referring to ‘Tenacious Little F*****.’

CTV Your Morning Ottawa host Will Aiello asked Egli what his message is to people in a similar situation.

“The biggest thing is, it’s not your fault. It never was. It never will be; you didn’t do this. Somebody did this to you,” Egli said.

“And as concerned as you are about guilt and shame and what people’s reactions are, if my experience is any indication, people are going to be there for you. They’re going to support you; they’re going to help you. And so, if you can do it, and not everybody can, but if you can do it, have that conversation with family and friends, and I think that you will get rewards from that. You will get benefit from that.”

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