WARNING: This story contains distressing details.

News of the preliminary remains of 215 children being discovered at the site of a former residential school in British Columbia jolted Clayton Peters, whose seven years of torment there have been mostly encased in silence around fears of soap and strappings, a cold dark room and dreams of running away.

“I’m finally telling somebody about it, all the stuff I went through in there. Like it’s out there, it’s not a secret,” he said.