Eight-year-old Nathan Spiteri was packed into the local swimming pool with his mates and pretty much the entire population of his home town of Queanbeyan, NSW. The rowdy boys drew stern looks from sunbaking teens and parents as they bombed, splashed and shouted.

Nathan will never know what it was about him that drew the attention of a man sitting on a towel, watching the pool intently. It may have been his dark hair and skin (he's of Maltese heritage). It may have been his exceptionally loud fluoro Hang Ten board shorts. Or his master bombing ability.

Whatever it was, it prompted the man to follow Nathan to the change rooms at the end of the day - long after people had dried off and dawdled out the front gate to head to their local takeaways for hot chips.

Nathan's mates had all left in a flurry of wet hair, arm punches and high-fives and as he walked, distracted, to the toilet block, the man followed.

"I dropped my towel on the way to the change room," Nathan recalls of the first time he saw the paedophile.

"He picked it up and slung it over his shoulder and followed me into the change rooms.

"He looked like any other middle-aged white man wearing a singlet and shorts."

What followed was a brutal assault that left a young and very small boy lying on the floor of a shower cubicle, bleeding and crying.

"People tend to think of sexual abuse as a one-off, violent event," Nathan says.

"But for me, this was just the beginning."

The episode at the swimming pool was day one of what would become a three-year relationship between an eight-year-old boy and a paedophile in his early 40s, living just streets from each other in the same small town.

Nathan experienced traumatic bonding; a strong emotional attachment between a victim and their abuser, formed as a result of the cycle of violence. The sexual abuse initially continued at the swimming pool but later moved to his abuser's home.

"He told me to meet him on certain dates and times or he would kill my family," Nathan recalls.

The Year 3 student would ride his BMX to the perpetrator's house and wait behind a bush across the road until his abuser signalled it was safe to join him inside.

"I'd be on the main street with friends and he'd come and pick me up to go back to his place," Nathan explains.

"No one questioned it. No one batted an eyelid. I guess because it was the 1980s and I went with him willingly."

As the years went by, the bond between Nathan and his abuser deepened through grooming, lies and manipulation.

The paedophile gave Nathan gifts. They would often exchange 'I love yous'. The abuser built a relationship with his victim on a foundation of lies - claiming Nathan's own parents and siblings hated him and wanted nothing to do with him. He constantly threatened the physical safety of Nathan's family members.

The sexual acts "were still fairly violent" Nathan says, "but they were different. I knew what to expect and put up less and less of a fight."

Almost three years after the swimming pool incident, Nathan arrived at his abuser's house to find another family living there.

"I was heartbroken," he says.

"It's hard to explain - it sounds unthinkable - but it was exactly like breaking up with someone you love."

The small-town boy struggled through his teenage years. He completely withdrew from family - "I'd sit inside playing with my toy cars while my siblings played outside on the street" - but somehow managed to keep functioning, including getting good grades at school.

While his typical teenage sexual urges focused mostly on men, Nathan was also attracted to and held relationships with several girls his own age.

"I remember there would be a school disco and I'd tell my mates I was staying home to study," he recalls.

"But I'd ride my pushbike to strip clubs [in nearby Canberra] and visit cruise lounges where I could have sex with men."

It was a secret Nathan learned to keep incredibly well hidden. Family and friends had no clue. He moved from Queanbeyan to Sydney; a city that readily provided all the cocaine, heroin and sex - with both men and women - he could handle to cope with the insidious pain.

Eventually even Sydney became too small.

Nathan moved to New York City to pursue his dream of acting and, for the first two years, kept it together. But by early 2011 his trauma became full-blown rage which he struggled to control. By day, he was starring in independent films, television commercials and rehearsing for stage plays; by night he was picking up men at gay clubs and, on the worst occasions, being violent towards them.

His new American friends and a woman he was dating at the time were oblivious.

"There was never any intimacy, touching or kissing [with men]," Nathan says.

"It was always just the act of sex and feeling the feelings I had when I was younger. The violence came from needing to feel alive again - to get my power back.

"It wasn't the men I picked up at clubs I wanted to hurt, it was the rapist who took everything away from me.

"I always knew I wanted a relationship with a woman. The intimacy, the love was always what I longed for with a woman. With men, it was just the act."

The drug habit was back in a big way and Nathan stole every rare moment he could - away from friends and work colleagues - to inject heroin. He was in the "deepest darkest hole and I just couldn't get out".

The small-town boy in fluoro board shorts was a grown man, living in one of the biggest cities in the world, on the brink of suicide.

In a cafe in Soho, he finally broke. Nathan has no idea how or why but he ordered a cup of tea and detailed his harrowing history to a friend. He cried in front of everyone in the cafe. And during a conversation that lasted three hours, the weight was lifted.

He started one-on-one and group therapy, as well as joining Alcoholics Anonymous, Sex Addicts Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous in New York.

Working up the courage to tell his parents and three siblings was "almost impossible". He knew their reactions would be underpinned by guilt, outrage and confusion. And he was right. But what he hadn't thought about was the deep, deep sorrow they would feel.

"The first thing they all said was, 'This explains everything'," Nathan says.

"There's no doubt they could subconsciously feel my pain over all those years."

For Nathan's older sister, Janica, a series of perplexing memories that spanned decades suddenly and painfully made perfect sense.

Like how Spiteri had been a loud and playful kid who suddenly became mute and sat for hours at a time staring at the television. And how, at his 30th birthday party, Spiteri started a speech to family and friends by declaring he had considered driving into a tree and killing himself earlier that week.

"It's among the most devastating conversations I've ever had," Janica says of the early-morning phone call from her brother, detailing his abuse.

"I got this call before school and I was hiding in the baggage area bawling my eyes out and shaking and then I had to go on and teach that day.

"I was looking at a class of 11-year-old boys and girls all day just thinking, how did this happen to my brother? And it could be happening to any one of these kids right now."

Janica, who describes herself as a "natural carer and nurturer", was there the day the paedophile followed Nathan to the change rooms. She'd been swimming with her own friends and left her brother to get changed before riding his bike home.

"I honestly can't remember the day because we used to go to the pool all the time," she says.

"I remember having fun and going swimming but I don't remember anything 'different'.

"I feel bad that I didn't notice anything and I feel bad that I went home and he didn't come home with me. But at the same time, I don't feel bad because I had absolutely no idea. How could I have known?

"If I had thought that day was a bit strange or I recognised someone was watching him I would feel differently - but I've got absolutely nothing. So I don't carry any guilt in that sense."

Nathan's family members have all reacted differently to news of the abuse, Janica says, and know their brother's healing journey still has a long way to go.

"We know he's done a lot of drugs, we know that he's put himself in situations where he could have been beaten to death or killed or overdosed or suicided but we're now grateful and we feel lucky he's alive," she says.

"If he didn't have his loving family he would be dead. We have a great family and I think that has saved him.

"We know a lot of people are in loving families and still haven't made it so we're very grateful. We will do anything for him to have happiness in his life."

In 2016, Nathan's New-York-based psychologist suggested he write his experience of abuse down as a form of therapy.

Over the next two years, including many late nights in tears and fighting the urge not to re-live the unfathomable events of his childhood, Nathan did what his therapist had asked. The result is his first screenplay, Toy Cars, a confronting script with shocking details of his abuse and an insight into traumatic bonding.

For Nathan, writing the screenplay was not only therapeutic and purgative but, importantly, provided a chance to put some closure around his harrowing story. After that final attempt to visit his abuser's home in 1990, he never saw the perpetrator again.

"I've lived with shame and guilt for so many years but now I understand the worst thing that happened to me could potentially become the best," Nathan says of the screenplay.

"I've accepted what happened to me and I feel like the reason it happened was so I could share my story and help others.

"There are so many men and women in the world who have never spoken of their abuse and hold so much shame, guilt and pain inside. They're unable to connect with people, feel any kind of love and hold a meaningful relationship - I know only too well how that feels.

"If I can help them to get the help they need, it will all have been worth it. If I can stop someone from killing themselves, abusing another child, going down the path of sex and violence, like I did, then I've done the right thing."

Despite the death of his abuser, Nathan's story does include an element of forgiveness. It's centred on the eight-year-old boy who wandered into the change rooms at the swimming pool that day in January 1987.

"My therapist asked, 'If you could go back in time and speak to your eight-year-old self, what would you say?'

"And after some time, I came back with the answer: 'It wasn't your fault'.

"That was huge for me. I'd always lived with the mindset that I don't deserve to be happy, I deserve to fail and have bad things happen to me.

"That one question totally changed my perspective."

Nathan plans to move home to Canberra in December to have Toy Cars made into a feature film, set and produced in Australia.

"I want parents of young children to watch this film," he says.

"I want them to become more aware of their kids' behaviours and whereabouts if they start acting out, withdrawing and pushing away.

"Parents should ask the questions that need to be asked and at all times reassure their kids that they will be believed, they won't be in trouble and it's okay to tell them if something has happened.

"I know so many people will read this story and think, 'I've known Nathan for so long. How could this have happened?' and it's the same question I've asked myself over and over.

"Sexual abuse doesn't discriminate against age, race or religion. It can and does happen to anyone. So many people are living with histories like mine and you'd never know. The pain is silent."

Crisis support can be found at Lifeline (13 11 14 and lifeline.org.au), the Suicide Call Back Service (1300 659 467 and suicidecallbackservice.org.au) and beyondblue (1300 22 4636 and beyondblue.org.au)

If you're interested in helping with the film or reaching out to Nathan, please contact journalist Bree Winchester in the first instance: bree.winchester@fairfaxmedia.com.au