Hey NC
I'm glad you can avoid the meds but if your T's suggest their use then do it. My T had suggested I see a shrink and get some meds and I balked because of the stigma. Not only was I a prostitute as a child, teen and young adult I really didn't want anyone to know I was seeing a shrink. It would be only a month after that recommendation that I found myself standing in between cars on a busy avenue looking for a bus to walk into. It never came and within 2 weeks I was sitting in the office of a shrink.
I read your "Me at age 3". It was a very intense and graphic read for me to get through. Aside from almost daily beatings by my mother, the only sexual part was being bare-assed and beaten until I couldn't sit down. I did find that I could disappear from the house at the age of 3 for the next couple of years and find a wonderful neighbor lady and her daughter who was my age. My mother also used her as a baby sitter for me. Kinda funny that I was allowed to "disappear" from the house at that age. My mother said she knew where to find me if I wasn't in the house. Nudity was not a problem for me or the neighbor lady. I went swimming in the blow-up pool with her daughter naked and we were also given baths together. There were no disposable diapers back then so we went without any pants or underwear. If we had to go to the bathroom we had to get to a bathroom or go behind a tree. I couldn't take a dump in a diaper and continue playing. So my introduction to nudity was from an early age and I wasn't ashamed to go around without pants or in the summer without clothes. That was the way things were.
What you described I'm sure is felt by others in this thread. This is sort of a question for not only you but others here on this thread. The difference in our early years is that your abuse was sexual and mine were daily beatings. I assume that because of what happened to us early on would affect our later years. Were you trying to stay away from anything sexual? I was trying to stay away from beatings. I was looking for someone to love me. I and my best friend did get involved starting when we were 8 in having nude pictures of us being taken for the boy magazines that were legal to sell on the street corner newspaper stands in Manhattan, NYC. This went on for the next 10 years. (The magazines went underground in the mid to late '60s.)
At 10 years old I was taken under the wing of a judo instructor who I fell in love with. He was kind and gentle. He bought me candy, took me places and even bought me a 10-speed bike when my old single gear clunker was stolen He never hit me always hugged me. I wanted him to be my father, I wanted to belong with him. It became a thing that after practice which ended late during the week I was allowed to go and sleep over at his apartment. He took me to the family public baths in the city, we took showers together in his apartment and most of all I was able to sleep naked with him. He was warm, something I never experienced and something I wanted badly. I wanted to be kissed and hugged. Of course, that evolved very quickly into various acts which also included penetration. It was a much different kind of pain. It might sound sick but I thought this is the pain of love. I already knew the pain of hate. This was pain that I was willing to go through as long as I could stay with him. A lot of what we did felt good to me. By the time I was 11 I was being taken to stay with "friends" of his while he had to work late. His friends practiced the same type of love that he did. He would pick me up in the early morning and take me back to his apartment so we could take a morning shower together and then eat breakfast before he would take me to school. I didn't know it at the time but I was now a prostitute being sold to "friends" of his.
If I'm crossing any boundaries please tell me. I don't know how your (and others here also) early experiences being sexually assaulted affected your lives later on into your teens and adulthood. You can see where my life was headed.
I just want to mention one more thing about me. At 14 I was forced into a life of doing what your father was doing to you. But the children I was forced to sexually assault were around preschool to around 10 years old. (the children were beaten if I didn't do what I was supposed to do.) I can now realize the ages of those children because I watched my grandchildren grow through those ages. My pain over the years was not being able to play with my children. I was never able to do homework with them or play ball with them, nothing. I watched them grow up and I couldn't touch them, hug them or kiss them. I stuttered when they came near me. I could never say what a "pretty dress you have on" to my daughter or slap one of my sons on their backs for something they did great. The picture of a happy father holding his newborn baby doesn't exist. Now years later I'm seeing the same thing happen with my grandchildren. No, I'm not afraid of abusing anyone. it's just that they are better off without me touching them, I don't want to contaminate them. This is my pain now and forever. I bought an expensive camera so I could take pictures of my grandchildren. I got the chance from my porch looking down into my backyard and all I see is my son playing with "his" four young children. I better stop here, I'm triggering myself.
I'm sorry for what you and all the others here on this thread went through.
