A Declaration
Okay, guys, here goes. I just came back from my shrink and I have the courage to do this now I think. Thank you, Roland.
When I first came on here I thought I had found heaven. All of you were like me...different certainly, but like me in so many ways. You understood me and for the first time in my life I had found a group of men I could identify with. MEN! MEN! You were men and I could identify with you and I wasn't afraid of you and you were kind and tender and supportive and you were something I had never known in my whole life.
I made up my mind right then that I could be myself here...whoever that turned out to be. In fact, I decided to find out just who I was here.
I realeased a part of myself that had been pent up for years....since I was five or six...a part of myself that I thought might have been the most important part of myself if the SA hadn't happened. It was full of everything that I was not: zeal and feelings and anguish and love... and when it came on here what it wrote was its truth whether happy or sad. I looked at it in amazement everytime it wrote. I joined it and became one with it sometimes and I let it fly.
In the back of my mind I had the feeling that perhaps it was a bit over the top emotionally, but it was honestly and over the top, and honest was what I was going to be come hell or high water.
In my poetry, I let my anguish flow. God, that felt good...just to put it out there and say, "This is how I have felt forever." And I love to write, so this place became my passion.
I learned to love all the little boys who had suffered here and every time I read one of their stories I wanted to reach into the computer and pick them up and hug them and make it better and I cried when the stories were so terrible and I could do nothing to help. I still do.
Some of you have said such beautiful things to me that I will never look at life the same again because of them (thank you, Jake).
And then I shut down. I always shut down. I always become afraid. Is it the SA and my inner child or is it just my basic personality? I don't know.
You are men. I have shown you too much of myself. You will disapprove of who I am. My posts were too long and too emotional. Bobby was too much. He wrote too much. Everyone is sick of him. It wasn't your fault. No one said anything to me. Everyone was still kind and supportive...unbelievably so. But it was time for me to self destruct. If someone didn't comment on a post, it was because the post was bad and I had said the wrong thing or said it the wrong way or they were just tired of reading them
I still talked to guys who posted, but now mostly in private messages, especially if I had a lot to say. It was easier to do it that way. Besides it was the individual I wanted to talk to anyway.
I knew it was all crazy and that I was having this dialog with myself and it was me that was criticizing me and saying all those things to me before anyone else had a chance to. But that didn't matter. I was shrinking right back down into that hole that I was just starting to emerge from...and I didn't know what to do about it.
The last thing I wanted to do was to talk about it on here and do the "poor little Bobby" syndrome, where I try to get everyone to say, "No, Bobby, everything is really all right." I really don't want that...really. But on the other hand, what I see in my head is all of you with baseball bats getting ready to beat me with them. I am a little kid and you are going to beat me...maybe kill me. You all have "his" eyes.
So, is this part of the abuse? Where does it come from? Does it matter where it comes from? This may be my last chance to get over it. So here it is.
I'm going to continue to write. I have to. I have to say what I have to say and I have to say it anyway it comes out. I gotta be that person. I can't stay in there. I can't retreat. I gotta be strong. I don't want pity. Or help. or compassion....and yet I do....want compassion. not pity. I never give pity here...ever.
I have to picture myself as this giant of a person, towering over you....invincible. You can't hurt me. You can't beat me with bats. You can't hold me down and do horrible things to me. You can't defeat me. You can't drive me back down again, because if you drive me back down again, I truly will never come back up. It will be the last time.
Do you understand? I can't care about what you think. I can't. There's too much riding on it. Too much.
And, God, this is gonna be tough for me. Really tough. Because that inner child is absolutely scared to death. You're men, damn you, and men hurt me and men are dangerous and I want to hide from you. And even as I type this I am holding my head way down and looking at the computer out of the top of my eyes, so I can't see you all standing there ready to get me.
And that's it. That's all. And I love you, I really do, but you scare me to death. But I'm going to get over that, if it kills me.
Now my arms are beginning to tighten up and to physically hurt to write this and I'm beginning to think about how absolutely nuts I am and worry about what you will think of this post.....if you're not so tired of me that you bothered to read it.
BUT I CAN'T DO THAT EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!
Bobby
god, that was hard
When I first came on here I thought I had found heaven. All of you were like me...different certainly, but like me in so many ways. You understood me and for the first time in my life I had found a group of men I could identify with. MEN! MEN! You were men and I could identify with you and I wasn't afraid of you and you were kind and tender and supportive and you were something I had never known in my whole life.
I made up my mind right then that I could be myself here...whoever that turned out to be. In fact, I decided to find out just who I was here.
I realeased a part of myself that had been pent up for years....since I was five or six...a part of myself that I thought might have been the most important part of myself if the SA hadn't happened. It was full of everything that I was not: zeal and feelings and anguish and love... and when it came on here what it wrote was its truth whether happy or sad. I looked at it in amazement everytime it wrote. I joined it and became one with it sometimes and I let it fly.
In the back of my mind I had the feeling that perhaps it was a bit over the top emotionally, but it was honestly and over the top, and honest was what I was going to be come hell or high water.
In my poetry, I let my anguish flow. God, that felt good...just to put it out there and say, "This is how I have felt forever." And I love to write, so this place became my passion.
I learned to love all the little boys who had suffered here and every time I read one of their stories I wanted to reach into the computer and pick them up and hug them and make it better and I cried when the stories were so terrible and I could do nothing to help. I still do.
Some of you have said such beautiful things to me that I will never look at life the same again because of them (thank you, Jake).
And then I shut down. I always shut down. I always become afraid. Is it the SA and my inner child or is it just my basic personality? I don't know.
You are men. I have shown you too much of myself. You will disapprove of who I am. My posts were too long and too emotional. Bobby was too much. He wrote too much. Everyone is sick of him. It wasn't your fault. No one said anything to me. Everyone was still kind and supportive...unbelievably so. But it was time for me to self destruct. If someone didn't comment on a post, it was because the post was bad and I had said the wrong thing or said it the wrong way or they were just tired of reading them
I still talked to guys who posted, but now mostly in private messages, especially if I had a lot to say. It was easier to do it that way. Besides it was the individual I wanted to talk to anyway.
I knew it was all crazy and that I was having this dialog with myself and it was me that was criticizing me and saying all those things to me before anyone else had a chance to. But that didn't matter. I was shrinking right back down into that hole that I was just starting to emerge from...and I didn't know what to do about it.
The last thing I wanted to do was to talk about it on here and do the "poor little Bobby" syndrome, where I try to get everyone to say, "No, Bobby, everything is really all right." I really don't want that...really. But on the other hand, what I see in my head is all of you with baseball bats getting ready to beat me with them. I am a little kid and you are going to beat me...maybe kill me. You all have "his" eyes.
So, is this part of the abuse? Where does it come from? Does it matter where it comes from? This may be my last chance to get over it. So here it is.
I'm going to continue to write. I have to. I have to say what I have to say and I have to say it anyway it comes out. I gotta be that person. I can't stay in there. I can't retreat. I gotta be strong. I don't want pity. Or help. or compassion....and yet I do....want compassion. not pity. I never give pity here...ever.
I have to picture myself as this giant of a person, towering over you....invincible. You can't hurt me. You can't beat me with bats. You can't hold me down and do horrible things to me. You can't defeat me. You can't drive me back down again, because if you drive me back down again, I truly will never come back up. It will be the last time.
Do you understand? I can't care about what you think. I can't. There's too much riding on it. Too much.
And, God, this is gonna be tough for me. Really tough. Because that inner child is absolutely scared to death. You're men, damn you, and men hurt me and men are dangerous and I want to hide from you. And even as I type this I am holding my head way down and looking at the computer out of the top of my eyes, so I can't see you all standing there ready to get me.
And that's it. That's all. And I love you, I really do, but you scare me to death. But I'm going to get over that, if it kills me.
Now my arms are beginning to tighten up and to physically hurt to write this and I'm beginning to think about how absolutely nuts I am and worry about what you will think of this post.....if you're not so tired of me that you bothered to read it.
BUT I CAN'T DO THAT EVER AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!
Bobby
god, that was hard
