a long day

[Raphael]

After spending about four hours here with you guys I feel I need to post something. As you can imagine, the "abuse issue" is so present for me right now that I can't concentrate on anything, can't work, and almost cannot breathe. I feel tired and emotionally drained, perhaps because I have been reading for so long… But I should say that it has helped me in many ways to learn about so many stories that have to do with my own story. Some of the things I read here today could have been written by me, or actually I should say that I don't know if I would be able to articulate them but I could recognize them when I read them. For example “it has occurred to me, it is the [perp] that abused me, that I am still looking for!” or “I had a guy do sexual things to me (and of course my reaction is that I freeze just like I did when I was a kid). “ or “I find that everything rocks along OK with the hetero thing until the pressures of life [come into the picture]. Then the coping mechanisms that worked [so far] don't work any longer. Gay porn sites are way to easy to access and chat rooms! (…)It was mainly acting out, unsatisfying, looking in the wrong place, trying to fill that ocean size hole within me with the very things that helped create it!”. And I repeat this last part “trying to fill that ocean size hole within me with the very things that helped create it!”

It's been a loooong unproductive day at work for me. But it has also been a looong busy day spent on stuff that I need to look at. Perhaps I should consider this a day that I dedicated to myself and to my own process of healing.

Of course I still have a zillion questions running through my mind. A voice inside me wants me to believe that this is all bullshit, that I am trying to get attention, to get people to feel sorry for me, to feel sorry for myself, that I should just leave the past behind me and look up to the future. Another voice or the same voice says that I am perverted, that I should have control over myself and not go and visit gay porn sites, “how can you WASTE so much of your time with this?” “It's disgusting!” “You have a wife and children who love you and you behave like a bastard.” “You are so weak!”

Yet another part of m is trying to understand the real dimension of what happened to me and the effects it had (and has!) on my life. Do I really know? Is the only “side-effect” this pornography addiction? Or has this damaged my self-esteem and how much? Or has this affected my professional career? Or does it have to do with my feeling un-prepared at work, incompetent, not worthy of the position I have, even when everyone around me is always praising me and I got the post of my ex-boss after two years in the job being more than 10 years younger than him? Is it because I was abused that I always have this feeling of sadness inside when I couldn't ask for a better life? Is the abuse preventing me from realizing my full potential, from being who I really am?

Yesterday I mentioned to a close friend, who is a accomplished psychologist, that I haven't been doing well lately and that I was sexually abused at the age of six by my 7-years-older brother. She immediately stopped and her facial expression changed dramatically and I could see sorrow in her eyes. She touched my hand and said “I am so sorry to hear that.” It really struck me that she seemed to feel it more that I do and I began to wonder if I really have an understanding of the scope of this thing. I felt as if I had mentioned to her that I had a terminal disease and I myself was not aware of the significance of the diagnosis I had received.

Anyway, this is getting too long. I am sorry. I guess I have so much to vent, but I need to respect you guys and go slowly. Thank you so much for your patience and for your support.

Peace and prayers,
Raphael

 

[estuardo]

Raphael,

I'm new here also, and just about everything you touched on, I have, or am still going through. I can relate with the gay porn addiction. My reason is to try and connect with those men, to find some sense of confidence in myself, only to discover what a lie it is, but feel trapped.

As I mentioned in another post, I long for that male "bonding", friendships without the sexual stuff. I long for the deep relationship a father and son have, but I will never get, because my dad could care less!

It goes on and on. The guys here have made me feel welcome, to talk and vent out all of this. It is depressing, but necessary, because we deserve to have a better life, then what cards we got dealt.

Hang with us for a while, and I hope that we can find some of those answers we are looking for.

Peace,
estuardo

 

[reality2k4]

Please look after yourselves on these forums, OK, take it in so much at a time, but it is so easy to burn out looking for answers to millions of questions you need answers to, and believe me, we all want the answers right away.

Keep yourself safe, is the message, take a break when you need, but keep safe.

Going to gay porn sites? I have and I go for the same reasons, but don't forget, it probably stopped you acting out for real, so good comes from bad.

We all have this big black hole, that wants to suck everything in, you will find your answers over time,

take care

ste

 

[Pete2004]

Raphael,

After reading your post,(I responded to your pm before I read this post.) man thanks! You have articulated feelings that do indeed have roots in Sexual Abuse. Many of which we (esp. me) all are learning to work through. I truly recommend the book Victims No Longer... It is a great help to me as I travel down this road of recovery, I take it in small bites and allow it to sink in. I'm wired for a quick, complete fix it NOW! But, I have been dealing with this all my life it seems and it takes time to "get the knots out"

Peace,

Pete

 

[Lloydy]

Raphael, and all the other guys.

It's tempting to say that you have the 'classic symptoms of CSA' - but that's something I try to avoid saying as we are ALL individuals, and we certainly see OUR problems as 'just ours'.

But so many of us are hetero-sexual, maybe married, but still go looking at gay porn.
It's something I did at every opportunity a few years back, and it was at the cost of anything approaching a 'normal' sex life with my wife.

I don't go looking at the gay porn anything like I did, maybe every few weeks or so I might have an hour or so, but the attraction is fading away as I get better.
I've said many times before that I try to not feel guilt and shame for looking at it any more.
It's not easy to do that I know, but the more I look upon the act of looking as a 'fact' rather than as a 'shameful secret' the less it bothers me, and the less need I have to go and look.
Now I don't even get an erection when I look at it, and I actually get bored. It's become a sort of 'ritual' that I do when the old triggers go to work. The triggers are harder to shift I think, but it's always the obvious place to try first. And often the triggers are impossible to shift, especially when they are caused by someone elses actions.
So, I tried approaching the problem from the other end, and getting rid of the guilt and shame. I haven't replaced them with pride for sure! but instead I treat my ocassional trips into the porn world as something neutral, something that I sometimes do.

A big part of looking at porn was, for me, the secretive nature of the act. I think the content of the porn was secondary. The thrill was always most intense between the split second I decided to look and the moment the first image appeared.
The thrill is dependant on, or feeds, the guilt and shame.

I no longer really care if I look at porn sometimes, I looked last night. And the truth is it did very little for me. The more it bores me, the less I'll look.

Dave

 

[Mickey]

This thread of entries is very moving because it captures many aspects of what I haqve dealt with for years that I could not at all understand. I thought it was just "me" - that the man with the big hole inside was who I always was but I never realized it.

I have done all sorts of things to anesthetize myself from the hurt (or at least that's how my T explains it). What I am still having a hard time doing is overcoming the shame...both of the abuse itself and the fact that for so many decades I didn't do anything about it. I just thought back on it as a normal part of childhood, without realizing one bit of the major impact it had on me.

Like Raphael, I spend a lot of times these days wondering how much of my life, my personality, my relationships are a result of CSA and how much would be part of me anyway. I can't chalk everything up to CSA, for there are many good things about me: things I have accomplished, people's lives I have touched. But can I attribute all the negative and uncomfortable things to something that happened to me when I was 10 years old? I know that the fact that I dreaded walking into the locker room in jr and sr high was probably a direct result of what happened before. But can I really say that the fact that I never bonded deeply with other men was because of that? Lots of guys bond with other guys only in the macho kind of way I have never been comfortable with (or is that discomfort, too, a result of CSA?). So myaybe my inability to bond is just part of being male.

So the big question for me now is how do I sort these parts of me out from one another? And does it even matter? Is this just a nice intellectual exercise that shields me from having to honestly confront my feelings of hurt and sadness and rage? So, Raphael and others, thanks for being the guys I can share these thoughts with without having to censor myself.