ALMOST happy

ALMOST happy
A

abcd

Registrant
If anyone reads my post to Michael's post in the other forum, this is almost identical, but I wanted to get some advice some reaction on a separate post so I'm posting it here...

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To be honest, I'm not sure what's more
frustrating...being completely down and out, or being up, way up and just about really happy, but then seeing yourself falling down and potentially wrecking everything. If you start from up top, you can go deeper than you can imagine, but you start from the bottom, you can only go up. I know that is highly metaphorical, but let me explain.

At this point, my life is actually well...hell--at least in regards to this abuse. Very few people know about it nor my homosexual/bisexual tendencies, and how often do I feel like such a hypocrite. I am a fairly intelligent person on a path to do some good things, if I say so myself. Even in love, I feel that I have some traits which are ideal in finding say the perfect man or woman. Still, I feel that as a result of the abuse, I have a huge gaping hole inside of me, one that can suck everything in and destroy everything that I've worked so hard for. Sometimes, I feel like somewhat of a nymphomaniac even--though I've been working as best as I can to control it. While I have concluded that my "sexuality tendencies" may or may not be from the abuse, this I KNOW is.

This trait has been so debilitating for me. Already I have seen certain "cracks" in the infrastructure of my life, and I'm losing that stability that I so desperately need. If I lose it completely, I know I'll spiral down faster than I've ever spiralled down before. It is so frustrating, to seem so happy--to laugh with friends, to accomplish so much, to be with family...when deep inside there is this whole inside of you and an anxiety that everything can be destroyed. I realize that perhaps that some of you don't have this infrastructure even, but to be honest, I do not kow that we are in such different positions. We have all been abused, and to some degrees we are abusing ourselves.

We've all been through spirals...huge ones, but I guess we have to hang in there. I need you guys to hang in there, just as you would want me to hang in here. Don't give up. I notice that some of us have a confusion of our sexuality...well, only now am I starting to embrace it or at least testing it out, but I've got a huge mountain to crawl up to. Regardless of whether or not I go up this road, I know I'll need someone you guys who have been going through the same stuff. Please hang in there guys--I need you to...YOU need yourselves to. After everything we've been through, we can't give up now.
 
abcd

This has to be the biggie for so many of us, which way do we lean ?

I fought with it for over 30 years, still have occasional thoughts about it but nothing that worries me now.

But right up to having my regular therapy and dealing with my recovery I doubted my sexuality. Even after 25 of marriage.

It was only during this intense period of recovery that I looked at the problem clearly, and I realised that although I was fantasising about gay sex acts, and doing them, I never ever felt my heart flutter for another guy. I didn't look at any man and think "I want to have sex with him".
The sex I had was opportunistic with a complete stranger, anyone would do - I wasn't fussy. There was no ideal man for me.

I have had one or two very close male friends, one I regularly share a shower with at work. But he never entered into my fantasies.
So for me at least it's not a gay thing.

I can be sure though that it traces it's heritage back to my abuse, and was a part of the complex tangle of power - humiliation - and loss of self esteem that we carry with us.

Getting our heads around this and all the other stuff we deal with does have it's ups and downs, and as you say the bigger the up - the bigger the down. And sometimes we wonder if the up's are worth the effort.

They are, they're worth every scrap of effort.
And eventually I learned to tell myself to place less importance on the downs and celebrate the ups. By deconstructing the downs, taking the feelings apart to see what really made me feel so bad I began to see what they actually meant to me. 9 times out 10 it wasn't as bad as I first thought.

So hang on in there, it gets easier with practice, and we'll all hang in there with you.

Lloydy
 
ABCD,
This has been a huge issue for me as well. I just recently graduated college. I was on top of the world, I had great friends, a supportive family, and I was going to go conquer the world. But there was something tragically not right about me and I couldn't tell anyone. My sexual confusion was causing me great trouble. For the most part, I just ignored this and my abuse and lived my life. I had aspirations (I still do) of enrolling into graduate school and hopefully get my PhD. But like you I could see cracks in my "infrastructure." It was tough but I realized that I had to stop and reflect upon my life. I realized that I have to deal with this issue because I could see that the cracks were just too big to ignore. If I ignore them I'll fail at whatever I want to do. As frustrating as it has been for me I've had to stop everything and focus on myself for once. Basically, I've had to tell myself that I have a problem that I cannot fix on my own. I've started to see a therapist, go to support groups, and tell my friends (they've been supportive and of course they knew something was troubling me). I feel optomistic but I know I have to get a handle on my emotions before I move on.

My emotions have been the way I've tried to analyze myself. I've tried so hard to stay in control of them that it has turned me into an emotional cripple. Put this in context of having uncontrolled homoerotic thoughts and it has been hell. Anyway, send me a private message and perhaps we can work this out together.
Take care,
Mike
 
Mike
Oh to have thought like that at 24yo, I hope your recovery is swift as well.

I have no idea what it is that makes some people disclose at an early age, probably better awareness and publicity. Whatever it is, it's so good to see.

Lloydy
 
ABCD,

I definitely relate to the confusion. I think we can all agree that there is a certain amount of
sexual experimentation that goes on during adolescence. Sleepy and I know that adolescence can be delayedI went through it around age 24. You may be past your adolescence, but the
confusion lingers. My confusion persisted until I was almost 41.

I wouldnt apply any labels to your sexuality until you resolved the issue of your abuse.
Confusion over our sexuality has been a huge problem for some of us.

Lloydy,
When we were 24 nobody talked about male sexual abuse. If you need proof, just look at how
many 40 year olds are here dealing with SA. Maybe we have already accomplished much by
talking.
 
New and Lloydy:
I know for a fact that if I didn't find male survivor I would still be lingering on not addressing my SA issues. I think that even today male abuse is still a little understood issue. I saw a therapist last year and she completely dismissed my SA as being to trivial to be an issue. Recently I went to another T and she was very supportive. Thank god!

So do people who have "normal" adolescences feel this awkward about themselves? Just a random thought.
 
abcd,

It is always a pleasure to read what you post. Your wisdom and insights are clear. Your questions and fears and true and deep and I feel a great kinship and understanding.

I have much more to say to you about what you've written here, but as I referred to the thread from michaelb, I composed a long reply to him, and now I must get to sleep. I'll post more soon.

And so, for now, I'm just posting a song for you. I think you'll like it. You've mentioned faith, at least once, and this song is pure faith. Especially the reference to the promise that the Creator makes to Humanity (the Id makes to Ego? Life makes to us? - your choice)

Take care,
Donald
 
I was thinking about this today.

When I was 21 I got married, so I can remember a bit about that time 28 years ago.

We had 4 TV channels, and about 10 radio stations, no internet, very conservative newspapers, no mens magazines and our parents generation were still governed by the morals that were moulded during the war.
At school sex education consisted of a 10 minute description of how chimp's mated !

What the hell did we know ?

Nothing, I left school during the summer of love in 1968 when the first hippies were appearing and a new idealism began to push it's way through.
Sex was no longer a dirty word - but that was only in some circles. The mainstream media and all other sources of information were still deeply conservative. I remember the "Oz" trial about that time when a scurrilous hippy paper was on trialat the Old Baily for printing the word "fuck" - and they lost !!

What a change in just over 20 years eh ?

The people who say that the internet, the media and the TV is full of crap haven't made the effort to look past the porn and game shows.
Whatever we need to know is there for the asking now.
Google rules....

Lloydy
 
Thanks for the reply guys...I don't know. I still very much feel like I'm standing on the edge...if I just concentrate a little more, I can get through this and continue on my healing and do so much "good." If I don't...I risk falling apart. I'm going through a tough time in my life right now, and just feel like I'm at a critical juncture...it's hard to explain right now 'cuz I have to run. If you believe in prayer, please say a little prayer for me for guidance for these next couple weeks. Thanks, guys.
 
Originally posted by abcd:
Thanks for the reply guys...I don't know. I still very much feel like I'm standing on the edge...if I just concentrate a little more, I can get through this and continue on my healing and do so much "good." If I don't...I risk falling apart.
Click to expand...
I ran into this feeling in myself. That if I could just go around that final corner, realize that final truth, that I would be free to do good things.
The truth of it for me though, was that piece of myself was more interested in redemption. It wanted to do good things to redeem the "bad" it had done. Now, I just want to get stronger and heal for myself. Selfish, yes. But I think I have a right. And I don't need to redeem myself. I didn't do anything wrong. That lies in the province of the perps that preyed on me.

As for the confusion - I also have the sexual obsession with men, the confusion that hurts - one day I'm straight, then I'm bi, then I don't know and so on and so on. But, similar to Lloydy, there came a time I thought to ask myself - who can I fall in love with? Which people? Whereas the obsession focuses on a specific part of the male body, my feelings lie with women. I don't look at guys and part of me inside goes 'wow!'.
Thats how I know. And when the spin cycle starts up again, I do my best to remember that.
 
abcd

I still very much feel like I'm standing on the edge...if I just concentrate a little more, I can get through this and continue on my healing and do so much "good." If I don't...I risk falling apart.
Click to expand...
I believe the chances of falling apart are slim. We will never forget what happened to us, we can't make ourselves forget. And neither can we easily forget the recovories we are going through.

what I think you're experiencing is the rush of emotion when we realise we are escaping the past and learning to deal with it.
Suddenly there's a hole where all the shit was, and we are left searching for something good to fill it.

For a while we feel empty and lost, but not for long. Life comes along and fills it, sometimes it's the everyday mundane things of life we avoided for so long. But sometimes it's all new and exciting.

Enjoy it, whatever it is.

Lloydy
 
Thank you again for your replies, and I realize I have been vague. What I mean by my risk of falling apart is the fact that, of late, and mostly just, of late, I have come to devote so much time in trying to unravel my abuse and sexuality issues (two DIFFERENT issues) that I have forsaken other qualities of myself. For instance, my desire to do good (one of my "other qualities") is not bent from some sort of justification for some guilt about the abuse. The fact that you interpreted as such, though, really points out what I mean though by my forsaking other parts of my life and tending to define things by our abuse. The truth is that we are persons who were abuse...we are persons first...not "abused." While we must deal with the abuse and the like, we can not enter into paralysis and be consumed by it. We must also focus on other aspects of our lives--sometimes I find that when we do that, the issues of our abuse sometimes start to unravel themselves (see, I DO believe that Someone is watching over us and sometimes we just have to have faith and do what we know to be "good" in our lives on focus on those for a bit). Anyway, that's just my opinion. Take it for what it's worth. Later, guys--and really...thanks.
 
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