An Inside Job

[John B]

AN INSIDE JOB

It was an inside job. At least that’s what the police told my parents that Super Bowl Sunday evening after spending about two hours combing through the remains of my mother’s empty jewelry boxes now scattered on the floor in her bedroom. The alarm system had been circumvented that afternoon in a sophisticated way as my parents, oblivious to what was unfolding at home, were spending time with friends, watching the big game together. The thieves knew which door to break through, the precise location of my mother’s hidden gems and the hour that my parents were to arrive back home. It was a simple, elegant and very effective heist.

It was just about the perfect crime. The robbers slipped in unnoticed, knew precisely what they were after, located the precious jewels, left no trace of identifying information behind and then absconded with the loot before anyone even suspected the crime had occurred.

I was a freshman in college when my mother called me the following morning. Though I felt obligated to rescue her, she was near-impossible to console. Jewels that had been handed down through the generations, she said, were stolen from her, likely never to be seen again. She seemed even more unsettled knowing that her home had been broken into and ransacked without her awareness. Her sanctuary had been violated and made unsafe.

But what left her feeling most distraught was the knowledge that the crime had clearly been committed by someone known to our family. Though I can’t remember the precise words she used, it had left her feeling sickened and deeply shaken.

Indeed, many years down the road, the subject of the robbery came up in conversation. She divulged that that day had left her feeling forever changed. She never again slept quite as soundly or felt quite as safe as she had prior to the home invasion. The many new and shiny baubles and bracelets that my father had bought for her over the subsequent years, never replaced the original authentic gems or sense of security that she had previously taken for granted.

She frequently wondered how a trusted family friend or employee could violate her in this way and said that in the deep recesses of her mind, she never again quite looked at anyone in her life the same way. Everyone had become just a little bit suspect. I remember thinking then that she was greatly overreacting to the loss of her jewelry.

Little did I understand at that time the magnitude of what had happened to her that day. Her safe home was safe no more. Connections with others were never quite the same. Her life went on. She continued to bake her pies and have her nightly vodkas but she was left permanently wounded. The scab that covered the injury allowed her to eventually laugh and have enjoyable times again, but this was a scar that would never fully heal.

Years down the road, I came to understand her experience in a way that would have been impossible for me to imagine at the time. It was a lesson I deeply wished I would never have been forced to learn. Unlike the one-time crime that was perpetrated upon her, I was on the receiving end of an ongoing robbery that began when I was a small child and continued well into adulthood. Endless day and night heists of things that seemed much more important to me than rubies and diamonds. Repeatedly and relentlessly betrayed, robbed of who I was as a boy. My soul was stolen. And, worst of all, this never ending crime spree was committed by my mother making it the ultimate inside job.

WHEN I WAS STILL A CHILD

My first memory of my mother is a warm one. I don’t know how young I was but I recall that she was holding me tightly in her arms as she bounced me up and down in the local swimming pool. Looking back, I assume that she was allowing me to feel the warm water splashing on my feet but protecting me from getting too wet. She was singing me a song. This memory is the only one I have that is pure and uninfected. There are no others. My mother has a genuinely warm side so I have no doubt that I lived through happy childhood times. But these memories have vanished from my awareness. This is not what I’d prefer but I accept it as the understandable legacy of what has transpired. Perhaps it will change over time but for now, the memories I live with are more akin to nightmarish flashbacks.

OVERT INCEST

I dreaded eating dinner with my family. It was an awful time of the day. As we ate, I would take in sustenance and concurrently participate in an erotic dance with my mother that left me starved for healthy affection . Each night, it left me feeling desperate to flee from the table and find relief far away from her. This nightly tango between us started at an early age but intensified during my adolescence.

My mother would start drinking vodka well enough in advance of our evening meal so that she reached a state of glassy-eyed inebriation just as we were sitting down. She’d continue with wine during dinner at times, but her vodkas had already accomplished the task of bringing her to a state of blissful disinhibition. I can’t recall nights when this ritual didn’t unfold, including those when we would go out to eat at the local Chinese restaurant. Then, the glass of vodka was in her hand in the car on the way to the restaurant. Her timing was impeccable. As she took her chair around the table, her blood alcohol level was at its peak.

Her drinking wasn’t accompanied by stumbles or falls to the ground. It wasn’t accompanied by arguments and shouting. I don’t ever recall her slurring her words. Whether or not she met the criteria for alcoholism, her drinking was ingrained and ritualized and, I came to find out later in life, evident to both my sisters. It’s impossible to believe that my father wasn’t aware, too, but what his thoughts and feelings were, I do not know.

Her vodkas brought her to a state where her inner erotic and emotional worlds would be unleashed. I was the target. Her eyes were focused on me, her comments were directed at me and her touch always came my way. It felt that she wanted to climb inside me. She never spoke of anything overtly sexual at the dinner table but her glances and touch were infused with sexual energy. It was if she were caressing me, not tenderly or lovingly, but in an invasive and intrusive way.

I was trapped every night knowing something wrong was happening. In her inebriated state, she would reach out for my hand and stroke it, holding it for an exquisitely long period that felt like hours but was probably seconds. Her eyes were piercing. I remember trying to avoid eye contact but as she gazed intently at me, I lost myself in her stare as lovers do.

As we all sat around the table discussing something innocuous that happened at school that day or whether we liked the tuna casserole we were eating, psychosis was the main course. I didn’t know it at the time but looking back now, it was a nightly dance of madness. As benign chatter took up the audible space, something deeply disturbing and pathological was being enacted between my mother and I. Our erotic fusion was overt but I don’t recall a single time that anyone ever uttered a word about it, including me. This nightly cancerous drama unfolded in front of an audience that was either entirely unaware or complicit in their muteness. I look back and see how nuts it was, given our visible love affair juxtaposed with the deafening silence in our kitchen. Everyone acted as if nothing weird and creepy was happening. Two realities existed side by side, each in its own sealed compartment. It was truly the definition of insanity.

After dinner, in the safety of my room, I remember asking myself if anything wrong had actually happened between she and I. I was so confused. While I viscerally felt repelled and exquisitely uncomfortable, I questioned whether this was just the way a normal mother and son should interact. I felt her erotic energy engulfing me but I wondered whether her behavior was just an expression of love. Given that no one else was commenting on what was happening, perhaps there wasn’t anything icky occurring at all. I questioned my perceptions and my conclusions. If either of my sisters or my father would have called my mother out on her behavior, I think I would have felt sane. But everyone seemed cowed by the ringmaster who was choreographing this show and they all knew their role and played it perfectly, with complete concealment.

I was left with only one thing; my unshakable certainty that I was deeply uncomfortable with what was occurring every night. Of this I had no doubt. I couldn’t deny the intense wave of rage, revulsion and distress that overwhelmed me every evening. I tried so hard to contort reality into something that it wasn’t but, I knew. On some very deep and primal level, I knew. The legacy of those nightly traumas left deep imprints upon my psyche that I struggle with to this day.

I was about 14 and my mother had bought me a new pair of pants. We were in my room and I tried them on to see if they fit. She was touching my legs and then my buttocks. She held her hand there for what felt like an eternity but was, once again, likely a few seconds. I remember the expression on her face as she realized where her hand was and then she quickly pulled it away. While her touch made me uncomfortable, what i recall most was her sudden awareness of what she had been doing. It was almost as if she abruptly returned to reality from some trance-like state and then embarrassingly recognized what had just happened. She looked ashamed, as if she were caught behaving like a bad girl. If so, the only problem with this construct was that this girl was, in fact, a grown woman who happened to be my mother.

Frequent and excessive touching, hugs that felt overly intrusive and too many to count other inappropriate behaviors added up to relentless unwanted boundary violations. My body became an object for her desire and a vehicle for her gratification. I couldn’t escape her touch.

I have no idea how I knew that all of it was wrong, but from my earliest memories, I did. Whenever she would act on her ugly impulses, I’d always feel icky. Every time. I never once recall desiring her touch or feeling that contact with her was warm and affectionate. I simply can’t explain how I instinctively knew something bad was happening, but I did. No one ever explicitly taught me the difference between good touch and bad touch, but I knew. It wasn’t rational or cognitive, it was visceral.

MASCULINITY

It wasn’t just erotic touch that was woven into the soiled cloth that was our relationship. My mother held strong critical views of my father and of all men and made sure that I was perfectly schooled in seeing the male species as she did. That she hated my father was conveyed clearly. That she hated men, it would turn out, was a more damaging view for me to have internalized. It’s origin wasn’t clear but likely arose from her unavailable father and alcoholic brother, exacerbated by my fathers behavior toward her. As an adolescent boy, this was a terribly toxic and bewildering message to receive. As I was developing into a man, I was presented with two options. Either neuter myself and deny anything masculine within me or develop into a man and become the object of her hatred. Though I had no way of knowing at the time, I made the wrong choice. It wasn’t conscious and volitional, but it was a choice nonetheless.

Of all the thefts she perpetrated upon me, this was her greatest heist. She robbed me of a healthy masculine identity. There has been no greater damage inflicted upon me by her. The legacy of this forced choice has damaged me in ways that have, at times, felt irreparable. I’d like to believe that un-learning toxic lessons is possible, but I am far from sure that I can travel that road. And I understand that, of course, I had no real choice back then but how I wish I could have been true to the boy I was and had fought her rather than acquiesce as I did. As my adolescence progressed, the only person who came to despise my masculinity more than her, was me. It required a lot of effort and creativity on my part to become a eunuch.

I was terrified when my voice began to change. It was as if I was being forced, against my will, to assume a new identity that I desperately didn’t want. I was becoming a man that my mother would surely come to detest. I felt that terrible consequences lay ahead ahead of me if I allowed my manhood to be in view. So, I taught myself to speak in a higher voice. This was like putting my finger in the wall of a dyke to hold back an unstoppable force but for quite some time, I stopped it. The wave of hormones running wild in my body were no match for my steely determination to emasculate myself. I became very adept at talking as if I were pre-adolescent. Though the physical effort required to do this hurt because it put a constant strain on my vocal chords, I became quite proficient in sounding like I had been castrated.

As my body began to change, hair began to grow on my arms and legs. I distinctly remember feeling waves of panic as this began. My solution was simple: wear long sleeve shirts and pants. Whether there were any short sleeve shirts or shorts in my closet I don’t remember but if they were there, I’d never wear them. No matter the season, I was completely covered up. It must have appeared quite odd to classmates when I would show up in very warm weather entirely clothed from head to toe. The stares and comments from others were a small price to pay since the alternative was morphing into someone I would despise. It was an easy choice to make. My memory is that this went on for years.

I did allow myself to masturbate but I remember being obsessed with fear that my mother would find my dried semen on my sheets. I would often take to relieving myself in the shower to avoid feeling so exposed as a sexual being. However many fingers I put into this particular dyke to prevent the endocrine waves from swamping me, this tide was hard to hold back. I was driven, like most adolescent boys, to find sexual relief even though the price I paid in guilt and fear was a high one.

There is no question that my desires back then for other boys complicated my budding sexual life. Having already been taught that being sexual was forbidden, my desires for other boys confused me and heightened my guilt. My mother’s powerful ingrained messages and my genes controlling my sexual orientation conspired to suppress any outward expression of myself as a horny boy.

I never went on a single date in high school. In college, I hid in having a girlfriend but we were largely asexual. I didn’t date nor have sex in graduate school. I was nearly 30 years old before I first had sex with a man. By then, I was allowing myself to speak with my natural voice and wear shorts, but the fallout from my mother’s prohibition of being masculine continued to be very much in play. I was scared of sex. I was continually defending myself against the terror of being a desired object.

In my effort to deny that I was a man with a libido and a sexual being, I distinctly remember labeling myself with the word “asexual.” This word seemed to fit me perfectly. Being someone who would live a life without sex and without being masculine seemed laudable and very consistent with who I was to my core. This explains why I had sex with only five people by the time I was 34 years old. Those five people had ruined my perfect score of zero but it wasn’t a bad average at all...about one sexual partner every 4 years. Half a lifetime of being a eunuch and, if I were lucky, only half a lifetime to go.

EMOTIONAL INCEST

That I castrated myself for her is not in question. This would not have occurred unless I was forced to abdicate my boyhood in the service of her agenda. But her designs for me were broader than merely stealing my maleness.

From my earliest memories, I was my mother’s confidant. I recall feeling as if I were the special one in the family entrusted with her secrets. There is a deep bonding that occurs when someone knows your secrets, especially the dirty ones, and I was that someone. She let me in on details about her relationship with my father. I knew about her unhappiness and anger toward him. She made clear her expectation that I was to ally with her in raging at him. The message was not only that I had to be on her side but that I had to do her bidding as well.

My loyalty to her was a given and never in question. Though I knew on some level that disobeying her was a betrayal, it was only decades down the road that I saw that it was she who was repeatedly betraying me during those years.

One of the most important tasks on my long to-do list was to be responsible for her emotional health. I was the CEO of her psychological state. I had to reassure her by being her therapist and advice giver and was in charge of protecting her from my father and the world. I was there to affirm her ok-ness, an impossible task since at her core, she was so ill.

One of the ways she reinforced my duties was with her eyes. I was obedient because she always tracked me visually. A mere glance would convey everything I needed to know to set me in motion. When words and touch were added to these looks, it was a grand slam of unquestioning enslavement to her.

It was a no-win situation to attempt to feed her since she was endlessly starved and no amount of emotional food would satiate her. She was in a state of continual unhappiness which put me in a state of ongoing distress. Whenever I failed, which was often, I would feel crushing guilt for hurting her. The bottom line is that I was the one chosen to be her savior. Her fate was placed in my hands.

I don’t remember putting up much of a fuss in carrying out her husband-hating agenda. Since my father was absent and critical of me, that aspect of my job description was easy to enact. In fact, I likely relished being on her side. But how awful it must have been for me, despising and rejecting a father that I needed. And how awful it must have been for him, too. Beyond awful.

It was only later in adolescence and young adulthood that I saw how effectively and skillfully she had groomed me to enact her grand plans. Still later in life, I came to see her overt manipulation of me. She used me and by doing so, I was neither a person in my own right nor allowed to be a son. Like a pawn in a chess game, I was moved around her game board as she aimed for a checkmate or in her case, a destroy-mate. The game was won when I saved her, rejected the evil one and completely fused with her. The prize was divorce from him and marriage to me til death do us part.

I felt as if I were trapped by her visual, tactile and auditory assaults. Through these sensory attacks, I was on the receiving end of unwanted incoming salvos of emotional demands and erotic energy that I was helpless to fend off. Touches I didn’t want. Comments I couldn’t to be deaf to. Looks that would pierce through me.

All this invaded my very thin protective layer and reached into my tender and developing core. My young, fragile self was being repeatedly violated by her. Whether she could have prevented herself from doing this, I will never know but the end result was that I was a child overtaken by her in all ways, every day for years. There is a word that is used when a human is forced to emotionally and sexually submit to another against their will. It’s called rape.

FATHER

My father’s favorite song was Frank Sinatra’s “My Way.” He was a man with an abundance of confidence. He was a star athlete, rewarded with a full baseball scholarship to college. No surprise, he was the pitcher on the team. Successful in business, he was a daring risk taker and his hunches often paid off. It was a family joke that in most ways, he viewed himself as a near perfect 10. I remember one day, his self importance was on full display when he indirectly shared that he was a 9 1/2, referring to the number of inches that comprised his penis. This was way more information than his developing gay adolescent son could ever begin to process. Once heard, I could never un-hear it. His sharing this, though, was quite out of character. He was otherwise always appropriate with boundaries.

He was an avid (and excellent) golfer and tennis player. Trying to emulate him, I went to tennis camps, took private lessons and was good enough to play on my high school tennis team but, unlike him, I would usually choke during competitions. Whenever he and I would play together, I would freeze and play well below my skill level.

In most ways, I fell short of his expectations off the court, as well, since I was neither athletic nor typically boyish. He criticized me often and conveyed to me that I wasn’t the son he had hoped for. I later came to see, though, that his judgements came more from a place of bewilderment than meanness. It’s likely that he didn’t know at all how to relate to a son who was so different than he was, due in part to the fact that I was silently struggling with my sexual orientation. I was, no doubt, an alien species to him.

I came to despise him for his frequent expressions of disappointment in me and because my mother wished it to be so but I remember the many times he made real efforts to be a good father. He was interested in radio controlled model airplanes so we would head down to the basement after dinner to build the small planes that, when finished, we’d go fly together. The typical scenario was that he would do the cutting, glueing and building while I would watch. When he would instruct me to put some pieces together, he’d quickly take them away and do the task himself since he viewed my efforts as either too slow or incorrect. I was forced to be a passive witness to a man who, as always, demonstrated his talent and mastery over all things. Despite this, his invitation to build those models together was a genuine effort to spend time with me and I felt that he really cared.

Despite his inflated ego, disappointment in me, and frequent criticisms, I came to see as I grew up that in many ways, he was a decent man. Unlike my mother, I never felt his interactions with me came from a malignant place and I don’t hold any animosity toward him for his shortcomings. He was caught up in himself but meant well.

Just prior to his death from prostate cancer at the young age of 61, he spoke to me privately and broke down sobbing apologies for all that he felt he had done wrong. I don’t recall ever seeing him cry prior to this. I felt so sad for this tortured man who was dying and had such deep regrets. I tried hard to say the reassuring words that might provide him with some small bit of relief but as he wept, I felt neither closeness nor warmth towards him. I failed him hugely during that once in a lifetime moment. While I believe I uttered the right words, I’ve wondered whether I kept those emotions out of my reach or, whether they weren’t there within me. Either way, as he wept, I wished I were feeling what I wasn’t.

Three decades after my father died, my mother shared with me that during their entire relationship, he was having sex with almost any woman in his sight. I was unaware of this, but somehow not surprised. As she was speaking, I once again felt that I was on the receiving end of her criticisms of my father and the recipient of intimate details about their relationship. Was I complicit in listening to her rather than refusing to do so? Perhaps I was yet again. Nonetheless, as I thought about this aspect of their story, it lead me to view myself through a more honest and sobering lens and this turned out to be very helpful. It forced me to see myself in a more sophisticated, yet much less admirable, way.

I came to know that my fathers sexual compulsivity was played out again and again as he worked his way through his secretary, many of my mothers friends and the innumerable escorts he would hire when he travelled out of town on business. This began, my mother came to find out, while they were first dating and continued throughout their relationship. After this previously secret bomb exploded into my mother’s awareness about ten years into their relationship, her pleadings to him to be faithful were apparently futile and he continued to reject her sexually until the day he died.

When she first found out, she told me that she was devastated and wanted a divorce. It must have been a difficult decision for her to consider because back in those days, dissolving a marriage was a much less common occurrence and I’m sure that the prospect of raising three young children on her own was quite daunting.

My father was a successful businessman and my parents had a lifestyle that included, amongst other things, multiple homes and yachts. While there must have been many factors that she weighed in opting to remain married to him, she told me that the primary reason she decided to stay was financial. “I made a deal with the devil,” she confessed to me. “I stayed for the money.”

From that day forward, every time she looked in the mirror, she told me, the reflection she saw gazing back at her was one of a weak woman ashamed of the decision she had made and, more so, ashamed of who she was. In our entire relationship, it was the saddest thing she ever conveyed to me and I felt the inner torment she must have lived with for endless years. She let herself down in the deepest of ways. Whether this came about from understandable necessity, weakness of character, the terror of abandonment or the seduction of country clubs I do not know but the devil she made a deal with was not really my father. An internal battle must have raged within her head and she felt she lost and succumbed to her own awful and terrifying demons.

Living with herself must have been near intolerable. To feel repeatedly rejected by her husband and yet continue to stay with him must have brought about feelings of ineffable sadness and rage that could only be measured on some emotional Richter scale. Was this the reason she conveyed her hatred of him and of all men to me? Was this the reason she demanded that I not be like him in any way? Was this the etiology of her constant simmering and seething fury? I think the story is a more complex one.

My mother was always invested in martyrdom. And in her life with my father, she was, in reality, on the receiving end of terrible emotional abuse. She was victimized by him for all the years of their relationship. It is easy to conclude that her deep well of anger was justified and arose because of his behavior toward her.

But I have wondered whether there is an alternative explanation, one in which she played an important part in the awful psychological dance that occurred between them. It’s not so unreasonable to think that my mothers rage arose from early experiences in her own childhood, one filled with deep unmet needs from her parents that left her feeling insatiably hungry. These painful imprints were laid down, of course, well before my father came into the picture.

Might it have been the case that she brought into their marriage pervasive needs that he could never meet? If I experienced her as a woman with unending emotional demands, why wouldn’t he have experienced her in the same way? While I was caught in a reality that prevented me from leaving her, he was not constrained in this way. Was my father on a never ending and fruitless quest for a warm and satisfying connection with a woman as he indulged in his innumerable meaningless mini-affairs? I will never know, but he may have felt a seismic impulse to emotionally flee from this woman whom he couldn’t ever satisfy, a woman who was enraged at him all the time.

If so, they were both caught in the most terrible of torturous places, feeling the deepest rejection from the one supposed to most provide them love in their life. As I think about this, my heart breaks for both of them. Years of emotional and physical deprivation likely damaged their psyches and souls in irreparable ways.

He opted out of their relationship with his affairs and distanced himself from our home with his very long hours at work, leaving me alone with her. While his intent wasn’t to sacrifice me in this way, he did so. He meant me no harm but he must have known on some level that leaving me with her wasn’t in my best interest. What an awful choice he had to make. Save himself, or stay in an unrelenting hell with her, trying to save me. Unfortunately, I likely made his decision to leave much easier for him.

I am ashamed to say that I was very complicit in his flight. During those years, I found him repellant and hated him. Whether I came to despise him because I was invested in doing my mother’s bidding or because of his continual criticisms of me may not be so important. Either way, I became part of the awful dance that was playing out between them. Like my mother, I felt victimized and rejected by him and I used the only weapon at my disposal to punish him for the crimes I felt he was committing against me. I rejected him. He never stood a chance.

How could he bear to stay emotionally present at home with a wife and son who were continually enraged and pushing him away? The very sad truth is that he likely felt that he had lost his wife many years earlier and then came to see that he was going to lose his son, as well. I can never walk in his shoes but I do think this was the emotional reality he lived with. It is said that one of the most unimaginable experiences in life is for a parent to lose a child and this is precisely what happened to him. How inconsolable and alone he must have felt.

So all of us had a role in the life-altering drama that was in play in our home every day. While they were adults and I was a child, I still believe I should have done a much better job avoiding their ensnaring web. Many times, I feel as culpable as they were for the chasms that were created all those years ago.

In my more peaceful moments, I am certain that our tragic story was fueled by the very human needs of three people who simply couldn’t find any healthy ways to feel close, safe and connected. There was enough pain in my family to last a lifetime and, for me, it has.

SIGHT

After being invaded by my mother’s touch, overwhelmed by her needs and emasculated by her rage, I entered adulthood deeply damaged. The odd thing is that I didn’t realize it. I functioned very well in my life in most ways. I did well in college, graduate school and medical school. I established a successful private practice and did well in various hospital based jobs. I developed a great circle of friends, had a second home in the countryside and good relationships with both my sisters.

Most importantly, I met Scott when I was 34 years old and we have been together since then, 26 years to date. We love each other, support each other, enjoy each other’s company, laugh and cry with each other, adore our pets together and travel the world with passion. On the outside, I’m the picture of a healthy and happy man living a meaningful and rich life.

But my aversion to physical contact was in play with everyone. Non sexual hugs with family and friends left me feeling yucky, were never a source of comfort and when they occurred, I wanted them to be finished quickly. I viewed myself as a bit of a freak. After all, who doesn’t like a hug?

As I look back on my life, I’m lucky that I don’t have too many big regrets. I’ve had the good fortune to have charted a life path without addictions, financial or legal troubles or the other kinds of things that plague many others. Even when friendships or other relationships have hit bumps in the road of my making, these have been small in magnitude and haven’t left me with huge guilt or feelings that I have done great harm to anyone. Not just lucky, but blessed.

The truth is, I didn’t ever have much of a sexual drive. I just thought I was built that way. There are people who are more sexual and others that are less sexual and I believed that I was way over on one end of the spectrum. I barely had a sexual beat in my body and it seemed a fixed and immutable characteristic arising from my DNA. I wasn’t curious about it because it just always was.

I always was aware consciously that my relationship with my mother caused me to feel uncomfortable with physical contact. Mostly, I thought I was born a non-sexual person but this additional early imprinting was just icing on the already baked cake. It’s notable that I never, ever explored beyond the superficial awareness I had. To me, it was simple: a mother does some inappropriate things and the son understandably feels a bit uncomfortable with anything physical. Of that I was clear but that was as far as I took it. Not that big a deal. Period, end of story. The only thing that puzzled me was that whenever I allowed myself to think of my past with her, I would start to cry. It was the only thing in my life that elicited this reaction in me. Every single time, tears would come to my eyes.

And then, more recently, I began to cry more frequently. I didn’t understand why this was happening. And then, for reasons I can not explain, one day I admitted that something deeper was in play for me in my long standing phobic avoidance of touch. I finally realized that there was much more to the story of my relationship with my mother than I had allowed myself to see. I knew this on some level for awhile but owned it that day in an honest way that I hadn’t before.

IT WAS INCEST

That evening, after 30 years of blindness, I opened my eyes for the very first time. I went on the internet and did a google search using the key words: “mother,” “son,” and “inappropriate behavior.” What came onto the screen were innumerable pages describing sexual abuse of children perpetrated by their fathers. But buried between these pages, there was a reference here and there to inappropriate behaviors of mothers toward their young sons. I refined my search and was surprised to find a few more articles and two or three books on the subject.

As I started to read, I wept. I stared at the screen and I saw stories that were exactly like mine. Each word described my mother’s actions toward me, both the physical and emotional ones, in ways that were stunningly precise. I couldn’t have written such a perfect description of the story of my childhood years if I wrote it myself. Every single description of her behavior was there in black and white. Every single response of mine was there too. It was if there had been a stenographer sitting beside me from the ages of 5 to 18 recording every act in detail and then transcribing it onto these pages in front of me. Besides the articles and books, there were personal statements of grown men who had experienced what I did and how it affected their adult lives. Addictions, depressions, suicide attempts, impaired or non-existent relationships and on and on.

And there was a word that was used on every page I read. As I saw this word written again and again, I was stunned. My mouth literally was agape. There have been a few moments in my life where something has happened and everything has changed. It was like reality shifted and was never to be the same again. This was one of those moments, one of the biggest of my life.

That word was incest.

After decades of denial, at last, I knew. This is what had happened to me during all my childhood years.

Seeing this in writing changed my life. My finger in the wall of the dyke could no longer hold back the tidal wave of thoughts and feelings that lay on the other side. To be honest, I didn’t want to hold it back anymore. I started to cry and then cried for most of the next two weeks. I couldn’t control myself.

And then, for the first time in my entire life, I knew that I had to do the hard work that I had avoided for 40 years.

It was so clear to me that I was not a man in all senses of the word. I had partially completed that task by being an adult who had built a wonderful life. But, I had failed miserably in becoming a man comfortable with his masculinity and comfortable as a sexual being. It’s so weird that I didn’t even have any inkling that all this was lacking within me. It is a cliche to say that for all my adult years, I had been stuck in my childhood but this cliche was true. My mother robbed me of being a healthy boy and she robbed me of being a healthy man. This essential part of me had been repeatedly raped out of me.

My eyes were beginning to be opened. It was as if a man blind for his entire lifetime was slowly beginning to see. It wasn’t easy to look outward at what had happened to me and to look inward at myself. The latter was more challenging. I had to ask myself some difficult questions. But, as I was doing so, there was a question that popped into my mind. It wasn’t one that I asked. It was one asked of me, many years ago. To move forward, I had to look back.

THE QUESTION

That question has caused me more turmoil than any other query I have ever been asked. From the moment it was uttered, it became forever imprinted on my psyche.

As I listened to the question, I felt like Dorothy, opening the door after that twister deposited her in the land of Oz. But while she walked through a portal into a world of excitement and vibrant color, my experience was precisely the opposite. I entered a new space darkened by a more troubled reality. And at that time, there were no friends to walk with me and no Wizard to bring me safely home again. There was no safe home to return to, both literally and figuratively.

When I was about thirteen, my mother and I were in the car headed west on Northern Boulevard on Long Island, near to where we lived. I remember the road we were on and the exact curve we were traversing when she asked me: “Do you think we have a sick relationship?” I felt exquisitely uncomfortable and responded with a meek “no” and prayed that my brief denial of reality would end the conversation. There was an awkward pause and then we rode on in silence, the usual response in our family when any unpleasant feelings arose.

I have thought about this moment between she and I for decades and still find it very disturbing because of the implications inherent in her question and my answer. I am sure that, in some ways, she had some genuine doubt as to whether our relationship was healthy or not. She seemed so unmoored from reality and so stunningly opaque to herself that it was possible that she didn’t see the very obvious pathology that had been present for years. I knew it viscerally and without any doubt. I told myself that perhaps she did not. I hoped against hope that she was blissfully unaware of what she had done to me during my childhood.

But, why would she ask her son such a question? How was I supposed to respond? How could I ever tell her the truth that I lived with every day? How could I tell her that our relationship was, indeed, pathological? Wasn’t this a question for her to ask a therapist, a friend or her husband? Wasn’t this a question that she should have figured out herself, without needing my refutation or affirmation?

I was once again being placed in the position of being the adult, guiding and helping her through her own need for reassurance and her own uncomfortable feelings. I was being asked to clarify a reality that she clearly suspected was present, but likely wanted me to deny. She was hoping that I would save her from herself in a way no child should be expected to do and to satiate the abyss that was her endless need for reassurance. I tried to do so by pretending that the facts were not factual. An art that I would come to perfect.

But little did I know at the time that her inappropriate question to me, decades down the road, would provide me with the seeds to begin healing. She had no way of knowing this then but she gave me the keys to start to unlock my prison doors. I would not have been able to benefit so profoundly if she had obeyed her rule of silence that she insisted I abide by. I’m grateful that she broke the rule that day.

COMPLICITY AS A CHILD

While her question to me was yet another example of placing me in an impossible position, the words she chose indicated something more malignant at its core. She wanted to know whether “we” had a sick relationship. In using the word “we” she laid bare the ugliest of her disturbed realities. If she were to have asked “Have I done anything to cause our relationship to be sick,” while still inappropriate to ask a child of 13, it would have spoken to what had, for years, been occurring. That question would have indicated an acceptance of her responsibility for the reality of what she had perpetrated upon me. It would have been an act of decency and an act of ownership. But, this was not what she asked. Her question implied that both of us (we) created the disturbed dynamic together. So, in her eyes, I was complicit. She played her part and, as she saw it, I played mine. Equal co-conspirators.

The greatest source of shame that I continue to experience in regards to my relationship with my mother is that I feel complicit in the ugly duet she and I sang together. Unfair or not, I hold myself responsible for playing a role in creating and perpetuating our very distorted dynamic. Though I was a child, I believe I should have been able to rebuff her advances and her seductions. While I would never hold any other child responsible for such a pathological relationship initiated and controlled by a parent, I haven’t afforded myself that kindness. Instead, I have been my own judge and jury. I have found myself guilty as charged for the crimes I fear I chose to commit.

At that time, I couldn’t parole myself from this life sentence because she saw me as culpable on all counts. She meted out an even harsher sentence than I did, filled with unfair accusations and vengeful bitterness. Back then, I agreed with her. I suppose she needed to see me as being partly responsible for all that occurred when I was growing up. The alternative would have been too much for her to bear and she had neither the character strength nor the courage to claim ownership of what was entirely hers to own.

It is no surprise that I have never once heard her accept any responsibility for the grief she has caused the men in her life. But, it is naive of me to expect her to do so. After all, how many abusers admit their past deeds?

What difference would it make if she were unaware that our relationship was disturbed? What if she genuinely believed that hers was only an agenda of love? If that were the case, I might find some small comfort in knowing that her behaviors were due to nothing more than ignorance and limited insight. But her query about our sick relationship confirmed my worst fears. She wouldn’t have asked that question unless she was aware that ours was a connection infused with illness. She may have prayed that it wasn’t so but it was clear to me that even she couldn’t deny the reality. At that moment, her truth had broken though to the surface. Way back then, she knew that she knew.

COMPLICITY AS AN ADULT

Let’s assume for a moment that I have been harsh and unfair in sentencing myself for the collusion with my mother that occurred when I was a child. If I can allow myself to render a judgement of not guilty instead, my shame will lift a bit, leading to a much lighter load on my shoulders. If I can traverse that territory, I can eventually let myself off this self-recriminating hook that continues to wound my healthy sense of self.

But even if I free myself from the belief that I conspired with her during my childhood, I am left with a more daunting well of shame. There is no question in my mind that, as an adult, I have played an active role in perpetuating the very disturbed relationship we have continued to have. Though I left my childhood decades ago, she has continued to expect me to dance with her, and I have done so. Her demands of me may have resulted in a sickening unease within me but, I haven’t rebuffed her advances.

She was invested in continuing this marriage with me and I opted to stay with her. Divorce was a choice I never seriously considered. So, it seems that like her, I too made a deal with the devil in staying with an abusive spouse. I didn’t stay for the money, as she did. It would be an easier pill to swallow if that were the primary reason I have remained wedded to her.

That I chose to continue to be conjoined in this unholy matrimony, says awful things about who I am as a person. I can’t flee from this. The judgements that I rain down on myself are vicious and unrelenting. Perhaps I can never fully understand the reasons I stayed. But however insightful I may become, it seems impossible for me to gaze in a mirror and ever see the person looking back at me as one I can respect. Like mother, like son.

Why did I stay with her? How can I understand the decisions I made to do so? Will I ever come to terms with the role I played? Is there any conclusion I can draw, given my conscious collaboration, that leaves me with any self worth? Might there be some way to alleviate this crushing weight of shame?

I remember when I was about 30 years old, I was living in Baltimore and my mother and father came for a visit. All three of us were walking down the crowded street when she reached out and put her hand on my shoulder. I had a violent inner reaction, with thoughts of ripping her arm off my shoulder, screaming at her and warning her never to place her hands anywhere on me again. Despite the intense inner turbulence that roiled in my head, I remained silent. Even a milder response I couldn’t muster. With my meek acquiesce, I was complicit. So, she and I walked on together as any couple would. Whether my father noticed or cared, I do not know but his peripheral place was familiar.

I went to medical school 8,000 miles away from home, in Israel. I was in my second year of studies and was very angry with her. My near-rage was focused on her continuing efforts to control my life even though there were continents that lay between us. Of course, I had never expressed this to her. One day, I called her. For the very first time in my life, I yelled at her unrelentingly and told her to stop trying to control me, to stop being so needy and to leave me alone. I must have gone on for five minutes straight without taking a breath. I remember being terrified but in some ways, the venting felt good.

She responded with one sentence and it was delivered with the coldest of tones. She said, “I don’t have any needs from you.” Hearing this stopped me in my tracks. She then made it clear that I had hurt her terribly and I didn't say another word before we hung up. I had thought about having a conversation like this for years but never, in my imaginings, did I expect a response like this from her. I felt completely dismissed. Quickly rejected as if I mattered nothing to her.

Even worse, I questioned my reality. I had always experienced her as unendingly needy yet here she was, telling me that she had no needs of me. Had I misinterpreted a lifetime of experiences? How could I be so wrong after feeling her endless expectations of me for years on end? I remember questioning my own sanity. I was being told by her that I had been, and remained, nuts. But, those questions didn’t preoccupy my thoughts.

Instead, I was quickly overtaken by a tidal wave of guilt. It was like nothing I had ever felt. I had hurt her in a way I had never previously done and I was rendered inconsolable. It’s not an exaggeration to say that I couldn’t function. The following days, I was unable to study, and merely went through the motions of life. It was one of the worst feelings I remember having in my entire adult life. It felt impossible to bear and I thought about suicide. While I can’t remember the details, I initiated a call to her in the next few days and said whatever I needed to say to have her anger (and my guilt) ease. I was successful in some ways because I felt some small relief. She remained distant emotionally but at least I could function.

After I settled down, I gave myself some credit for trying to break away from her and stop the decades-long cycle of being complicit through silence. This little experiment, though, was a searing and unforgettable experience and I never again confronted her in this way for the next 25 years. That’s a long time to be complicit.

Awhile ago, there had been a spate of news articles about many powerful men across the nation who had sexually abused women in their places of work. The men were accused of a range of crimes including creating a hostile work environment, inappropriate touch and rape. This topic of conversation came up during a Thanksgiving dinner at my sister’s home. My mother was skeptical of many of the charges these women were making. She voiced her opinion that a man touching a woman without her consent shouldn’t be construed as inappropriate or problematic. In a stunning display of her own blindness, she grabbed my thigh and expressed to everyone within earshot that touching me in this way shouldn’t be seen as a problem. I shifted my position in my chair to distance myself from her but not far enough to be out of her reach. That I said nothing was, once again, a decision on my part to be a willing participant in her boundary violation. I can’t claim any victory in my slight shift to avoid her grasp. That action was meek and ineffective. There was no one to blame for the fact that her hand remained on my thigh except me.

Just a few years ago, I was visiting her in Florida, a trip I felt obligated to make since her husband was ill. For thirty years, my visits to her were endured with gritted teeth and bitten tongues. Despite knowing this would be my experience, I went anyway. Complicit again. My sisters and I were sitting in her living room and, out of the blue, she said “you’re legs are so muscular.” I remember feeling acutely embarrassed, in part because my siblings heard her remark. No one said a word, including me, and the awkward moment of silence passed quickly though a wave of nausea and rage coursed through me. My siblings may have been unaware of the creepiness of my mother’s comment but if it registered as inappropriate, they acted as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. No surprise at all since this sort of comment from my mother was commonplace and unremarkable. Their muteness, in my view, was an example of our family’s long history of living with a conspiracy of silence especially when anything uncomfortable arose. Add another moment when I couldn’t find my divorcing voice and reaffirmed our wedding vows.

More recently, on another visit, she cornered me when I was by myself, a situation I always dreaded. She proceeded to tell me that she loved me more than she loved my sisters. I was truly stunned into silence but she quickly reassured me that she loved my sisters too but, in contrast, we had a “special” relationship. This comment was one of the most shocking things that my mother has ever said to me. Her comment was malignant in its intent.

I immediately felt so sad for my sisters and hoped that my mother never conveyed this verbally or in action to either of them at any time. I recognized that my mother didn’t say that she had a special relationship with me. She said “we” have a special relationship with each other. Once again, she was making me complicit in the disturbed reality that existed between us. But my protestations aside, how can I disagree with her ugly assessment of my culpability? Why wouldn’t she interpret my endless silence to her provocations over the years as anything other than agreement with her beliefs? My crimes may have been ones of silent omission rather than active commission but they were crimes nonetheless.

A few years after my father died, my mother remarried and I remember feeling relief that her husband’s presence would divert some of her attention away from me. He was quite a bit older than she and he became seriously ill after falling and breaking his hip. About a year after his fall, he died and she wanted to speak at his funeral. She asked me to be the family spokesperson and say something during the service but in a rare moment of assertiveness, I declined. It was a small victory at best. She continued her effort to devour my identity by telling me that she needed me to accompany her as she delivered her eulogy up in front of the funeral chapel. Before beginning to speak she announced to everyone present that I was her “support” and she needed me to be near her at this difficult time. While there had been too many to count moments of discomfort over the years when she’d verbalize that she possessed my body and soul, this was the largest gathering I can recall when she broadcast this fact. As she did so, I felt humiliated in front of all the family and friends that had gathered. She was asserting her ownership of me in the most public of ways and my silence gave her the green light to feel the way she did and permission to continue doing to me whatever she pleased. She was burying one husband while another cowered behind her.

Fifty years of innumerable inappropriate violations from her were accompanied by fifty years of innumerable pathetic acts of complicity on my part. It’s a story that has wrecked my self esteem and left my soul deeply damaged. It is impossible for me to delude myself that my inactions and silence arose from anywhere other than a place of character weakness, lack of courage and timidity.

TRUST

The word “trust” arises from the Greek word “pistis” which roughly translates to “faith,” “confidence,” and “assurance.” Trust allows us to form relationships with people and to depend on them for love, advice and help. Inherent in trust is the requirement of being vulnerable to another. It involves taking a risk that someone will come through for us. Dependence and hope are imbedded in trust. If we knew that someone would always be there for us, whether we trusted them or not would be irrelevant. So trust can be dangerous. We risk losing the things that we entrust to others, including self respect and self worth. Because of all this, we have to be careful to choose wisely in whom we place our trust.

Trust is different than reliance. We rely on a lot of people in our lives to do things for us and are understandably disappointed when they fall short of our expectations. We might rely on our husband to take out the trash, or the garbage truck to pick up the trash, but that is very different than placing trust in them to do so.

Like all children, I didn’t get to choose my parents. Like all children, I was placed in a position of having to trust my parents to take care of me. I was dependent on them to place my needs above theirs, to do what was in my best interest, to love and support me, to help me and to comfort me. In all these ways, my mother not only violated my boundaries, she violated my trust in order to satisfy her own needs. My need for her was inherent in my childhood DNA. I don’t blame myself for my innate hunger and thirst.

But, my mother failed me daily throughout my childhood. One incestuous experience can shatter a child. Repeated violations by my mother laid down imprints that are sometimes too deep for me to imagine. From my earliest memories, I knew something was very wrong in our relationship. I felt it viscerally, overtaken with a sick feeling whenever she broke through my emotional defenses or invaded my body. But what I didn’t comprehend at the time was what was really happening. The ickiness I felt back then has a name. It’s called betrayal.

Though I knew something awful was happening, I think I assumed that she was behaving in the ways that a loving mother does. The illness that infused our relationship became my definition of love. I didn’t have the capacity to understand that my reflexive discomfort was a symptom of being betrayed. I must have just thought that my feelings were my doing, not hers. So for me, her violations put the locus of pathology on me rather than her. I owned it even though it wasn’t mine to own. I learned from her that violating boundaries and betraying those you love were just a part of all relationships. Such was the template that would govern all my attachments in my life. But, is this so? I am very puzzled by something.

I have developed a wonderful life and have been in a loving and intimate relationship for a quarter of a century. I feel so very close to my husband. I love him without conflictual feelings or ambivalence and I feel neither untrusting nor untrustworthy. I have great relationships with both my sisters and meaningful friendships. All these relationships I have built. It doesn’t compute to me that I could have accomplished all this given the endless betrayals that I experienced early in my life. I’m left with the following conclusion: I’m over-blowing what transpired in my childhood. The original wounds were not so great.

But, I feel in my gut that the repeated betrayals and violations were of enormous magnitude. I feel affirmed by having read innumerable stories written by other men who precisely describe the experiences I have had. They have called this incest and it has affected their lives deeply. So, soul-shaking transgressions did occur. I believe that I’m not exaggerating the reality of what happened. I truly think I see it with clear sighted eyes and it was as bad as I feel it to be. In my childhood, I was deeply wounded to my core.

But, has the legacy been one of irreparable impairment? I’m deeply close to my husband and we have a loving and trusting relationship. I’m attached to him in very healthy ways, despite the pervasive historical reality of the infected connection with my mother. And how can I explain my healthy relationships with my sisters and my friends?

I can only conclude that I have already overcome some of the relationship damage my mother inflicted upon me. Perhaps I have been lucky. Perhaps I have chosen a partner and friends wisely. Perhaps I have been blessed with loving friends and two sisters that are very trustworthy. But it may be that it’s more than luck.

It is just possible that I have somehow found the inner strength to transcend her duplicity and deception. It is possible that in these vital ways, I have thrown off the mantle of being merely a victim (or a collaborator) and have demonstrated some internal fortitude. It is possible that her distorted rules haven’t held me captive. I don’t think that I’m trying to convince myself of something that’s not true. I believe that I am correct. It’s the only conclusion that makes sense. This is my truth. And in this truth, lies the seeds of my salvation. This is my light that guides me to a place of healing. There lies strength within me.

HEALING

As I contemplate what lies ahead, I want to be very clear about one thing: I don’t have a written script in front of me delineating the path forward. I really don’t know what I need to do to heal. I am beginning to understand the magnitude of what has transpired and have already had many emotional reactions as I have become aware of this. But, how do I walk toward a place of healing? I have some ideas about what might be helpful but I’m just guessing. I could be right and I could be wrong.

I do know this: I am infused with a steely determination and an internal compass that points me in directions that I believe will be helpful. I feel laser focused. I don’t know if I have the internal strength to persevere but I think I do. It’s time. It’s past time. It’s not just that I feel that I have to, it’s that I want to. So, what do I think I need to do? Here’s my best guess:

The only way to move forward is to have help from others. I can’t and shouldn’t do this alone for important reasons. I will need support through dark times. I will need good souls to help me feel less alone. I will need to rely on the wisdom of others. But mostly, I will need to let others see me. Healthy others. Since I was forced into the role of caregiver, I’m sure that healing will require that I become a care receiver. I’ll have to place my faith in connections that will make me feel terribly vulnerable. I can only pray that I choose wisely and opt for those who are trustworthy. Might it be the case that being cared for in a healthy and supportive way could be a corrective experience? I think it might be. Given that my healthy attachments have already allowed me to feel loved, it seems that I might be right in my supposition.

But, the dependency on another caregiver will be a big hill to climb. I will be wary of being abused and disappointed. I might need to drag myself kicking and screaming up that hill. Reliance on caregivers in the past has led me to terribly unsafe places so my default position is to always be in charge and in control. The exact opposite of what authentic open heartedness requires. As I said, an uphill climb way outside my comfort zone. But discomfort always accompanies growth. How can I step into a healthier inner world without extending my hand, opening up, navigating my way through vulnerability and allowing people to see all of who I am? Whether I am able to do this, I do not know but I’m going to give it a very good try.

I can’t know what form it will take but a component of healing must be allowing myself to tell my story. How can this not be a part of healing? Having been forced into a lifetime of silence, finding my voice seems essential. I have muted myself and what I haven’t spoken had become unspeakable. But it is not, in fact, unspeakable. If I can handle my feelings, I can find the words. Since my shame lives in the shadows, bringing my story out to the light of day is required. I have allowed my mother to render me mute and I don’t think I can continue to be silent and become healthy. How many times must I speak my truth? With whom must I share? I don’t know.

I have felt repeatedly victimized throughout my childhood. The facts support this, I know. I have wondered whether I can continue to have an identity as a victim and heal. I think not. Victims feel powerless. Victims don’t have mastery over their own lives. Continuing to view myself as a victim allows her to control my thoughts and actions. If she remains powerful, I remain powerless. How do I reclaim an identity of a strong survivor rather than a victim? What must I do or say to bring this about? I don’t know.

Having been enmeshed with her for a lifetime, it seems that divorce is long overdue. It’s impossible for me to believe that there is any healing if I remain married to her. But how does separation occur? What do I do to bring this about? Is this a journey in my head or must I, in real life, hand her papers? Divorce usually comes about with anger and recrimination. Do I think mine will be amicable? No, I imagine it will be very messy. Very. But, I don’t know.

I’ve wondered a lot about whether I need to confront my mother about all this. Isn’t my real battle the one in my head? Other than keeping my distance from her, must I challenge her? Must I confront my abuser? I would think that it’s absolutely necessary to prevent any further inappropriate behavior no matter my feelings of guilt. I’m clear about that. But, do I need to tell her my truth? I’d prefer to believe I don’t need to do this in order to heal. Most of the time it’s what I think. But, I don’t know.

Given that I have been deeply invested in taking care of her and trying to prevent her from falling apart, I think I will need to swim upstream to heal. I think I will need to tolerate the guilt of watching her de-compensate if that’s what happens. I think it very likely that I am going to need to withstand feeling guilty for letting her down and resist my impulse to jump in and rescue her. Disappointing her will need to be tolerated. Perhaps it’s not so much about doing something. Perhaps it’s more about sitting with my feelings. I don’t know.

I’m crystal clear that as a healthy person, I will determine who touches me and where and when. I will retain complete authority over this. Non negotiable. Period. Am I required to first say “no” in order to say “yes?” With whom must I draw these lines, besides my mother? Do I have the courage to enforce these new rules? What if her touch these days isn’t imbued with malignancy? I am sure that there is no touch from her that I could ever experience as benign. I know this. What about a hug hello or goodbye? I’m quite confused about this and unclear. I will need to figure this out down the road but I’m unsure. I don’t know.

I have wondered whether it is possible to reframe complicity into something less toxic. Complicity implies purposeful action. It says that I have intentionally participated in something harmful to me. The important word is intentional. Might this be reframed? Is it possible to see my actions not as purposeful but rather arising from a place of trying to save myself? Could I possibly believe in compliant surrender rather than complicity? What if the price of compliance was lower than the price of noncompliance? Is there any way to view all this such that it doesn’t lead me to conclude that I am weak and complicit? This is so important but I am at a loss as to how to reframe all this and, even if I do so, whether I will truly believe it. Is there any peace and reconciliation to be had? I don’t know.

I don’t believe I need her to set me free. She can continue to be oblivious to what she has done or willfully deny it but I don’t feel that it’s required that she admit her sins. Abusers never do that and hoping that she will brings me to a place of needfulness and dependence that I don’t feel is healthy. The less I ask of her to provide me with redemption the less power she retains. She can’t hold the keys to my prison. That has been her role for my lifetime and it’s up to me to forge my own keys for my liberation. But, can I ever set myself free? I don’t know.

I am so lost. Opening my eyes to the past has allowed me to turn my gaze toward the future but all I see is blank, unscripted pages. There’s nothing written that provides me a clue as to how to proceed. It’s easy to say that it’s my job to write a new ending (one of health and healing) to an old story (one of pain and betrayal), but how? Do my queries above point me in some general directions? Yes, perhaps they do but even if I can imagine how a healthier life might look, I don’t know the steps to take to get there. How do I get to Oz if there’s no yellow brick road to show me the way?

There are only two things I know for sure. The first is that I don’t know what happens after step one. I simply can’t know that right now. The second thing I know is what step one has to be. I must begin to tell my story. Perhaps I will need to tell it only once to one person. More likely, I will need to tell it again and again to many others, be they friends, family members or those who have had similar experiences in their past. I must choose wisely as I entrust others to listen and to help.

But, what is the second step? Forming a treatment team? Finding a group? Writing more? Exercising and sleeping? I don’t know. But that is precisely as it should be. I’m so invested in rushing this along, wanting to script it all out right now. But, this is an emotional and experiential journey, not a linguistic one. I have to experience it (not just think it) word by word, sentence by sentence and page by page. I want to leap ahead and write the last chapter of my book right now. But, I can’t.

I have some shaky faith that If I begin to write the first healing page, I will see, feel, think and behave my way onward to page two. I’d like to believe that I have enough fortitude, perseverance and wisdom to find my way.

I have written here the story of my past with complete transparency and honesty.

I have looked backward. I know that I must peer inward to step forward. But, at long last, that is an inside job that feels healthy, healing and freeing.