Complicated Feelings

Complicated Feelings
J

Josh1

Registrant
My abuser was my 10th grade English teacher and, for about 3-4 years of my life, was the most important person in the world to me. And then it was over. And I stayed in silence and shame until I started therapy and then told my parents and then sued and then told more people ...

I wish all I felt for him was hatred or I felt nothing ... But the honest fucking truth is that even so many years and therapy sessions and disclosures and revelations and writing sessions and remarkable conversations, my feelings are complex.

There are parts of me that miss him, at least the idealized him that didn't systematically try to destroy my life. I so wish he could have just been an amazing mentor and kept his hands off and his psychological tendrils away. Is it possible still to have warm feelings for the childhood object of idealization which in retrospect had little to do with object of the idealization?

Does this ring a bell with anyone else? I know this is a tough question, particularly because such an important part of our healing process for a group such as male survivor is getting in touch with our anger, realizing that these perpetrators do and say anything to get what they want.

I am clear that he was an abuser, a perpetrator who should never again be allowed around kids and should be held accountable for how much pain he caused me.

But what about the other feelings? Is there room to hate our abusers and hold them accountable before the law and society and yet to recognize those feelings of loss, love, friendship?

I would be honored to hear others' thoughts on this.

With love and gratitude,

Josh
 
Josh,

This is very intersting and an issue I deal with all the time. My abuser was another boy just a bit older than me and pretty much a brother to me. While I hate the abuse, and especially how it got worse as we grew older and he grew more manipulative and scary, there is still something there. When I strip away the abuse, there is still just hanging out and playing together. There is his contribution in helping me escape an abuse home life and taking me away from that other scary part of my young life. One minute I hate him, and the next I almost love him. It is very difficult to deal with sometimes, and the primary reason why I didn't recognize my abuse as abuse. He had to be abused himself, and although I think early on he was unaware of how he transferred his own abuse to me, I realized later that he knew what he was doing. He was more scary, violent, and manipulating later.

I don't know. I think I understand where you are at? He was such a good thing sometimes, when nothing else seemed good at all, that to totally throw him away is to also throw away a big portion of the few happy memories I survived with. I am not sure I can do that right now. I am trying to reconcile this duplicity.

I hope that helps; you're not alone in feeling the way you do I guess. I don't have an answer but I feel just as confused about it, and I'm not sure what to do.
 
Josh,

I was struggling with the questions you raise for quite a time, but now I think I know what I want to say about this. I thought it would be complex, but it isn't.

I think the feeling you feel is a feeling of grief and loss. What you miss is the idealized image that proved to be an illusion. You are wishing that he could have been the wonderful kind and supportive teacher you needed as a boy and thought you had.

I really don't know of course. Perhaps he was a decent guy who unwisely let things get out of hand. But I doubt it. He could have put an end to it at any time, and he didn't. He strung it out for years.

I hope I don't hurt or offend you when I say this: it's more likely that he was grooming you from the start, and that the gentleness and support was all part of the charade. As so many of us know, that is part of the brutal cruelty of this sort of abuse - the betrayal of a boy's need for attention and affection from adult role models.

Much love,
Larry
 
For years I would wonder why I am attracting people who treat me abusively, and then I realised that I too had mixed feeling like u , somehow they way my abuser treated me became my language of love so I subconsciously sought out such relationships, where I got abused in one way or another, in short I paid a heavy price for love.

Now I am wiser.
 
Josh

I understand completely what you are saying. My abuser was like a surrogate father, he gave me encouragement, attention, affection, infact he gave me all the things a father should give all except one he abused me physically and mentally but at the time I was too young to realise that. I still have trouble hating him today and was glad when he was jailed for four years a couple of weeks back.

He deceived me into thinking he was one of the most important people in my life but today I know the truth by something he once said it went something like this:

"Imagine being me, the boys that I love have a shelf life they reach seventeen and they are gone"

I read this comment only about four years ago. What he was really saying was this. Boys to him are just a commodity a throw away type of consumerism thing, a bit akin to throwing our once favourite toy into the dustbin. Once I had read that it made it a lot easier to understnad him and abusers in general and now I dispise him all the more for it.

Kirk
"Lets grab this bull by the horns and swing it about a bit"
 
Josh - I don't know how your abuse started, but I was groomed! The perv made out that he was my best friend... he shared his air rifles with me, gave me his sweets & bought me apples. Then gradually the abuse started.

That's why you can get mixed feelings about them .... they can pretend to be your best friend, but at the same time, they are your worst enemy. I can clearly distinguish the damage that the perv did to me, and all I feel for him now is disgust!

He was 32 at the time, I was 12!

Best wishes...Rik
 
I think the biggest damage from abuse is when we stop trusting ourselevs, own feelings and our choices, having 'goofed up' once, we fail to give ourselves another chance.

Last time you did so you got terribly betrayed, what you thought was love turned out be something monsterous that is where I think lies the biggest battle of recovery that when you can allow yourself to be trusted by your own self, that the choices and decisions you have made are correct , good for you. You stop trusting your own interest and sincerity in your own well being.

That is when you have understand that, Its Ok, it was not your fault to feel that way.
It was just a mistake in judgment on your part, but then you are just a innocence kid. But now I am grown up and now I am wise I can trust myself again, I can make sound sensible decisions and take responsibility of my choices and not look towards others for that approval.

Life always gives us a second chance.
 
Josh you know that D took over a year grooming you and getting you to relax and acept his shit as normal. He worked on you to tare down all those boundarys that you had.

I know D could of been a great role model and friend but you most likly where just another conquest for him.
Tom
 
You were a child, and the child still looks up to the man, the memories you stored of him and his devotion to you (not the molestation) are good memories, that is what you are missing, the child is missing the appropriate attention that you deserved and the adult hates the affect the molestation had on your life. I do not miss the man who molested me, I miss the ability to trust male authority figures.

Thanks for posting,
 
I just read Morning Star's Post and this is without a doubt the truth by a long shot and a valid point

"I think the biggest damage from abuse is when we stop trusting ourselevs, own feelings and our choices, having 'goofed up' once, we fail to give ourselves another chance."

I have a hard time trusting in myself, I lost something of great value, My childhood, my virtue, my self respect and putting it back out on the table and trusting others or this world was a hard thing to overcome. I am not fully there yet but it is coming with each and every day. I am prepared to have loss but I am willing to lose because I want to live again and living freely is not loss, living in fear of loss is perpetual loss.
 
Josh,

My abusers were family members: brother, cousin. To understand what they were doing to me, I fell in love with them. But, I was a little boy trying to understand what was going on. I didn't ask for it. Neither did you. But, all these years later it is OK to still feel part of that love. I have just accepted that. Part of the feeling for me is abandonment, loss of idol figures, etc. From your post, I gather you feel similar things. The feelings of love/anger/hate/confusion all blend complexly. I am learning to accept that and who I am because of it.

Russ
Milwaukee, WI
 
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