Dressing down!!! TTT

Dressing down!!! TTT
R

reality2k4

Registrant
I remember when I was a kid, after it happened, I tore every pair of shorts I had, I vowed never to wear them again, they were symbolic of abuse. They became a big symbol to it, so I would be scared to wear shorts, even when playing sports at school.

As a keen sporty kid, I was always first at running, jumping, and I played soccer for the school. I was good at sports, because I knew I had to be faster than anyone, just in case!

I did wear shorts at school events, but I never felt safe, and felt so vulnerable. I wore them for fear of being laughed at, but my legs were always vulnerable, I always felt naked in shorts.

I always wanted to join the boy scouts, but hey, you have to wear shorts, if you don't, you're not getting in!!!

Another childhood dream, up in smoke###???

I suppose I must have a decent pair of legs, but if they attracted so much attention then, I thought? Nobody is going to see them again.

I also remember the cold winter months, having to wear a coat with a hood, always feeling so much cold on my face, because I had to be so aware of so much of who is in the vicinity. Is there danger? Like a little animal, looking all the time to see if it is safe to be where he is, always ready to flee.

I remember being with a group of friends, but always being vigilant, always looking for danger!
My friends would comment on. Who do you think is coming?

So I have to lie, making some dopey excuse on why? I was so edgy in such a big group of friends. It made such a liar out of a kid who doesn't lie! Except to avoid the awful truth.

I am hoping that this thread will help others discover what holds them back.

What were you're fears? How did you cope? Was it affective?

These are just a few things I can remember, there are many more,

When we confront these fears, we can make headway through the confusion, and take away these conditioned fears.

Hope I am making sense, making sense from something that was taken away in our childhoods'.

Every child has the right to grow up in a safe and secure environment, where help is not so far away, where they will believed. A safe environment is the right of every child.

I spent a lot of mine in the wilderness, but I am getting there. Sorry about the long post, it was just irking me!

ste
 
Ste,

It wasnt the same with me but I wanted my body covered, long sleeves and long trousers, I wanted to be hidden inside them. I do remember underwear that I buried trying to dump the shame.

The hyper-vigilance I still have to some extent. I dont get it so much but sitting on a crowded train I sometimes have to stand up if a man is standing in front of me, the angle sends a shiver of fear that something is going to happen. I can usually talk my little self out of the fear these days and keep the seat.

As a kid I would stay out of arms reach of my mother, as I never knew when she was going to hit me. She would hit us for being afraid saying what are you so frightened of Im your mother. Confusing or what?

I am still edgy but I have made some progress with it. I am beginning to feel safer in the world.

Thanks for bringing this up, you made lots of sense to me.

Rustam
 
Thinking back...

!!! - Warning - !!! - May trigger - ?!?

Yes - I did tend to overdress a lot - was trying to hide myself - anytime that I was out in public I always wanted to have on long sleeves and long pants (to draw less attention) - and yet I hated to wear underwear (tighty whitey's) - took me a long time to understand that that feeling was doubley connected to both my mother (more than a few pair of bloody underwear burried in the backyard) and my Uncle (used to use mine to clean himself up after we were done and then have me put them back on and wear them the rest of the day)

Even yet to this day I only wear colored boxer briefs that are loose fitting and I really don't like anything tight to me when I sleep so most often sleep in the nude...

Back in the days of being young I never knew where the hurt was going to come from (abuse at home - at my Uncles - and never ending bullying and fights between school and home) - I had to be hyper-vigalent in those days because I was a runt of a child (skiny, small, and underweight)... - As my body started to grow I jumped headfirst into weightlifting to try to strengthen my body as best I could (was in the weight club all 4 years of high school)(even lifted there my 8th grade year) - it took a lot of work to build my body up to the point where I felt safe to walk down a street at night alone...

I do feel safer now than I did back then - and yet I sometimes worry about my future because I was recently diagnosed with a rare genetic form of Muscular Dystrophy which has reduced my muscle endurance by over 50% already - I worry about someday being dependant upon someone else... - that trust of someone else being there to care for me without hurting me... - Somehow I will manage to keep myself safe though when and if that time comes...

TJ jeff
 
The over-sized trends of the eighties were a Godsend for me! I wore t-shirts down to my knees and baggy pants through most of my adolescence.

By my college years, I was all about baggy, faded flannels and ripped jeans. I shaved about once a week. I recall comeing home one weekend and my mother saying something like, "I swear, it's like you're trying to make yourself unattractive."

I still wear baggy clothes and feel awkward in anything that fits. I go through spurts of wearing stuff that is cut for someone my size, but inevitably they are short lived and find their way to Goodwill at the end of the season.

Oh, and I almost forgot! Those ugly green knee socks covered up a lot of skin for me in those Boy Scout days. I quit the year they dropped them from the uniform :)

Peace,
Brian
 
Wow, I never thought of the behaviours I took up as a result of the assualt. Basically I believed that being assualted was a sign of weakness. Although I had an awesome network of family and friends I was 100% sure that they would laugh at me when I told them and call me a pussy for not being strong enough to fight back. This thought has always stayed with me and because of it I'm now a brown belt in Muay Thai Kickboxing. It's strange because I don't fear fighting the guys I'm put up against (some of them 30 y/o's with biceps the size of my head) because I believe that it is training me up so that the next perpetrator who tries anything on me is going to get smashed through the nearest wall. So I really don't mind being beaten to a pulp by these guys because it's conditioning me for the next time I'm attacked. But I somehow don't think there's ever gonna be a next time. It's made me feel safe now but I worry with persistent anger management problems that I'd better keep a lid on where I let violence out.
 
I was just thinking of this post, so I brought it up.

I was thinking that lately, I have been going back to old habits of letting my hair grow long.

I have a pic which I will post when I find it, of me on a passport with long hair.
I guess at the time, that I was just trying to disguise myself!

Truth is, I hated long hair, and if I think right, it is that I wanted to look like a girl. WHY?

Because my stoopid mind kept telling me that perps who touch boys, dont like girls, but maybe it was just how my sexuality had been twisted and torn.

I never felt like a man, and had trouble identifying or liking my body.

I got so disgusted at being a boy, he wanted to just cut his man bits off, and I mean it.
This is how deep it went with me, and I guess I wore clothes that hid my masculinity.

I tried to build my body later to be able to fend off other males who cause trouble.

The stressors on my body and mind always ended up in one place, down there, where it all started.

If I get really stressed now, it goes straight to my butt, and old wound that never goes away,

ste
 
i totally understand the whole clothes thing. in gym class i hate having to put on the shorts and i hate chaging in the locker room even more. i have to go into the bathroom stall to change so that i know no one is looking...and even then i am peering between the crack of the stall door the whole time to make sure no one is coming or trying to look in. i know the other guys think i am wierd...but there is nothing else i can do.

after everything ended for me i started to try to dress in a way that was really baggy, unattractive, and unclean. i never combed my hair, i never wanted to shower, i wore dirty, ripped clothes, etc. this was so that no one would come near me. it was also a way for me to try to somehow tell them that something was wrong and that i wanted help. no one read into that, though.

i still dress in really baggy shirts and jeans so that no one can see any sign of my body. in clothes like that no one sees your body and it is almost like you no longer have one for anyone to look at or hurt.

anyways, i understand.
 
I wasn't allowed (by my dad) to wear long trousers until I was about 15 years old! Damn that was embarrassing. I hate shorts now.

I too have a dressing disorder, I'm wearing old clothes now, everything is at least 5 years old, my digusting old jumper is about 10. I used to dress really badly for medical interviews. Dirty clothes smelly unwashed and unshaved. Once I saw written in medical notes, 'slightly badly dressed' and knew I'd made the point. But it seemed such a small point and it hurt so bad to show it. It was (is) a way to say, I'm fucked up and need help! Now I dress clean for medical stuff, but at home or wandering the city streets by myself I'm dirty and faded and tired.

I just started a therapy course, and one thing we have to do every week is change clothes during the therapy afternoon. We do a sweaty dance session and then a deep talk session. We can decide how and what we change, but changing clothes in a locker room or hidden in a shower cubicle is an obligatory part of the course. An oportunity to experience safe changing and learn it is possible to be safe and perhaps eventually even feel safe with other men around while changing clothes. Eeek!
 
My childhood memories dont come back so easy, but I just remembered this one.

If I did wear tight jeans or pants on occasion, I seemed to get noticed a lot more, by possibly the wrong type of people.

Maybe it is how we start to develop self defeating behaviour, but guess what! Why should a kid have to worry about perves anyhow, and should be able to wear what they want.

Some narrow minded folk call it flirting, I call it expression.

Am I right or them?

ste
 
Ste,

Good thread. My main memory of this was thinking that my body was betraying me. The abuser pointed out that erections meant that I "liked it" after all, and that seemed to confirm all my bad feelings about my body.

I hated changing for gym and showering afterwards, and I was absolutely sure that something about me would tell everyone that I was being abused - as if I had a sign on me. I liked swimming a lot, but I tried to spend as much time in the water as possible. When I got out immediately I would put a towel around me.

Much love,
Larry
 
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