Hello...who are you anyway?

Hello...who are you anyway?
B

Bobby

Registrant
Just now I re-read something I had written here. I do that from time to time because things I write here just come pouring out sometimes, and I need to go back to find out what some part of me or other thought. The last one I read was a poem that I had written describing a rather impossible dream/memory I have had. I wrote it in the poetry section because many times that's the way my mind speaks. Prose is beyond its capacity, but random thoughts which may or may not make sense to anybody else come floating out. They always make sense to me.

I must tell you that this particular "memory" frightens me very much because of its unvbelievablity. I keep thinking, "Well, if this one is simply impossible and it comes from the same place as all of the other ones and I base the reality of my SA on these memories and this one is completely implausable, does that mean that they are all implausable?"

And if its true that all of my memories might be false and I wasn't abused, then where do all of these feelings come from and this pain and this anguish? How really nuts am I then, huh? How nuts?

And so, I never speak of this particular memory or dream or fantasy from my childhood because of what it could mean to everything else. I tuck it away under "too scary to think about". And yet it's there. One of my t's believes it completely and fully as truth. Another thinks it might be simply representing in my mind more than one incidence of SA which have been combined into one memory. I really wish someone would finally publish the book on my SA, so I could just go to the chapter marked "Really preposterous memory that doesn't mean a damn thing." read it, and be done with it.

Anyway, I went back several times to re-read the poem. It's exactly the way I saw it...more than once. I know that little boy and I know exactly how he felt. He was a little boy just sitting there and waiting and not afraid and knew what would probably happen, and.... If all this is true, what a strange life that kid had. What was normal for him was really bizarre...out there...unbelievable. But it was his reality. He didn't know that other people had different realities. The whole thing is preposterous, but I know how he felt. It was me. I was there and I'm there and I'm watching it at the same time and I know who is coming and I know what he is going to do....well not exactly. I know kind of what he is going to do...the theme is always the same.

But, if that one is true, then the rape in junior high is probably true and I hardly ever think about the rape in junior high because I only remembered that once. My camp counselor did that. I see him behind me and I'm on the bed and, well, you get the picture...and I feel things. The one thing I feel is what it feels like to be penetrated by a man and that has never happened to me in a "real" memory, but the feeling was so vivid and so precise that I described what it felt like to a gay friend of mine. He said that that's exactly what it feels like during gay sex. How else could I know?

And why is there never any pain? Why do I feel sensations like a fullness or a pushing or a discomfort, but never any excruciating pain? I know it had to hurt. And why did no one ever see any injuries? Shouldn't there have been injuries?

And why would he rape me? Well, I know the answer to that. He hated me. He thought I was a sissy. He didn't like sissies. He called me Marilyn. He was this macho, muscular guy. He raped me because he hated who I was.

But why is that such a minor memory to me? Wouldn't you think that would traumatize me horribly? Why would I just accept that as something that happened to me as opposed to all of that stuff that happened when I was 1 to 6 that really destroyed who I was? I don't understand that. It's kind of like I an "Oh well, that happened, let's move along." Can kids have that kind of attitude?

Part of me accepts my SA. Part of me is ready to get on with the healing. My child is certainly ready to get on with the healing. He has done everything but turn hand springs to help me to understand that I/he was sexually abused. But those awful, horrible, doubts. Can't someone take them away? Or let me accept? Two memories and I could go on....I think. My main battle is not healing...it's believing.

I know some of you will be furious when I say this, but my child and I truly believe that what we got, we deserved, because we were not real men. We believe that we were so flawed and so worthless that our father had a right to do what he did to us...the we were unworthy of anything else...that we got exactly what we deserved. We don't want to confront him for doing horrible things...we want to say how sorry we are that he found it necessary to do them.

Is that not horrible? It's not even hard to admit. It's just true. I can't blame him because I think he had a right to do those things to me because I didn't think I had the right to live. I think I still believe that...that I am that flawed.

Now many of you will interpret this as someone's way of trying to get sympathy. I assure you that it's not. I can tell myself otherwise until I'm blue in the face. I know all of my good points. I know all of my talents....and I know all of the areas in which I lack talent completely and that doesn't bother me...it helps me enjoy the talents of others all the more. If I put myself down in any way, my wife really lets me have it...although I'm not sure that is really a good strategy...to yell at someone for putting themselves down. Bottom line is that most of me believes what he told me about myself and agrees with him. I absolutely cannot accept who I am.

I don't know where this all started, or where it was supposed to go. I know it had a purpose at one point. I learned a lot about myself by writing it. I learned how frightened I am to confront those two memories. I also learned that, while I knew that my child felt all those things about himself, I was unaware that my adult felt them just as strongly. No wonder I'm having trouble helping the little guy heal. In some horrible, awful way, I have been convinced that it was my father's right to abuse me. Holy shit.
 
Much of this sounds familiar.

I suppose others here may be pausing before they write because there is so much in what you have posted here.

I'll keep it brief for a change.

It's obvious that terrible things happened to you. It is not necessary to remember all the details. You may have buried some incidents altogher. That's okay.

What is important is to concentrate on the outcomes of what happened and what you can do to modify them so that you can live more happily.

All the things that happened are part of your history now and you're not going to change that.

Others here will tell you about not feeling guilty or reponsible in any way for what happened (but they will not be furious).

A number of books have been written and those most familiar with them are sure to point out the chapters that address what you are going through now.

Remember this from a guy who has survived, who still struggles greatly with what happened but whose life is getting happier and more manageable, you are a good and whole person and here, among survivors, you are not judged and you are loved.
 
Bobby I read this and I can see the hand of the usual run of the mill perp at work on you just like they all worked on all of us. God they are so all alike they could be the same person.

All of us, you included, were groomed to accept what we got, as just and that was all we were worth; a receptical and someone to be used abused and cast aside. This is done all the time. Why? To keep us quiet. God forbid they lose their standing in the commmunity. When you look at all of them lumped together they are just plain scum. As Ken Singer said they are not monsters just ordinary scum; always have been and always will be.

NOBODY AND I MEAN NOBODY HAS THE RIGHT TO PERPETRATE WHAT WAS DONE TO US. THEY WERE IN A POSITION OF TRUST AND POWER. ONE A FATHER AND ANOTHER A COUNSELLOR. AND YOU WERE A CHILD. YOUR SEXUALIZATION WAS NOT A NATURAL PHENOMENUM.

I thought exactly the same thing. Rational thinking will lead us to the conclusion that is was not our fault. We are, however, dealing with totally irrational behavior and it has really done a number on our core. We were trained to accept it and the shame and blame along with it.

Stick with us Bobby and keep on slogging. It aint easy but by god it is worth it.


(((((((((((((((((BOBBY))))))))))))))))))
 
(((Bobby)))

From past experience I would guess that you may not have felt pain because you blocked it out under a crisis situation. I used to do so also, and in later years when I was acting out by fighting big obnoxiouse bullies in Okinawan back alleys I could still do that. My guess is that it's a mental technique related to dissociating.
 
Bobby, first of all, the little boy deserved none of this to happen to him. The confusion you talk about runs through all of our veins.

When the first perp does this to the kid, then others pick up on certain traits in the kid, they then exploit these traits.

It happened to me as a boy, I was called a great number of things, and I remember other perps following me and baiting me, luckily I warded them off, but they are like vultures around prey.

A perp can spot an abused kid on their radar so easily and they home in like limpets, they are often weak minded despite all their macho style, it they weren't, then they would not prey on young boys.

You would have numbed out the pain, because he knew how to mentally do it to survive,

I hope this helps,

ste
 
Hi Bobby, you seem to be having a problem believing that your memories are true. I remember you had read some articles on repressed memories that had disturbed you into not knowing what to believe. You may want to talk to Ken or your therapist about this. I went and read some after that post. What I got is if a memory comes up on it's own, it is highly likely to be true. If your therapist has had you under hypnotize or some other method, and pulled it out of you it may be untrue. I hope that helps.

About why the rape did not effect you as much as what your father did to you. Your father is part of your inner most support group, when every thing else is going wrong, this group is the people you turn to for support. Your father did the ultimate betrayal to you, he broke your trust in him. The rape by a Little know stranger was small in comparison to that, also it was just in addition to what your dad was doing to you.

I am not trying to belittle the effect rape can have on anyone. I was raped once by a stranger, and so know some of the effects first hand. But after coming here and getting to know some of the people here, I think that sexual abuse by someone in your inner circle is much worse.
 
I often wonder if SA isn't caused by just one perv, but by a carefully constructed set of conditionings. First "they" had to make us feel unloved, even unloveable--like you say, that we deserved it. But on the flip side, SA, in some sick way, was the only "love" I got. (I know that's not true, but you create your own reality when you're in a hostage situation AND you're a child.) I hear my head say every once in a while that that was the only thing I was good for. Obviously I didn't make that up. "They" taught it to me.

It wasn't your fault. You were only a kid. Look at any little kid on the street and tell me any of them could ever "deserve" such atrocities. Never. It's only what we learned to think. It is any parent's responsibility to provide love for their child. Even IF I thought a child deserved some sort of punishment, you and I both know that any normal parent, any good parent, would discipline with love, not with trauma. Your dad and your counselor were wrong. It wasn't your fault.

And I would never be upset by the things you say, because "they" trained you to believe them. I feel for you with an empathy I cannot begin to explain. SA is soul murder. But with time, we begin to live again, whether we remember everything or not. And we learn to believe our bodies, because our memories were those of a child.
 
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