Hi again

[mh]

Wow, I 've been doing some reading on this forum and am very impressed. Bobby has really impressed me. I realize its not easy, but you have been able to reach down and release emotions that I cant find. I am jealous. I want release. I want to be the person I should have been. The more I read, the more I learn. The realization has been crashing down on me for the last couple of days. I too, thought I had things under control. I thought the fear, shame, guilt, the boy crying on the floor because he didnt fight back. Thought I had put all that away and forgotten about it. Now I understand why I drank so much. Why people were afraid of me. Why I could walk to up to a car wreck and look at a dead child and feel nothing. I thought it was the amazing ability to turn it off, but I realize that it was never turned on. Apparently it destroys relationships. I never realized how much of an asshole I was. I only remeber a few times being happy. I sit down and think about everything that happened, what it was like just being alone in the house with him, but I feel so matter-of-fact about it. It only swells up when I talk to my wife about it. She has had a lot of training in early childhood development. She has spent time working at the mental health centers around here. She has been the only person I can talk too. If I feel nothing, why cant I talk to anyone else? I talk to her, and am overwelhmed with emotion. uncontrollable emotion is a new feeling. All I do know is that, I have felt lighter. But she says that a therapist will want me to tell what happened, where, when, how. I dont think I can do that. I can tell what I felt like. What was said to me. But how can I tell exactly what happened? Thinking about it has made me feel dirty again. I keep rambling, and contribute nothing, but this forum has been an eye opener. I read everyones stories, and discover more about myself.

 

[Bill_1965]

She has been the only person I can talk too. If I feel nothing, why cant I talk to anyone else? I talk to her, and am overwelhmed with emotion. uncontrollable emotion is a new feeling. All I do know is that, I have felt lighter.

It's great that you can talk with your wife about it. Getting it out does make you feel lighter, you aren't carrying the wieght of it anymore.

But she says that a therapist will want me to tell what happened, where, when, how. I dont think I can do that. I can tell what I felt like.

You only things you have to tell a therapist is what you want to. Any therapist that demands otherwise isn't worth a hill of manure.

 

[The Dean]

Hello mh!

I am fortunate in that I had an intense 6 month program for dealing with CSA. One of the groups was a sexual health group. The first meeting of the group everyone told the story of their sexual history. I was the only survivor, there were two perepetrators in the group, the rest were people who "acted out."--with adults only.

I told my story and I told everything. Then I went rather crazy. I shook and ran around the room and for some time I was in the room in my body only. I dissociated. It was a frightening experience for everyone and a tense one for the two therapists who were there. What I was told to do in the future is to be brief and rather clinical. It made it less awful, but still really difficult.

If you come to a time when you want to let your therapist know what happened to you you may want to be very clinical. At one time I did it as though I were a police officer describing the case to the DA.

So, it goes like--I was forced to submit to anal sex, and oral sex, I was made to be nude or partially nude, pictures were taken or not, he was alone--or x number of people were there and this all happened about x number of times, or he made me "service"his friends in the same way, or I had to do things with other boys my age--whatever the situation is for you.

So many of us really struggle with telling our therapists the details. Some guys write it out and have the therapist read it. The point is, it can be made a little less awful. I don't think it can ever be easy or not spark feelings of being terribly vulnerable once we tell someone. I tell my story in the short way fairly often to various groups. It is never easy and I give myself some leeway after I have done it to just be alone and take care of myself as I need to.

Take your time. As Bill said, you do what you want when you want in the way you want. Anything else is dangerous in my way of thinking.

Bob

 

[Lloydy]

mh
look for a therapist that specializes in abuse Survivivors, they've heard it all before and are trained to deal with it,

But she says that a therapist will want me to tell what happened, where, when, how. I dont think I can do that. I can tell what I felt like. What was said to me. But how can I tell exactly what happened?

None of this is easy, far from it, it's hard and emotionally draining. But it's worth it.
Through good therapy we can return to the emotions that our young boys felt at the time, and however bad they are we can, with help, process those emotions and make some sense of them, and free our young boys of the confusion that we still feel as adults.

It's worth every bit of effort and pain, trust me.

Dave

 

[RICK57]

MH - I kept my mouth completely shut for 32 years because:

1/ I could never acknowledge that I had been tricked into doing things that 'everyone allegedly did'. Something I that I later realised was total bullshit & then couldn't comprehend in my head how to deal with it!

2/ I had this amazing fear of being considerd different / not whole / weird / perverted etc. etc..

3/ If that was all lies - then who could I ever trust again.

4/ he was never violent to me - I was groomed (I know that now).

If you are going to see a Therapist, try writing it down first - that method helped me a lot. I found it difficult to talk about any form of sexual activity, let alone acts that took place between a 12 year old child and a 32 year old man. My therapist (female) was probably only a couple of years older than me, but she let me take things at my own pace!

A good Therapist should never force you to talk about anything...they may lead you towards an area that you are avoiding, but they should let you decide whether or not that's where you want to head. Sometimes they realise that you are avoiding a topic, but realise that you really want to talk about it.

If you want to talk - do it - you are unlikely to see your therapist socially & they have a code of ethics that means they cannot discuss anything that you talk about, with anyone else unless you give express permission.

Best wishes...RIk (sorry if I've rambled).

 

[Lloydy]

MH
The Dean raises an interesting point ( Hi Bob )

The language we use can be have a dramatic effect on us, especially when telling someone our experience of being abused.

We struggle to find words and descriptions that don't offend who we're talking to, but do we have to do that?
In the case of a therapist dealing with sexual abuse - no, they do that job knowing what to expect. Most of the therapists who work for the charity I work for in the UK are female, and of them most are what I call "ladies who lunch" - they're well educated, usually married to successful husbands and are the kind of lady you see lunching with friends at smart hotels.
I've sat and talked with many of them about my abuse, and I know that I ain't going to shock them.

Nobody 'made love' to me as a boy, they had anal sex with me, and made me have oral sex with them.
But nothing there describes what actually took place, 'made love' is completely out of the picture, and the other descriptions are clinical and polite.
What happened to me wasn't.

I was 'fucked' and they made me perform 'blow jobs'
That's a closer description of what took place, the descriptions are blunt, crude and very descriptive.

Choosing that type of language does have it's own problems though, it's the language of cheap porn.
So we feel as though we're giving our abuse the language of porn.

It's very difficult to find a balance, and I believe it's important that we do and try 'our' words and descriptions, one's that suit us.

Thinking about the language we use forces us to think about the abuse heaped upon us in a more focused way, and that helps us to see it for what it was - abuse.
If we 'pretty' it up just to spare other peoples feelings we're just fooling ourselves in the end.

Dave