hope - my story today
Haven't posted in a while as I've been dug into the most intense therapy and healing process I've ever had the courage to perform. I'm just turning 41. At 36 I finally faced the reality that the year of prolonged sexual abuse I'd suffered at 13 had left profound and indelible scars on my psyche and that the deeply subconscious effects of the abuse were clearly ruining my life. Broke, impotent, suicidal and in constant pain, I took the extremely difficult step of admitting this excruciating fact of my past to myself, and then my wife. Knowing that by doing this I was set to embark on an arduous and seemingly endless road to recovery. Has it been difficult? Intensely. This admission provoked, as I knew it would, a deeply conflcted reaction from my beloved wife, between relief that our sexual problems were not all her felt, as she'd come to assume, and uncontrolled rage and resentment. This has only begun to end now. Almost five years later. Two years after the admission I tried to kill myself. Got into AA, found a godsend of a therapist - who among many great things directed me here - and slowly began to make progress. It was slow, it is slow, but then you break through walls and the light comes streaming in, however slim the cracks, and this gives you strength to go on.
I had major setbacks. A year ago I tried again to commit suicide. These tend thankfully to be fairly inept cries for inner help, so in neither case was there a serious chance for completion, but it scared the hell out of me, and drove my wife further away.
Moved West for work, which was now beginning to improve, almost by magic as I gained more self-esteem, even a tiny amount made a difference. Found another great therapist and dug in for intense labor of facing demons and memories and moving beyond the guilt, shame, self-loathing and crippling fear.
Today, my wife and I are beginning to enjoy a healthy sex life for the first time in our 13 years together, aided by some ED drugs, but they work and I can feel my self-confidence building to where one day, whenever that is, I won't need them. Her anger is vanishing by the day as she comes to terms with the gravity of my abuse, something as we know, society has precious little understanding of. And I do constant homework outside therapy, utilizing the fantastic books out there by Wendy Maltz and others who give solid practical ideas for how to overcome the sexual and intimicay roabdlocks.
I feel more alive and truly myself than I ever have. Ever. There is still a lot of work to be done, and the residual debt from my tumble down the hole, but it will be chipped away and these things do not fill me with dread, but determination.
My lesson, at this juncture in my healing, is that it absolutely can be conquered. It is a fact. The hopelessness and rage and terror that I've felt along the way has always been succesfully been beaten back by faith and hope. The results are real. In every one of us survivors is a person who has every ability to authenticate, to come into the light, to accept and savour the immense value we have. And at the risk of sounding like a trite cliche, it is absolutely true that the pain and even the horror of what we have experienced can be converted into a major positive: a strength and determination that comes from survival. That makes many of life's difficulties almost laughable in comparison to what we have already suffered, survived, overcome and released. I don't want to go so far as to call my abuse a gift, as i don't believe that for a moment. But it has made me a much stronger and more resilient person that many people I know, and for that I am truly grateful.
Faith, Hope, Perseverence, Self-Value.
These form the chrysalis in which we all become reborn.
with love to my brothers,
Alex
I had major setbacks. A year ago I tried again to commit suicide. These tend thankfully to be fairly inept cries for inner help, so in neither case was there a serious chance for completion, but it scared the hell out of me, and drove my wife further away.
Moved West for work, which was now beginning to improve, almost by magic as I gained more self-esteem, even a tiny amount made a difference. Found another great therapist and dug in for intense labor of facing demons and memories and moving beyond the guilt, shame, self-loathing and crippling fear.
Today, my wife and I are beginning to enjoy a healthy sex life for the first time in our 13 years together, aided by some ED drugs, but they work and I can feel my self-confidence building to where one day, whenever that is, I won't need them. Her anger is vanishing by the day as she comes to terms with the gravity of my abuse, something as we know, society has precious little understanding of. And I do constant homework outside therapy, utilizing the fantastic books out there by Wendy Maltz and others who give solid practical ideas for how to overcome the sexual and intimicay roabdlocks.
I feel more alive and truly myself than I ever have. Ever. There is still a lot of work to be done, and the residual debt from my tumble down the hole, but it will be chipped away and these things do not fill me with dread, but determination.
My lesson, at this juncture in my healing, is that it absolutely can be conquered. It is a fact. The hopelessness and rage and terror that I've felt along the way has always been succesfully been beaten back by faith and hope. The results are real. In every one of us survivors is a person who has every ability to authenticate, to come into the light, to accept and savour the immense value we have. And at the risk of sounding like a trite cliche, it is absolutely true that the pain and even the horror of what we have experienced can be converted into a major positive: a strength and determination that comes from survival. That makes many of life's difficulties almost laughable in comparison to what we have already suffered, survived, overcome and released. I don't want to go so far as to call my abuse a gift, as i don't believe that for a moment. But it has made me a much stronger and more resilient person that many people I know, and for that I am truly grateful.
Faith, Hope, Perseverence, Self-Value.
These form the chrysalis in which we all become reborn.
with love to my brothers,
Alex
