Introduction (+triggers)
This is my first message. I have never been on a message board like this for abuse. I am used to e-lists.
Grew up in Tarrytown New York and in the Catskills, with lots of green and animals and horses, and few friends. My friends were 8 to ten years older than me. I worked outdoors with horses from the age of 13.
I teach English in the Arab Gulf, am a photographer and writer with some awards and publications. Active on professional elists.
I was physically and psychologically abused by my father and sometimes an older brother. I was sexually abused by a significant other 13-17, raped by a stranger and left for dead in a dumpster at 15. My older brother, a famous lawyer, let the perpetrator go so as not to tarnish the family name, for which I can never forgive him.
In the USAF, I was assaulted by a physician during a consultation, drugged and raped by a sargeant, and sexually abused by my attending physician while under sedation during a hospitalization which left me partially disabled. I get 50% for the disability from the VA and have a claim pending for PTSD for it and for the sexual abuse.
Later after my discharge I was assaulted by a therapist. He called it trauma therapy for the rape. Re-enactment. He took the role of the rapist.
Between 13 and 27, I was an alcoholic and substance abuser. I acted out sexually until I was in my forties, and stopped, and recently started again after sexual inactivity for 15 years.
Now I am depressed, recently confirmed to have sleep apnea, looking for a new job at the end of my current contract in two months, and a place to live, worrying about my son's tuition for his last year in college, feeling alone and isolated and abused and used. Just had a two week medical leave for my back pain and have to go back to work tomorrow. Weekends here in Oman are Thursdays and Fridays.
There is no face to face here. I have worked on the PTSD by myself mostly using art and writing and elists. Some short therapy last year, and some useless counseling this year.
During the 60s and 70s therapy amounted to secindary trauma: "you would not have been sexually and physically and psychologically assaulted and abused if you didn't really want it so stop avoiding therapy by bringing up the past." The therapist who raped me in therapy at least cared. the other sob's just like shooting the breeze and seeing people squirm. None of them could even imagine dealing with the sexual trauma. They did not want to hear about it: it was "avoiding therapy."
Even now, the counselor I tried to speak to this last year had the same old story: it is your fault you keep thinking about the past. Just get over it.
Last winter, I met about ten kids about 18-20 years old on the beach. The week before I had dreamt about them. They saw me and hooted. They asked me to join them at their picnic and one of them took out his penis. At least they were friendly and not abusive, except for the very first hooting. I often went to that same beach, and had discovered that others went there to do things, so I can't blame the young men for puttingh myself in that position. If I had just ignored them they would have ignored me, but instead I started to take them one by one to the house. None were abusive. All friendly, but NOT friends. In the end just more feelings of loneliness and abuse. Fantasy stuff and not relationship, and acting out the abuse. It was a great relief not to be always in the closet, but the cost to self esteem was too high. This country is also too small for anyone to do anything with anybody anonymously. The whole country is one and a half million people, and everyone is related.
In the long run it was stupid act of self sabotage, which is my life's story.
The abuse from my childhood and other abuse is something which is a constant theme whatever and wherever and whenever: all day every day. No substance abuse for more than 30 years, but a life of underachievement and self sabotage.
Grew up in Tarrytown New York and in the Catskills, with lots of green and animals and horses, and few friends. My friends were 8 to ten years older than me. I worked outdoors with horses from the age of 13.
I teach English in the Arab Gulf, am a photographer and writer with some awards and publications. Active on professional elists.
I was physically and psychologically abused by my father and sometimes an older brother. I was sexually abused by a significant other 13-17, raped by a stranger and left for dead in a dumpster at 15. My older brother, a famous lawyer, let the perpetrator go so as not to tarnish the family name, for which I can never forgive him.
In the USAF, I was assaulted by a physician during a consultation, drugged and raped by a sargeant, and sexually abused by my attending physician while under sedation during a hospitalization which left me partially disabled. I get 50% for the disability from the VA and have a claim pending for PTSD for it and for the sexual abuse.
Later after my discharge I was assaulted by a therapist. He called it trauma therapy for the rape. Re-enactment. He took the role of the rapist.
Between 13 and 27, I was an alcoholic and substance abuser. I acted out sexually until I was in my forties, and stopped, and recently started again after sexual inactivity for 15 years.
Now I am depressed, recently confirmed to have sleep apnea, looking for a new job at the end of my current contract in two months, and a place to live, worrying about my son's tuition for his last year in college, feeling alone and isolated and abused and used. Just had a two week medical leave for my back pain and have to go back to work tomorrow. Weekends here in Oman are Thursdays and Fridays.
There is no face to face here. I have worked on the PTSD by myself mostly using art and writing and elists. Some short therapy last year, and some useless counseling this year.
During the 60s and 70s therapy amounted to secindary trauma: "you would not have been sexually and physically and psychologically assaulted and abused if you didn't really want it so stop avoiding therapy by bringing up the past." The therapist who raped me in therapy at least cared. the other sob's just like shooting the breeze and seeing people squirm. None of them could even imagine dealing with the sexual trauma. They did not want to hear about it: it was "avoiding therapy."
Even now, the counselor I tried to speak to this last year had the same old story: it is your fault you keep thinking about the past. Just get over it.
Last winter, I met about ten kids about 18-20 years old on the beach. The week before I had dreamt about them. They saw me and hooted. They asked me to join them at their picnic and one of them took out his penis. At least they were friendly and not abusive, except for the very first hooting. I often went to that same beach, and had discovered that others went there to do things, so I can't blame the young men for puttingh myself in that position. If I had just ignored them they would have ignored me, but instead I started to take them one by one to the house. None were abusive. All friendly, but NOT friends. In the end just more feelings of loneliness and abuse. Fantasy stuff and not relationship, and acting out the abuse. It was a great relief not to be always in the closet, but the cost to self esteem was too high. This country is also too small for anyone to do anything with anybody anonymously. The whole country is one and a half million people, and everyone is related.
In the long run it was stupid act of self sabotage, which is my life's story.
The abuse from my childhood and other abuse is something which is a constant theme whatever and wherever and whenever: all day every day. No substance abuse for more than 30 years, but a life of underachievement and self sabotage.