Introduction
Hi, everyone… My survivor story is posted, and since I’ve shared all that, I guess I should introduce myself. I’m a 52 year old survivor with memories of some of what happened to me, and a lot of gaps and questions about what else might have happened to me during my entire childhood. My memory picks up more reliably after I left home for college, and I can account for the good things life has brought me since then, including my wonderful wife of 17 years and a decent career as a high school teacher and librarian. I can also account for a lot of struggles and bad things related to my abuse, which I couldn’t even recognize until my 30s. What I can remember was not violent, but it was weird, invading my identity and personality in ways I’m still trying to see and understand. It also set me apart from other men, leaving me unsteady in all my male relationships (including myself), so that now I have no close male friends. I feel like the whole core of who I am is so far from “normal” men that I just keep my distance. I’ve had great friends in the past, and I miss feeling like there are people besides my wife who can understand and care about me, and who I can love and support in return. The strangeness of my abuse has stolen that away, and I want it back. So here I am, trying to figure out how.