Introduction

Introduction

ATR

Registrant
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.
 
Welcome ATR. Thank you for sharing both your story and this introduction. If you look around you will note you are certainly not alone in either starting to face the past decades after or in the feelings of not being "normal" and strained to nonexistent male friendships. It took two Weekends of Recovery (used to be part of this and now found at menhealing.org with the same programs and new) three therapists (well one good one, one quack who had her license revoked and one who was checked out of practice and into retirement but hadn't moved his body yet) until I started to accept me, like me and in that rebuild some of those lost friendships that I had walked from when they became too close. Hopefully you find what you need to move from hurting to healing to helping others like many contributors here have.

So sorry for what brings you but so glad you found us.
 
Welcome ATR. Thanks for sharing your story. As I read them I'm reminded that even when the details are different the feelings of confusion and shame are the same. Trauma does that to us. One description of the healing journey for trauma survivors says we are engaging in creating a story that feels authentic to our experience that comes to completion when we can finally see ourselves with compassion as survivors. A professor who is a psychiatrist shared this poem at the end of a class I took decades ago that speaks to this truth.

It Turns Out

It turns out you are the story of your childhood
and you're under constant revision,
like a lonely folktale whose invisible folks
are all the selves you've been, lifelong,
shadows in fog, gray glimmers at dusk.

And each of these selves had a childhood
it traded for love and grudged to give away,
now lost irretrievably, in storage
like a set of dishes from which no food,

no Cream of Wheat, no rabbit in mustard
sauce, nor even a single raspberry,
can be eaten until afterlife,
which is only childhood in its last
disguise, all radiance or all humiliation,
and so it is forfeit a final time.

In fact it was not awful, but only breathtakiing.

There's no truth about your childhood,

though there's a story, yours to tend,
like a fire or garden. Make it a good one,
since you'll have to live it out, and all
its revisions, so long as you all shall live,

for they shall be gathered to your deathbed,
and they'll have known to what you and they
would come, and this one time
they'll weep for you.

William Matthews

We are weeping for one another as we unpack our experiences to find OUR truth which can be breathtaking. You are not alone with any of this my friend. We are all engaged in a healing journey... we are a mixed bag of characters, some frightened to share, some far along on their journeys and able to offer support as well as a kindness. Check us out and as you feel ready join the conversation. And remember there is a feature of the site that can be especially helpful if you have questions... at the bottom of most members' avatars is a button that says "Start Conversation." Though these conversations are monitored by moderators, they give us an opportunity to talk about things we may not be prepared to post on an open board. Welcome. All the best on your healing journey.
 
Beautiful poem... so true about the multiple selves along the journey, with all their childhoods. I'll keep tending the story they make. Thanks for being there.
 
Welcome ATR

Glad you reached out for help here. There are lots here you can relate to. You are not alone in this. Lots of good males to make friends with around here.
 
Thanks, Esterio... The vastness of this forum is a little overwhelming, but also so affirming I can't quite take it in yet...!
 
One of my favorite stanzas of the Tao te Ching speaks about the importance of simplicity, patience and compassion. There is no need for you to rush into anything here. Take your time and be gentle with yourself. That is something we often have a very hard time doing. Cutting ourselves some slack can help... this is a marathon, not a hundred yard dash. And those folks who've found the greatest benefit of being on this website have no intention of leaving. You'll get to know us over time if you decide you want to be part of this healing community.

I just realized that I'd typed out that stanza... number 67. Here it is...

67

Some say that my teaching is nonsense.
Others call it lofty but impractical.
But to those who have looked inside themselves,
this nonsense makes perfect sense.

And to those who put it into practice,
the loftiness has roots that go deep.
I have just three things to teach:
simplicity, patience, compassion.

These three are your greatest treasures.

Simple in action and thought,
you return to the source of being.

Patient with both friends and enemies,
you accord with the way things are.

Compassionate toward yourself,
you reconcile all things in the world.


Tao te Ching, a New English Version
with Forward and Notes

by Stephen Mitchell
 
The vastness of this forum is a little overwhelming,

Yes there is a lot to look at around here no hurry take your time and look around. I didn't get to far past chat when I first got here, spending more time in the forums lately. Good to have a look around and see what you find, it can be validating reading others words, it can also be triggering so the it slow get to know your limits.
 
ATR, my heart ached as I read your introduction. Confusion, uncertainty, loneliness, ... these are the central themes of our existence. And, of course we always wonder why, and what if. It is a daily struggle not to feel a profound sadness, wondering how things might have been, what it would be like to live in a pure light, without the burden of these memories. Sometimes it is as if the slightest joy derived from some glimmer of normalcy is stripped away abruptly by the past. But, there is solace in knowing that you are not alone and there are many of us you can talk to. Our experiences are different yet the result is the same. We are all broken in some way.
 
Thanks for the welcome and the words of wisdom everyone. It's much appreciated, and it's especially nice not to have to add "more than you know" because finally, for once in my life, you DO know. Thank you!
 
Thanks for the welcome and the words of wisdom everyone. It's much appreciated, and it's especially nice not to have to add "more than you know" because finally, for once in my life, you DO know. Thank you!
Absolutely! And you are right -- the guys here DO know.
 
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