It finally caught up to me after 30 years…
Hello,
My name is Chris and I am a 47 year old survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of a family friend who was also my employer as a teen. I endured the abuse from age 16 to 20 and was able to finally escape. I never told anyone about it until 2017 when Chester from Linkin Park killed himself over the sexual abuse he endured. That really hurt me deeply and I decided to tell some family members what happened to me. But I promptly dropped it and never sought help. Well that was a big mistake. Because around mid-May of 2021 something happened ( I’m not ready to divulge what it was but it was related to something my abuser used to do to me) and it lit the fuse for a full blown mental health crisis two weeks later. The day after Memorial Day I went into full blown mental health crisis; I was down the rabbit hole as far as one could go. The primal screams and intense crying scared me. I had never heard anyone cry like that before, let alone myself. Thankfully my wife and daughter were there for me to keep me from going off the cliff. After several days of crisis and trying to find help (phone calls with crisis counselors, virtual conferences with crisis counselors, etc) I finally was able to get an appointment with a therapist who I have been working with for about 3 weeks now. I still haven’t been able to see a psychiatrist because of how backed up the mental health system is right now (thanks COVID). I have an appointment for the end of July but I really feel like I need some sort of SSRI or something because my anxiety and depression have been running unchecked since mid May. The cycles of anxiety and then debilitating depression where I have to just lay in bed in the dark are completely uncontrolled and have affected my ability to work and be a husband and father. I am even toying with the idea of starting a 3D printing business (a hobby I picked up during the lockdowns) but I can’t get past the depression from the abuse enough to make progress on it. The worst part of the depression is that I get this “snow globe” feeling where I am watching everyone in society go about their daily business but I can’t because im trapped behind this glass wall. And all I can do is sit and think “how can these people live their lives, don’t they know what I’m going through?” I also hate the abuse-related depression because it recently makes me feel like I'm not being a good father to my 6 year old daughter. My wife says Im still doing great with her but I just feel like I’m not the spontaneous person I used to be. Im living too much in the past, dwelling on the abuse, and not living in the present or making plans for the future like I used to do all the time.
Also, I’ve done some soul searching about what the abuse has done to me and it definitely was the reason for my addiction to pornography. Something Im trying to finally put aside (I’m 45 days clean right now). I realized that I was using it as a crutch every time I got anxious and it really impacted my sex life with my wife. I want to change that and I’m going to change that. I’ve been letting the abuse impact my ability to really trust another human being for such a long time that even my closest ally, my wife, I have kept at an emotional arms length.
Anyway, I’m glad to be here among fellow survivors and I hope to learn from those that are successfully coping and help those, as best I can, that aren’t.
My name is Chris and I am a 47 year old survivor of sexual abuse at the hands of a family friend who was also my employer as a teen. I endured the abuse from age 16 to 20 and was able to finally escape. I never told anyone about it until 2017 when Chester from Linkin Park killed himself over the sexual abuse he endured. That really hurt me deeply and I decided to tell some family members what happened to me. But I promptly dropped it and never sought help. Well that was a big mistake. Because around mid-May of 2021 something happened ( I’m not ready to divulge what it was but it was related to something my abuser used to do to me) and it lit the fuse for a full blown mental health crisis two weeks later. The day after Memorial Day I went into full blown mental health crisis; I was down the rabbit hole as far as one could go. The primal screams and intense crying scared me. I had never heard anyone cry like that before, let alone myself. Thankfully my wife and daughter were there for me to keep me from going off the cliff. After several days of crisis and trying to find help (phone calls with crisis counselors, virtual conferences with crisis counselors, etc) I finally was able to get an appointment with a therapist who I have been working with for about 3 weeks now. I still haven’t been able to see a psychiatrist because of how backed up the mental health system is right now (thanks COVID). I have an appointment for the end of July but I really feel like I need some sort of SSRI or something because my anxiety and depression have been running unchecked since mid May. The cycles of anxiety and then debilitating depression where I have to just lay in bed in the dark are completely uncontrolled and have affected my ability to work and be a husband and father. I am even toying with the idea of starting a 3D printing business (a hobby I picked up during the lockdowns) but I can’t get past the depression from the abuse enough to make progress on it. The worst part of the depression is that I get this “snow globe” feeling where I am watching everyone in society go about their daily business but I can’t because im trapped behind this glass wall. And all I can do is sit and think “how can these people live their lives, don’t they know what I’m going through?” I also hate the abuse-related depression because it recently makes me feel like I'm not being a good father to my 6 year old daughter. My wife says Im still doing great with her but I just feel like I’m not the spontaneous person I used to be. Im living too much in the past, dwelling on the abuse, and not living in the present or making plans for the future like I used to do all the time.
Also, I’ve done some soul searching about what the abuse has done to me and it definitely was the reason for my addiction to pornography. Something Im trying to finally put aside (I’m 45 days clean right now). I realized that I was using it as a crutch every time I got anxious and it really impacted my sex life with my wife. I want to change that and I’m going to change that. I’ve been letting the abuse impact my ability to really trust another human being for such a long time that even my closest ally, my wife, I have kept at an emotional arms length.
Anyway, I’m glad to be here among fellow survivors and I hope to learn from those that are successfully coping and help those, as best I can, that aren’t.
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