It's falling into place

I was reading more of the Victims No Longer book while I was out doing my laundry. And like I usually do after I read some of it, I started thinking.

I think I found another (probably the strongest) couple of reasons I have a problem with my sexuality.

I got to thinking about my first gay experience. When I was 11. Just fooling around I know. And over the years, it developed into my realizing I was gay (though we didn't call it that then). I didn't have a particular problem with it at the time.

Then two crucial things hit that I think started this crap. When I was 15, I was sent to live in a boy's home (from another one I was living in) because I was "emotionally disturbed". The psychologist who ran this place, and later turned out to be my second perp, talked often and long about the "sickness" of homosexuality. That those of us that were gay were "aberrant". Still didn't have a particular problem with being gay. A few others were too, so it didn't seem so bad.

Then when I got out and into the military, I joined a very fundamentalist group of people. Again, it was drummed into me how "evil" IT was. Looking back, I was trying to substitute this group for family, which I desparately needed.

But combining what the shrink said (and know that back then it was still thought to be a mental illness by the Psychiatriac and Medical associations), along with some VERY condemning religous teaching, that was when I started to hate what I was. And it has haunted me ever since.

But I am better now. I don't hate it anymore. Just trying to come to grips and remember it is someone else's "tapes" I have been listening to. Time to erase the recordings.

Marc

 

[Dale English]

Marc,

Bravo my friend. You are absolutely right from where I sit. Your ability to process is working just fine. Keep up the good work!

Taz

 

[Mike Church]

Marc you never cease to amaze me. And that is a good thing. Hey bro we are what we are and it is terribly important to be comfortable with that. Labels have no meaning. I just wish that people would stop using religion and god to preach their own sick agendas. God loves all creatures, no matter what. You had no more choice of being straight or gay than you did getting the genes you wanted when you dived into that particular pool. Assholes like you describe reall turn my Crank and when that happens I really get pissed. I have had many conversations with assholesl; too many actually.

 

[Brayton]

...back then it was still thought to be a mental illness by the Psychiatriac and Medical associations), along with some VERY condemning religous teaching, that was when I started to hate what I was. And it has haunted me ever since.

At about the same time I was put in a resident adolescent treatment 'unit' (as they put it).

I haveb written before about what a horrible place that was.

One of the first things that happened to me was that I was 'offered' behavior modification therapy to cure my 'sickness' of homosexuality.

I have often thought how fortunate I was to verbalize an emphatic "No!" without qualification in response to that question and that my parents were not asked for permission instead of myself.

I don't know why they weren't consulted as I was a minor at the time. I guess I was just lucky.

What came first for me? --The knowledge that I was gay before I was even aware of that term? --Or, the feeling of being gay, of wanting to be with other boys in that way at the time I was abused?

That began before puberty so I'm not sure about it. I know, as is often or usually the case with guys who have experienced childhood SA, I was sexualized by the experiences and so had mixed up ideas of what sexuality is (not 'advanced' ideas, understanding, acting out as they sometimes say).

I didn't have the understanding that those words I use now might seem to indicate.

I don't remember hearing the specific biblical references to homosexuality though I am sure I did and they had to have a significant negative effect within the context of the strict Christian upbringing I experienced.

I was fearful, not trusting, had been betrayed in the SA experiences, so did not end up experimenting much with other guys as is often the case.

I was on the outside all the time and was so fearful and shamed that I actually experienced physical dysfunction in the presence of other boys and, later, men.

I have consistently questioned not only my sexuality but also my masculinity and the root cause of that is the childhood SA I experienced.