My Story (Trigger Warning)
It started as near as I can tell when I was around six years old. It began with an adult male coming to my room late at night, always late at night. I remember being woken up by somebody in my room on more than one occasion and not knowing who it was in the dark. This terrified me. He would pull the sheets down and then pull down my pajama bottoms and perform oral sex. This went on couple times a week. When he completed his task he would silently leave and say nothing. I knew after the first couple times it was my father.
I quickly figured out that he was very nice to me after this would happen. He would buy me anything I wanted and spend time with me, even more than my five siblings. I never even thought about telling anybody. One night I went to bed without my pajamas. I'm not sure why (I shudder to think about that too much), I don't really remember. What I do remember is that he came in like he often did, pull down the sheets and saw me. He quickly left the room and returned a few minutes later. For the first time that night my mother stayed at the door and watched him. Shortly after that it changed. He would come to my room and do his thing, then he would take me to their room and he would have me do things with her while he watched. Their room was very different, the lights were always on and they would even talk to me. To be clear he was always in charge, always telling us what he wanted us to do. On more than one occasion I was told "You need to learn this, it's our responsibility to teach you." My father was always very stoic and in charge, while my mother was very tender and soothing. Oftentimes after my mother and I had done what he told us he would have me sit on the side of the bed and watch them and he would say things like "this is how it's done."
At the time I thought this made me special, especially considering how he treated everyone in general. But they would give me all this special attention and shower me with gifts. I was the youngest of six children and being singled out as somehow special meant something to me. At the time I was certain I was the only one receiving this special treatment. There are a lot of details I can't share simply because I am too ashamed. Suffice to say this behavior continued until I was a teenager. By then I understood that this wasn't normal.
There was one incident around age 10 when my mother was out of town when he took me in the shower and sodomized me. This was not normal. This was anything but tender, I was forced and the pain was indescribable. I was saved by one of my siblings who came to the door while this was happening and I suspect he panicked. Jumping out of the shower leaving me sitting on the floor in the shower crying. This one incident left a particularly deep scar on my brain as it still haunts me to this day.
As I turned 17 I escaped by joining the Army, the first real family I would know. My parents emancipated me so that I could do this. I did everything I could to forget what had taken place. During my military service of 15 years, I was exposed to other traumas that have exacerbated my situation. I also learned that extreme behavior, in particular violence, could be rewarded. I somehow internalized that I would never be the victim again, as long as I could exercise my hatred upon others. I did a lot of things I am not proud of and received accolades for this behavior. To be powerful, was to be in control.
I found the girl who would become my wife for the second time. She had also joined the service after we had dated in high school. She was everything my life was not, loving, caring, and a beautiful person. We started a family.
As a father, I am pretty much a failure. I have always kept my kids at a distance. Been cruel and heartless. I suspect that deep down I knew I was never going to be father material and keeping that distance was in some way a mercy. When I did interact with them it was with a cruel hand and strict discipline mindset, just as I was raised. Always with the thought that men must be forged. I now understand the damage I have done in that regard.
I began acting out with other adults. If it was legal, I was doing it. In hindsight, it is probably a good thing I valued my access to violence and my position in the Military Police more than my desire to try any kind of drugs or criminal behavior. The compulsive behavior was all-consuming at the time. I would be overseas hurting people, or stateside sleeping with everyone who would have me. I am deeply ashamed of this.
I did my fifteen and moved into a civilian career in law enforcement. A new family. This allowed me to exercise my rage and the deep-seated need for extreme experiences behind a new badge. I believe it also added to my paranoia and hypervigilance. Just as my military career required a quick to action and fondness for violence, so my law enforcement career rewarded my callousness. I quickly rose in the ranks and remained master of my own world. Stomping or destroying anyone who dared perceive me in a weak manner. I continued to be addicted to meaningless sex with complete strangers and to my shame even dragged my wife into many of my escapades.
Then everything changed. I am no stranger to death. There was a young boy, who went missing in our jurisdiction. The case made national headlines. He had been abused by his mother and stepfather for years. I pulled him out of a ditch. He had been discarded, and something happened. Somehow, I was that dead little boy, and I had failed him. I had failed me. I completely fell apart that day. Shortly after, I started having memories and intrusive thoughts based on what happened as a boy. I hallucinated, my memory became patchy, and reality was in question. I self-harmed, fixated on stepping off, until the situation escalated. I was eventually forcibly retired from my position.
Psychiatrists shrinks, and counselors, eventually leading to a host of antipsychotic meds among others. A cocktail of drugs to keep me in a stable and sedate state. I was diagnosed with borderline paranoid schizophrenia, delusional disorder, PTSD and others. I cannot express the gravity of the experience. I was cast aside, and labeled as no longer worthy to wear the badge or carry a gun. My entire world had been built around being in control of everything around me, and that was stripped away with the stroke of a pen. My world imploded. I was rejected by society, and I looked at it, and walked away from that society I had spent my life protecting and enforcing. The dept of betrayal destroyed me. We moved to a remote mountain location, where I had grown up. The only place I could truly isolate from the world.
This is when my wife found out about my past. To her credit, she has stood beside me through it all. She is something special. I was certain she would never see me the same, with respect or love. Especially after the 10 years of zombie drug mode in which I would stare at the walls for days. Memory was virtually nonexistent. I became a walking zombie. I was content to stay barely alive, for the benefit of others, until I was no longer needed. The isolation, paranoia, and my issues dug me deeper every day, until I could no longer interact with others. A real living zombie. I felt it would be better to be dead than weak, a lesson I learned all those years ago as a boy. I would not leave the property without a gun and my body armor. Later I trained with a service dog from a veterans program who was my constant companion. I had no use or need for anyone else on this planet. The paranoia was the only thing I could feel or see. I was unable feel basic emotions, the love for my wife was a distant vague emotion.
Then... my world was shattered... again. Two of my kids, who I had kept at a distance for their own good, informed me they had been abused as boys by a distant family member. This broke me out of the apathy I had been in for ten years. I quit all the medications cold turkey. I confessed to them the harm I had done in the world, and all the harm I had done to them by leading them down this path of destruction and rage. I spoke to them for perhaps the first time in their lives with compassion and honesty. Not because I wanted forgiveness, I will never ask for that because I don't deserve it, but because my mission from that day on would be to try and show them that this path leads to living death. They deserve better, as does my lovely wife. I must fulfill my new mission, to try and make amends for all that I can, and find a better path as an example to my sons.
Thinking back on it (as I am able to think again, for better or for worse) I guess in some small way I should be thankful for the drugs as much as I hated them. They did allow me a ten-year break from my desire, from my actions, from my insanity. When I woke from the living nightmare it was painful, painful to think that I failed my kids, my wife, and those who at one time cared about me. It also allowed me to see and feel in ways I had not done my entire adult life. The sex addiction had a ten-year break in which I had zero desire to do anything with anyone of any kind. As I have made my mission in life to demonstrate a better way I have discovered a great many things. Sex is not love. Love is 100 times more powerful and rewarding. So much of my behavior is based on real biological imprinting and not just all in my head. There is another way to live. A better way. Support from, and with other survivors is a thousand times more helpful to me than the drugs or the shrinks. There is life yet to live and every moment must not be spent reliving the past, but searching for a way to live with yourself. Time is short, and I will dedicate what time I have left to being a better father, a better husband, and a better person.
To this end we (my wife and I) work on ourselves, but most of all, we talk. We talk openly, honestly, brutally. Communication seems to be the key to so many things.
My wife and kids are loving and supportive. They do what they can to encourage me to go out. I am doing the work, I am making changes. It is not all roses and sunshine, but the rewards have been inspiring. Most of all, without all of that crap in the way, I have discovered true love with my wife. I no longer dissociate when intimate with my wife; more so, I can feel the value of tenderness without fear. Our marriage may not be perfect, but it is miles ahead of anything I have ever experienced. I still have setbacks, I still mess up, there is still a mountain of crap for me to tear down, and I still have bad days, but I think I am starting to believe it is worth it.
I will end with something I learned from my son that I think sums it all up eloquently.
Pain is ok.
Anger is ok.
Sadness is ok.
Crying is ok.
Failure is ok.
But giving up, is never acceptable.
I quickly figured out that he was very nice to me after this would happen. He would buy me anything I wanted and spend time with me, even more than my five siblings. I never even thought about telling anybody. One night I went to bed without my pajamas. I'm not sure why (I shudder to think about that too much), I don't really remember. What I do remember is that he came in like he often did, pull down the sheets and saw me. He quickly left the room and returned a few minutes later. For the first time that night my mother stayed at the door and watched him. Shortly after that it changed. He would come to my room and do his thing, then he would take me to their room and he would have me do things with her while he watched. Their room was very different, the lights were always on and they would even talk to me. To be clear he was always in charge, always telling us what he wanted us to do. On more than one occasion I was told "You need to learn this, it's our responsibility to teach you." My father was always very stoic and in charge, while my mother was very tender and soothing. Oftentimes after my mother and I had done what he told us he would have me sit on the side of the bed and watch them and he would say things like "this is how it's done."
At the time I thought this made me special, especially considering how he treated everyone in general. But they would give me all this special attention and shower me with gifts. I was the youngest of six children and being singled out as somehow special meant something to me. At the time I was certain I was the only one receiving this special treatment. There are a lot of details I can't share simply because I am too ashamed. Suffice to say this behavior continued until I was a teenager. By then I understood that this wasn't normal.
There was one incident around age 10 when my mother was out of town when he took me in the shower and sodomized me. This was not normal. This was anything but tender, I was forced and the pain was indescribable. I was saved by one of my siblings who came to the door while this was happening and I suspect he panicked. Jumping out of the shower leaving me sitting on the floor in the shower crying. This one incident left a particularly deep scar on my brain as it still haunts me to this day.
As I turned 17 I escaped by joining the Army, the first real family I would know. My parents emancipated me so that I could do this. I did everything I could to forget what had taken place. During my military service of 15 years, I was exposed to other traumas that have exacerbated my situation. I also learned that extreme behavior, in particular violence, could be rewarded. I somehow internalized that I would never be the victim again, as long as I could exercise my hatred upon others. I did a lot of things I am not proud of and received accolades for this behavior. To be powerful, was to be in control.
I found the girl who would become my wife for the second time. She had also joined the service after we had dated in high school. She was everything my life was not, loving, caring, and a beautiful person. We started a family.
As a father, I am pretty much a failure. I have always kept my kids at a distance. Been cruel and heartless. I suspect that deep down I knew I was never going to be father material and keeping that distance was in some way a mercy. When I did interact with them it was with a cruel hand and strict discipline mindset, just as I was raised. Always with the thought that men must be forged. I now understand the damage I have done in that regard.
I began acting out with other adults. If it was legal, I was doing it. In hindsight, it is probably a good thing I valued my access to violence and my position in the Military Police more than my desire to try any kind of drugs or criminal behavior. The compulsive behavior was all-consuming at the time. I would be overseas hurting people, or stateside sleeping with everyone who would have me. I am deeply ashamed of this.
I did my fifteen and moved into a civilian career in law enforcement. A new family. This allowed me to exercise my rage and the deep-seated need for extreme experiences behind a new badge. I believe it also added to my paranoia and hypervigilance. Just as my military career required a quick to action and fondness for violence, so my law enforcement career rewarded my callousness. I quickly rose in the ranks and remained master of my own world. Stomping or destroying anyone who dared perceive me in a weak manner. I continued to be addicted to meaningless sex with complete strangers and to my shame even dragged my wife into many of my escapades.
Then everything changed. I am no stranger to death. There was a young boy, who went missing in our jurisdiction. The case made national headlines. He had been abused by his mother and stepfather for years. I pulled him out of a ditch. He had been discarded, and something happened. Somehow, I was that dead little boy, and I had failed him. I had failed me. I completely fell apart that day. Shortly after, I started having memories and intrusive thoughts based on what happened as a boy. I hallucinated, my memory became patchy, and reality was in question. I self-harmed, fixated on stepping off, until the situation escalated. I was eventually forcibly retired from my position.
Psychiatrists shrinks, and counselors, eventually leading to a host of antipsychotic meds among others. A cocktail of drugs to keep me in a stable and sedate state. I was diagnosed with borderline paranoid schizophrenia, delusional disorder, PTSD and others. I cannot express the gravity of the experience. I was cast aside, and labeled as no longer worthy to wear the badge or carry a gun. My entire world had been built around being in control of everything around me, and that was stripped away with the stroke of a pen. My world imploded. I was rejected by society, and I looked at it, and walked away from that society I had spent my life protecting and enforcing. The dept of betrayal destroyed me. We moved to a remote mountain location, where I had grown up. The only place I could truly isolate from the world.
This is when my wife found out about my past. To her credit, she has stood beside me through it all. She is something special. I was certain she would never see me the same, with respect or love. Especially after the 10 years of zombie drug mode in which I would stare at the walls for days. Memory was virtually nonexistent. I became a walking zombie. I was content to stay barely alive, for the benefit of others, until I was no longer needed. The isolation, paranoia, and my issues dug me deeper every day, until I could no longer interact with others. A real living zombie. I felt it would be better to be dead than weak, a lesson I learned all those years ago as a boy. I would not leave the property without a gun and my body armor. Later I trained with a service dog from a veterans program who was my constant companion. I had no use or need for anyone else on this planet. The paranoia was the only thing I could feel or see. I was unable feel basic emotions, the love for my wife was a distant vague emotion.
Then... my world was shattered... again. Two of my kids, who I had kept at a distance for their own good, informed me they had been abused as boys by a distant family member. This broke me out of the apathy I had been in for ten years. I quit all the medications cold turkey. I confessed to them the harm I had done in the world, and all the harm I had done to them by leading them down this path of destruction and rage. I spoke to them for perhaps the first time in their lives with compassion and honesty. Not because I wanted forgiveness, I will never ask for that because I don't deserve it, but because my mission from that day on would be to try and show them that this path leads to living death. They deserve better, as does my lovely wife. I must fulfill my new mission, to try and make amends for all that I can, and find a better path as an example to my sons.
Thinking back on it (as I am able to think again, for better or for worse) I guess in some small way I should be thankful for the drugs as much as I hated them. They did allow me a ten-year break from my desire, from my actions, from my insanity. When I woke from the living nightmare it was painful, painful to think that I failed my kids, my wife, and those who at one time cared about me. It also allowed me to see and feel in ways I had not done my entire adult life. The sex addiction had a ten-year break in which I had zero desire to do anything with anyone of any kind. As I have made my mission in life to demonstrate a better way I have discovered a great many things. Sex is not love. Love is 100 times more powerful and rewarding. So much of my behavior is based on real biological imprinting and not just all in my head. There is another way to live. A better way. Support from, and with other survivors is a thousand times more helpful to me than the drugs or the shrinks. There is life yet to live and every moment must not be spent reliving the past, but searching for a way to live with yourself. Time is short, and I will dedicate what time I have left to being a better father, a better husband, and a better person.
To this end we (my wife and I) work on ourselves, but most of all, we talk. We talk openly, honestly, brutally. Communication seems to be the key to so many things.
My wife and kids are loving and supportive. They do what they can to encourage me to go out. I am doing the work, I am making changes. It is not all roses and sunshine, but the rewards have been inspiring. Most of all, without all of that crap in the way, I have discovered true love with my wife. I no longer dissociate when intimate with my wife; more so, I can feel the value of tenderness without fear. Our marriage may not be perfect, but it is miles ahead of anything I have ever experienced. I still have setbacks, I still mess up, there is still a mountain of crap for me to tear down, and I still have bad days, but I think I am starting to believe it is worth it.
I will end with something I learned from my son that I think sums it all up eloquently.
Pain is ok.
Anger is ok.
Sadness is ok.
Crying is ok.
Failure is ok.
But giving up, is never acceptable.
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