my story - triggers?
benevolent
Registrant
Please forgive me if my post is offensive to other male survivors or if it's in the wrong forum. But i have been so happy to find this forum. Reading the things here has helped me process more things.
I don't have any concrete memories of sexual abuse, but i feel like my entire life is based on someone who has been. After reading many of the stories here i quite literally felt i was reading something i would have written - even exact life incidents. What place has the person who feels many if not all of the things that you do, but has no story or proof to make sense of it all? Where do these people belong? All of this will be disorganized...
When i was 6 i started having this fear of going to the bathroom in public places. By junior high i was gay but didn't really understand it yet. I could not stand people seeing me eat and still can't to this day - making any noises.
When i was 6 i also have this memory or maybe a nightmare. Whatever it was has stayed with me my whole life - being at the apartments i lived at with my mom. she was doing the laundry late at night and i wandered off to the playground there....a man took me back to his apartment and all i remember was him having a fat wife cooking in the kitchen. Even as i write this, it gives me the chills. she seemed so relaxed about me suddenly being there.
At age 7 i started having behavior problems at school and would get really violent with other kids. Teachers told me to go to a psychiatrist and he told me i was depressed.
My life changed even more when my mom met my step-dad when i was 8. During that time i became very sexually focused....would experiment with boy next door....there was another boy who would as well, but my memories of him are too vague. i remember being physically curious about my step-dad - would always be focused on his privates (he wore underwear around the house all the time). He was very affectionate with me and would wrestle with me. i liked the attention. i had this very strong to be physically desirable to him. every night, i would look forward to more than anything when he would tuck me in and kiss me. He left the picture a few years later and to this day i feel incredibly uncomfortable around him (he's the father of my sister).
During the time he was in our family, i remember at nine years old forcing myself onto this other girl my age sexually but i didn't know what i was doing.
By nine i felt a kind of depression really sinking in. i remember very vividly wanting more than anything to be someone else. started feeling gender confusion. i've had this habit over the years of trying to craft a new life. have always felt very uncomfortable around men and other boys.
When i was in high school i remember going through a phase of wanting to document everything about my life because i wanted to remember everything. there was also a period there where everytime i would see a young boy i would feel a knife go through my heart.
Over time i grew to kind of despise masculine qualities at the same time of desiring other parts of it. i seemed to be relatively emotionally stable through college - besides dealing with being gay and being ashamed of it. But i've always been very guarded and find it difficult to trust other people. It could take weeks with someone before i stop questioning their motives.
In college, i did a play. The role i was cast in had the same name as me. He was in a relationship very similar to mine. And while sexual abuse was never directly referenced in the play, my character has a sort of mental breakdown towards the end and he starts using all of this coded language. For some reason i felt like i understood it and i had these very instinctual physical mannerisms that would come out of me - almost like the involuntary tremors people experience in trauma. These mannerisms were very defensive of a very specific kind of sexual trauma. i know, this all seems a little too strange but it's true. i didn't know why, but i felt like doing that play scarred me. it changed me or hurt me in a deep way.
i never really thought about sexual abuse through my life until late college and afterwards. It became a bigger fixation with me in trying to understand why i am the way i am and because it rings as very true to me. i can't express it in words.
Over the past 5 years i have been getting more and more unstable. Constant dread, feeling overwhelmed, heavy shame, am always carrying around a burden that i don't understand. i can't stand being seen and cover myself up in layers of clothing even on hot days.
when i read the symptoms of this abuse, like others, i relate to nearly all of them and have nearly all the same traits and personality. Most of my life i have felt like i am stuck - like there's a hump i can't get over but i don't know what it is...like i am 10yrs. younger than everyone else my age.
very recently was the first time i tried really trying to understand more. i had the impression that my sister was sexually abused. i awkwardly brought it up and asked that if she had been would she even tell me who it was and the only thing she could say was "no."
thank you for reading. i am reaching out in case there is any hope here - any direction - anything more than the silence that these things are otherwise.
I don't have any concrete memories of sexual abuse, but i feel like my entire life is based on someone who has been. After reading many of the stories here i quite literally felt i was reading something i would have written - even exact life incidents. What place has the person who feels many if not all of the things that you do, but has no story or proof to make sense of it all? Where do these people belong? All of this will be disorganized...
When i was 6 i started having this fear of going to the bathroom in public places. By junior high i was gay but didn't really understand it yet. I could not stand people seeing me eat and still can't to this day - making any noises.
When i was 6 i also have this memory or maybe a nightmare. Whatever it was has stayed with me my whole life - being at the apartments i lived at with my mom. she was doing the laundry late at night and i wandered off to the playground there....a man took me back to his apartment and all i remember was him having a fat wife cooking in the kitchen. Even as i write this, it gives me the chills. she seemed so relaxed about me suddenly being there.
At age 7 i started having behavior problems at school and would get really violent with other kids. Teachers told me to go to a psychiatrist and he told me i was depressed.
My life changed even more when my mom met my step-dad when i was 8. During that time i became very sexually focused....would experiment with boy next door....there was another boy who would as well, but my memories of him are too vague. i remember being physically curious about my step-dad - would always be focused on his privates (he wore underwear around the house all the time). He was very affectionate with me and would wrestle with me. i liked the attention. i had this very strong to be physically desirable to him. every night, i would look forward to more than anything when he would tuck me in and kiss me. He left the picture a few years later and to this day i feel incredibly uncomfortable around him (he's the father of my sister).
During the time he was in our family, i remember at nine years old forcing myself onto this other girl my age sexually but i didn't know what i was doing.
By nine i felt a kind of depression really sinking in. i remember very vividly wanting more than anything to be someone else. started feeling gender confusion. i've had this habit over the years of trying to craft a new life. have always felt very uncomfortable around men and other boys.
When i was in high school i remember going through a phase of wanting to document everything about my life because i wanted to remember everything. there was also a period there where everytime i would see a young boy i would feel a knife go through my heart.
Over time i grew to kind of despise masculine qualities at the same time of desiring other parts of it. i seemed to be relatively emotionally stable through college - besides dealing with being gay and being ashamed of it. But i've always been very guarded and find it difficult to trust other people. It could take weeks with someone before i stop questioning their motives.
In college, i did a play. The role i was cast in had the same name as me. He was in a relationship very similar to mine. And while sexual abuse was never directly referenced in the play, my character has a sort of mental breakdown towards the end and he starts using all of this coded language. For some reason i felt like i understood it and i had these very instinctual physical mannerisms that would come out of me - almost like the involuntary tremors people experience in trauma. These mannerisms were very defensive of a very specific kind of sexual trauma. i know, this all seems a little too strange but it's true. i didn't know why, but i felt like doing that play scarred me. it changed me or hurt me in a deep way.
i never really thought about sexual abuse through my life until late college and afterwards. It became a bigger fixation with me in trying to understand why i am the way i am and because it rings as very true to me. i can't express it in words.
Over the past 5 years i have been getting more and more unstable. Constant dread, feeling overwhelmed, heavy shame, am always carrying around a burden that i don't understand. i can't stand being seen and cover myself up in layers of clothing even on hot days.
when i read the symptoms of this abuse, like others, i relate to nearly all of them and have nearly all the same traits and personality. Most of my life i have felt like i am stuck - like there's a hump i can't get over but i don't know what it is...like i am 10yrs. younger than everyone else my age.
very recently was the first time i tried really trying to understand more. i had the impression that my sister was sexually abused. i awkwardly brought it up and asked that if she had been would she even tell me who it was and the only thing she could say was "no."
thank you for reading. i am reaching out in case there is any hope here - any direction - anything more than the silence that these things are otherwise.
