NEVER CAN BE ACCEPTED AS MALE

NEVER CAN BE ACCEPTED AS MALE
F

FEELNLOWBRO

Registrant
:confused: There is a part of me that says I can never be accepted by other men as male, the belief that there is something, anything, no matter how seemingly minor, that will disqualify me from being accepted by the other guys as male. In this part of myself I am still like at the beginnings of my teens, wanting the warm acceptance of other males in my group, which doesn't and didn't exist. One of the key areas where I have this fear about something at root being missing or incomplete or insufficient is in going to the gym to compete with other men; I can go and play but I feel the deep fear of competition, like I have to psychologically destroy the other male and not be humiliated, which I cannot stand. I also fear going to the shower rooms and being seen.

I know this sounds wierd but when I go to a pool and smell the chlorine it reminds me of the very unpleasant feeling I had in possibly competing with other males.

It is hard for me to accept psychologically and physically that I am adequate to being accepted as a male "by the other boys" of my past and still cotninuing as a thought to this daya. I will write more later.
 
Bro,

I accept you as a man. Just as you are. In fact, your ability to post here is indicative of more courage and bravery and strength than most of the men I know.

Yell out "I AM MAN!"..... Go Caveman with it! Beat on your chest as you do it. It feels great, trust me. I'm not joking or making light. I have problems with the same issue. I have a friend that astounds me because he revels in his maleness. This is a foreign concept to me. But I am learning.

I'm starting to ramble, so I'll get outta here. Just my thoughts on it.

Rob
 
I feel the same way. Like a man expects something from me that a woman doesn't. Gee, I wonder where I learned that thinking? I'm glad you posted your experience. I fight this feeling that I'm less than a man all the time. I'm stuck at being younger and inferior to other men.

What has helped me some is to write my story. How did I get to this place in life? What was done to me? How was I trained to be this way? By recognizing out loud where the blame lies, how I was falsely trained, it makes me think that maybe I'm more of a man (gulp, hard to say) than my dad or my (gag) uncle will ever be. They're not getting help. You are. They're not saying out loud how vulnerable they are. You are. Tell me, who do you think is the stronger? You are. Our genetics weren't the curse. The perps were.

It's not your fault what some selfish, evil perp did to you. You were an innocent vicim. Well, vicim no longer. You're here now. And we're with you. Brothers who are doing our best having been dealt impossible circumstances. We're here to listen to your pain.

Hang in there. Write as much as you feel comfortable.
 
I've always chalked this up to shame.

I look at other guys and compare myself to them, and the comparison always starts with them not being molested. They're whole in a way that I never will be. And that's about where the comparison ends, too.
 
You are more man han many in the real world. They don't have to fight everyday like we do.
It is not at all wierd that smells bring memories, it is a scientific fact that good and bad are triggered by smells.
I am always measuring my self with other men. Like I am not tall enough or good looking enough or about my station in life, etc.
Take care my friend.
r
 
Thanks Cat, yeh that's what triggers me to self doubt, my own thoughts that I am not this or that physically. I had a father, brother, and mother who nitpicked me to psychic death and I end up with the trigger thoughts your posting so well expressed. I am happy to start voicing these thoughts and starting hopefully to unload them.
Thanks again for posting in response.
:) :)
 
Similar feelings here also.....I don't care for changing in the locker room for fear of someone taking advantage of me, or staring or whatever.....I hate the smell of cologne in locker rooms....I feel that I have to compete in order to be accepted as a male....besides, sports have been an escape for me and I desperately wanted to be the best out there at everything.....I usually wait to come out of the shower - we have stalls at work - after everyone has gotten dressed - and I panic if I hear someone coming in.

Chris
 
Thanks G5 for your post; I am going to read and reread what you wrote several times since it seems so similar to mine. Your self-consciousness and mine are extremely similar. From the time I was very, very young I have been plagued by this same self-consciousness. That may be related to my having been forcibly, meanly, and hurtingly stripped nakid by a several years older boy.

I am hopeful in reading your post since it tells me that other men have faced the same fear. Like yourself I believe being seen nakid by other males in one part of myself is an anxious frightening thing. And I guess that more than both of us have suffered from this; it's really great hearing from another male that he has also been through this. I sense we can win against this kind of secret fear since other guys have suffered from it and we can in our individual hearts can become confident against it. It really is therapeutic to hear another guy talk about suffering from what I thought was just my secret dirty fear. I got to write more on this later.
I feel freer now and more human now. :) :)
 
G5, I want to add one more thing re: G5s important (to me certainly) post. What I wonder is even though you are really competitive and I sense good at sports, you still have that self-consciousness. I have been pretty good at basketball (I took it up only 5 years ago) after many years away from being a teenager. I always had yearned to be accepted as part of a team playing basketball; that was one of my crushed dreams I had in recalling my (unhappy in that case) youth. I can't easily put this into words, but for all of the unhappy moments in which I wanted to be a male accepted by the other guys, I have a picture of myself at that age as if I am wanting the camera man to start shooting that imaginary scene and to make it real. So it's like going back into the past to make the past real in the better healthier way. When I took to the courts about 5 years ago I was deeply nervous about stepping onto a court with guys that were going to play real basketball. I kept at it and found that I was pretty good at basketball and got compliments from the sort of semi-pro guys who would come on the court; I still need and needed to learn how to dribble and follow the basic steps that other guys had as training in basketball, training that I didn't have and didn't have the nerve to have in my youth. So it was like flying in the stratosphere just by own hands when I came to feel at root in my sould that the other guys real valued me and my playing.

Yet I still had issues like I am discussing in this post; G5 when you say that you can play sports well or at least really enthusiastically, you still are saying that you have experienced the same hang up as I have had about the lockerroom. I envy your ability to be so sports competitive and I am relieved to hear that even a guy who can really go at it in sports can still suffer from the hang up fear which I have described and which you commented on in response to my posting.

I guess what I really am discovering in thinking about what G5 says that even though I have the same sort of deep shyness and fear about being seen, etc. that buried underneath all that its ok to want to be competitive with sports on the court or diamond, that there are other guys out there who more openly like sports and that they suffer just as much as I do and are human enough so that being competitive with other guys doesn't mean you have to be cruel and hurting to other guys. I know I may be getting a little different message than G5 intended to say, but his comment has helped me in maybe accepting my competitiveness on the court without thinking that the other males on the court are some supermen who I can't relate to as an equal or can't bond with (which now is really hard, but I have hope I can compete and not be afraid that the other males want to crush me and crush my spirit. See you all soon on the imaginary court or diamond and we can be buddies even tho we're competing hard against one another. That's a kind of brotherhood I want to reach even if I am still
deeply shy and afraid of being seen in the locker room, some parts of the spirit still deeply hurt, but other areas are getting stronger and I am beginning to feel really better about myself. Thanks to my brothers on Male Survivor Forum.
 
Same here. I don't know if it's "male," but much of the time I have a hard time seeing myself as a man. Many times I feel like my body is 8 years old (esp in flashback type bodily feelings). It's like part of me never grew up. As I work through I am realizing that I need to walk that part of me through the abuse with the knowledge of who I've become until I am whole.
 
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