new here, long story, want feedback (triggers)
rumpole1954
Registrant
Hi all,
Just learned about this site. Been reading posts for about a week now. Guess it's time to say hello, tell my story, troll for feedback. Here's the tale, sorry it's so long:
I am now 52 years old. At a young age (5? 6?), I recall my mother putting me and sister (2 yrs older) up on her bed and giving us enemas. Shortly afterward, I was in the hospital for something, never learned what, and was given enemas in the hospital, twice that I recall. (Mom was also into rectal thermometers, another repetitive experience of childhood anal penetration for me). The effect on me of the enemas was powerful. Within a short time, I had the neighbor girl behind the garage, pushing a stick into my anus, and me trying to get her to try it. Breathless, heart pounding acting out, by age 6. Soon after, I started giving myself enemas in secret, and thus began my secret life, my shameful secret anal fetish.
This went on for years. By my teen years, I linked my anal fetish with masturbation, eventually graduating from enemas to dildos. I craved that anal stimulation and penetration. The thought of talking to anyone about it was unthinkable, and the dirty secret started eroding my soul. Having a shame driven secret, particularly this one, took a huge toll on me, as did the abuse itself. Basically, my masculinity and sense of self were compromised in many ways. And, of course, the question raised by my anal obsession: Was I gay? I was too scared even to think about that question, in case the answer might be yes. But I didn't feel attracted to guys, I longed for a girlfriend, yet was hopelessly inept with girls, so self conscious, couldnt talk to them, couldn't be myself around them. I was like Woody Allen in the movie Play It Again Sam.
After painful rejections by my male friends in high school (excluded from their cliques, etc), and still unable to connect with girls, isolated and miserable, I discovered drugs and alcohol -- paradise! -- and was the class drunk by senior year. My dad was basically absent, a model of neglect; altho I was a good athlete and played sports in school, my parents never attended a single game, for example. By senior year, I was at war with my parents, especially my mother, who was even more psychologically intrusive than she had been physically. I moved out at age 17. Within a few years, I had become a hippie, traveled the country, got involved with new age gurus, cults and communes, more drugs (hey, it was the early 70s!). But couldn't manage to get in a relationship.
Ended up in a bizarre Christian religious cult, that had very strict rules about sex and dating (and everthing else, so alcohol and drugs were also out). Was in this thing for years (which I have learned is not uncommon for victims of CSA, seeking an environment where they can avoid dealing with sexual issues), during which I went to college, law school, got married even. Wife knew nothing of my secret sexual fetish, I was too embarrassed to tell her, and so a big part of my true self was hidden from her, split off. Our sex life was awful, we couldn't talk to each other about it; we went thru the motions of marriage but I was never fully connected, because I couldn't open myself up to her, always hiding a huge part of myself. My fault, not hers.
Eventually the cult breaks up, we have a child and move to a new city. I start drinking again, big time. At this point I hate myself for wasting years of my life in a stupid religious cult, married to a woman I don't love, still trapped in my secret sexual obsession, isolated and miserable. My sexual secret life (as well as my drinking) is becoming compulsive; going to adult bookstores, obsessed with porn, looking for the heart pounding breathless sexual thrill, which seemed to provide a powerful, if temporary, escape for me.
It's progressing. I discover the internet. Chatrooms. Getting bored with dildos, I start wondering and fantasizing about the ultimate taboo, actually having sex with a guy; the idea is both exciting and repulsive all at once. Eventually, I make the horrible decision to start down that road, using the internet to set up anonymous sexual encounters with men in hotels while traveling on business - always drunk/stoned, feeling humiliated and guilty afterwards. At this point I feel completely out of control; can't stop the drinking, and when drunk and unsupervised, can't seem to stop myself from acting out with men, even though I have a wife at home, and a young daughter. I drown the guilt with alcohol, and the cycle continues.
Wife remains in the dark but knows something is bad, bad wrong with the drinking, plus suspects infidelity. Asks for divorce after 15 years of marriage. In a panic, I go to an AA meeting, knew I was an alcoholic but didn't have the guts to address that problem, and really didn't want to, but the prospect of losing my family shocked me into action. AA got me off the alcohol but she divorced me anyway. Found myself still unable to disclose my sexual secret life, so I was unable to do a complete 4th and 5th step in the AA program (which requires taking a "fearless moral inventory" of myself, and then telling another human being the "exact nature of our wrongs."
The folks in AA say "you are as sick as your secrets" and I discovered it's true: I couldn't stop acting out with men as long as I kept my secret, drink or no drink. And I didn't stop; I continued to occasionally act out sexually with men (and resorted to pot and poppers, instead of booze, but still needed to be intoxicated), even while in a serious relationship with a woman; none of these relationships never went anywhere, because I couldn't be fully honest and come clean about my sexual past; I couldn't open myself up emotionally while continuing to protect the secrets.
Finally met and fell deeply in love with an incredible woman. Someone I thought I could tell my story to. Our sex life was awesome. After six months together, but before I found the courage to tell her my secret, she found my AA 4th step notebook, in which I had written about having sex with men. In a panic, she confronted me about it, shocked and horrified -- rightly so -- that I had done this behind the women's backs, exposing them to risk of STD's, etc. Because of this, the seemingly wonderful man she thought she knew and loved had become a monster overnight to her.
I was mortified at being found out, but determined to be honest with her and break the secret, I blurted out the whole story to her, a terrible torrent of information that was utterly horrifying to her. There followed months of intense pain and conflict between us, trying to figure all this out.
She persuaded me to start therapy, I've been going for 10 months. She hasn't exactly left me, but she remains at a safe distance, trying to figure out if she can ever be in a committed relationship with me. She says she still loves me, but she is afraid I'll act out again with men and treat her as I did all the others; that because the sex with men, and the deceitful and heartless mistreatment of the women in my life, went on for so many years (and mainly because of a sexual relationship I had with a particular guy that went on for much of that time), it seems to her that "sexual addiction" or "acting out childhood sexual trauma" is just not a sufficient explanation for my behavior.
I think she fears that, regardless of the effect of the abuse, or maybe as a result of it or in addition to it, I appear to have a strong sexual attraction -- however that might be described or defined -- to men, which feels very threatening to her, to her sexuality; she feels that she would be in compettion with men, that I prefer men sexually as much as, or even more than, women. Despite what I say to the contrary, it appears to her that men are just more important to me than women are, period! It's a very scary thing for her. She is deeply hurt and confused. Meanwhile, I am still deeply in love with her and don't want to lose her or hurt her more than I already have.
She needs me to open up to her about my feelings, my fantasies, my secret interior emotional life, so that she can understand me and, perhaps, stay in my life. I often find this very hard to do, because I say many contradictory and confusing things, and often draw blanks when she asks how I feel about certain things. She gets very frustrated with me. For example, it makes no sense to her that I say I am not "attracted" to men, despite a decade of secret sex with men, at the cost of a marriage, other relationships with women, etc. Yet, it's true that I feel no real attraction to men (as I define it): don't want to hold them or be held by them, don't get a jolt out of looking at them, have no romantic/emotional longings for men; yet I did get pleasure from being anally penetrated by them. On the other hand, I feel strongly attracted to women; my emotional, romantic longings are directed solely to women; I love their touch, looking at them, feeling intense desire for them. Although my sex life with woman before I met her was not very good, our sex life was incredible, like nothing I'd ever known -- until things went awry with her discovery of the notebooks.
To me, the whole sex with guys stuff is basically pathological, rooted in the abuse trauma and rssulting anal fetish, and not due to my fundamental sexual orientation; I fundamentally feel and identify as straight, yet, due to the enemas and what came after, the anal fascination remains, as, I suppose, does my capacity for enjoying sex with men (although it's been a couple years now). I don't feel controlled by my anal fetish now, though.
It's a struggle to sort all this out. I relate to the posts by guys abused by women; I see that, like many of them, I became very submissive, not only sexually but psychologically, and subjected myself repeatedly to men in various settings. I do have sexual fantasies involving men, which is hard to talk to my girlfriend about. (Which is stupid, since she knows what I did in real life). And so on. Therapy has been very helpful; at least, the terrible secret is, at last, no longer secret, and the power of it has all but evaporated; I even went to my ex-wife and confessed the whole thing to her; angel that she is, she forgave me and was grateful that I was able to tell her the truth and validate her own feelings, misgivings and confusion back then. (She is outraged at my mother, as is my girlfriend; being mothers, they are way more in touch with the abusive nature of what my mother was doing to me than I am right now).
Can anybody out there relate to my crazy story? If so, how have you dealt what happened, how have you reclaimed your masculinity, your ability to open up fully to women, to connect to your feelings, and so on? Thanks for reading and for any feedback, sorry this was so long.
R
Just learned about this site. Been reading posts for about a week now. Guess it's time to say hello, tell my story, troll for feedback. Here's the tale, sorry it's so long:
I am now 52 years old. At a young age (5? 6?), I recall my mother putting me and sister (2 yrs older) up on her bed and giving us enemas. Shortly afterward, I was in the hospital for something, never learned what, and was given enemas in the hospital, twice that I recall. (Mom was also into rectal thermometers, another repetitive experience of childhood anal penetration for me). The effect on me of the enemas was powerful. Within a short time, I had the neighbor girl behind the garage, pushing a stick into my anus, and me trying to get her to try it. Breathless, heart pounding acting out, by age 6. Soon after, I started giving myself enemas in secret, and thus began my secret life, my shameful secret anal fetish.
This went on for years. By my teen years, I linked my anal fetish with masturbation, eventually graduating from enemas to dildos. I craved that anal stimulation and penetration. The thought of talking to anyone about it was unthinkable, and the dirty secret started eroding my soul. Having a shame driven secret, particularly this one, took a huge toll on me, as did the abuse itself. Basically, my masculinity and sense of self were compromised in many ways. And, of course, the question raised by my anal obsession: Was I gay? I was too scared even to think about that question, in case the answer might be yes. But I didn't feel attracted to guys, I longed for a girlfriend, yet was hopelessly inept with girls, so self conscious, couldnt talk to them, couldn't be myself around them. I was like Woody Allen in the movie Play It Again Sam.
After painful rejections by my male friends in high school (excluded from their cliques, etc), and still unable to connect with girls, isolated and miserable, I discovered drugs and alcohol -- paradise! -- and was the class drunk by senior year. My dad was basically absent, a model of neglect; altho I was a good athlete and played sports in school, my parents never attended a single game, for example. By senior year, I was at war with my parents, especially my mother, who was even more psychologically intrusive than she had been physically. I moved out at age 17. Within a few years, I had become a hippie, traveled the country, got involved with new age gurus, cults and communes, more drugs (hey, it was the early 70s!). But couldn't manage to get in a relationship.
Ended up in a bizarre Christian religious cult, that had very strict rules about sex and dating (and everthing else, so alcohol and drugs were also out). Was in this thing for years (which I have learned is not uncommon for victims of CSA, seeking an environment where they can avoid dealing with sexual issues), during which I went to college, law school, got married even. Wife knew nothing of my secret sexual fetish, I was too embarrassed to tell her, and so a big part of my true self was hidden from her, split off. Our sex life was awful, we couldn't talk to each other about it; we went thru the motions of marriage but I was never fully connected, because I couldn't open myself up to her, always hiding a huge part of myself. My fault, not hers.
Eventually the cult breaks up, we have a child and move to a new city. I start drinking again, big time. At this point I hate myself for wasting years of my life in a stupid religious cult, married to a woman I don't love, still trapped in my secret sexual obsession, isolated and miserable. My sexual secret life (as well as my drinking) is becoming compulsive; going to adult bookstores, obsessed with porn, looking for the heart pounding breathless sexual thrill, which seemed to provide a powerful, if temporary, escape for me.
It's progressing. I discover the internet. Chatrooms. Getting bored with dildos, I start wondering and fantasizing about the ultimate taboo, actually having sex with a guy; the idea is both exciting and repulsive all at once. Eventually, I make the horrible decision to start down that road, using the internet to set up anonymous sexual encounters with men in hotels while traveling on business - always drunk/stoned, feeling humiliated and guilty afterwards. At this point I feel completely out of control; can't stop the drinking, and when drunk and unsupervised, can't seem to stop myself from acting out with men, even though I have a wife at home, and a young daughter. I drown the guilt with alcohol, and the cycle continues.
Wife remains in the dark but knows something is bad, bad wrong with the drinking, plus suspects infidelity. Asks for divorce after 15 years of marriage. In a panic, I go to an AA meeting, knew I was an alcoholic but didn't have the guts to address that problem, and really didn't want to, but the prospect of losing my family shocked me into action. AA got me off the alcohol but she divorced me anyway. Found myself still unable to disclose my sexual secret life, so I was unable to do a complete 4th and 5th step in the AA program (which requires taking a "fearless moral inventory" of myself, and then telling another human being the "exact nature of our wrongs."
The folks in AA say "you are as sick as your secrets" and I discovered it's true: I couldn't stop acting out with men as long as I kept my secret, drink or no drink. And I didn't stop; I continued to occasionally act out sexually with men (and resorted to pot and poppers, instead of booze, but still needed to be intoxicated), even while in a serious relationship with a woman; none of these relationships never went anywhere, because I couldn't be fully honest and come clean about my sexual past; I couldn't open myself up emotionally while continuing to protect the secrets.
Finally met and fell deeply in love with an incredible woman. Someone I thought I could tell my story to. Our sex life was awesome. After six months together, but before I found the courage to tell her my secret, she found my AA 4th step notebook, in which I had written about having sex with men. In a panic, she confronted me about it, shocked and horrified -- rightly so -- that I had done this behind the women's backs, exposing them to risk of STD's, etc. Because of this, the seemingly wonderful man she thought she knew and loved had become a monster overnight to her.
I was mortified at being found out, but determined to be honest with her and break the secret, I blurted out the whole story to her, a terrible torrent of information that was utterly horrifying to her. There followed months of intense pain and conflict between us, trying to figure all this out.
She persuaded me to start therapy, I've been going for 10 months. She hasn't exactly left me, but she remains at a safe distance, trying to figure out if she can ever be in a committed relationship with me. She says she still loves me, but she is afraid I'll act out again with men and treat her as I did all the others; that because the sex with men, and the deceitful and heartless mistreatment of the women in my life, went on for so many years (and mainly because of a sexual relationship I had with a particular guy that went on for much of that time), it seems to her that "sexual addiction" or "acting out childhood sexual trauma" is just not a sufficient explanation for my behavior.
I think she fears that, regardless of the effect of the abuse, or maybe as a result of it or in addition to it, I appear to have a strong sexual attraction -- however that might be described or defined -- to men, which feels very threatening to her, to her sexuality; she feels that she would be in compettion with men, that I prefer men sexually as much as, or even more than, women. Despite what I say to the contrary, it appears to her that men are just more important to me than women are, period! It's a very scary thing for her. She is deeply hurt and confused. Meanwhile, I am still deeply in love with her and don't want to lose her or hurt her more than I already have.
She needs me to open up to her about my feelings, my fantasies, my secret interior emotional life, so that she can understand me and, perhaps, stay in my life. I often find this very hard to do, because I say many contradictory and confusing things, and often draw blanks when she asks how I feel about certain things. She gets very frustrated with me. For example, it makes no sense to her that I say I am not "attracted" to men, despite a decade of secret sex with men, at the cost of a marriage, other relationships with women, etc. Yet, it's true that I feel no real attraction to men (as I define it): don't want to hold them or be held by them, don't get a jolt out of looking at them, have no romantic/emotional longings for men; yet I did get pleasure from being anally penetrated by them. On the other hand, I feel strongly attracted to women; my emotional, romantic longings are directed solely to women; I love their touch, looking at them, feeling intense desire for them. Although my sex life with woman before I met her was not very good, our sex life was incredible, like nothing I'd ever known -- until things went awry with her discovery of the notebooks.
To me, the whole sex with guys stuff is basically pathological, rooted in the abuse trauma and rssulting anal fetish, and not due to my fundamental sexual orientation; I fundamentally feel and identify as straight, yet, due to the enemas and what came after, the anal fascination remains, as, I suppose, does my capacity for enjoying sex with men (although it's been a couple years now). I don't feel controlled by my anal fetish now, though.
It's a struggle to sort all this out. I relate to the posts by guys abused by women; I see that, like many of them, I became very submissive, not only sexually but psychologically, and subjected myself repeatedly to men in various settings. I do have sexual fantasies involving men, which is hard to talk to my girlfriend about. (Which is stupid, since she knows what I did in real life). And so on. Therapy has been very helpful; at least, the terrible secret is, at last, no longer secret, and the power of it has all but evaporated; I even went to my ex-wife and confessed the whole thing to her; angel that she is, she forgave me and was grateful that I was able to tell her the truth and validate her own feelings, misgivings and confusion back then. (She is outraged at my mother, as is my girlfriend; being mothers, they are way more in touch with the abusive nature of what my mother was doing to me than I am right now).
Can anybody out there relate to my crazy story? If so, how have you dealt what happened, how have you reclaimed your masculinity, your ability to open up fully to women, to connect to your feelings, and so on? Thanks for reading and for any feedback, sorry this was so long.
R
