New Member Introduction

New Member Introduction
O

Oncewaslost

Registrant
I was abused by my older brother from about 2 years old until I was nearly 12. Then, every year when we would go on vacation, my parents would make it a point to visit my brother's house for up to a week of our vacation. This went on until I stood up to my dad when I was about 15. I ran away and when my dad found me he beat me up, threw me in his car and drove in the desert like a maniac. How he was acting/driving was scaring me. When he stopped the car he had a nervous breakdown/panic attack and passed out. I thought he had a heart attack, so I cried out to God and told him if he saved my dad I'll go wherever he wants. My parents found out what had been happening because my best friend/neighbor told his parents what my brother had been doing to the both of us. My brother was 18 when the police intervened, but my parents paid $20,000+ to a lawyer to make it go away. The excuse was that his name is the same as my dad's. As soon as my brother moved out, my parents moved me into my brother's bedroom where a huge portion of the abuse took place. My parents still live in the same house and the family of the neighbor kid finally moved about 4-5 years ago. I am now 41 years old and have been facing this battle with therapy for about 5-6 years now. I am now entering a portion of therapy that is extremely difficult, but I know that it will be the most helpful. It is called prolonged exposure therapy. I just want to finally slay this giant and actually become who I am supposed to be and not all of the things that it has made me.
 
Welcome to MS! I'm sorry for what you experienced growing up & that it was at the hands of people you should've been able to trust to protect you. This is a great community of men who will offer support & understanding for what you went thru & continue to experience now as a result. Best of luck as you continue down your path to healing & take care!
 
Welcome Matt!

I am sorry for the unpunished actions of your brother and the thoughtless at best, cruel at worst actions of your parents who should have been protecting you and caring for you not their name or reputation. It almost sounds like you lived "prolonged exposure therapy" at your parents arrangements in the house. Look around and see you are not alone any longer. You are not the only one.

Manipulated
 
welcome to MS Matt, glad you are with a T.
What your doing right now is brave and difficult. I wish you the best in this journey!
LRD
 
Thank you for the reply. You're right. I lived it, but I wasn't processing any of it. I, instead used drugs and ran away from all my problems until I went to a program called job corps and started trying to get help by going to church. The way my family dealt with this was to make me stay silent about it, while causing much more pain. It has taken me years to undo what they have done.
 
Hiding from Myself said:
Welcome to MS! I'm sorry for what you experienced growing up & that it was at the hands of people you should've been able to trust to protect you. This is a great community of men who will offer support & understanding for what you went thru & continue to experience now as a result. Best of luck as you continue down your path to healing & take care!
Click to expand...
Thank you for your kind words. I'm glad to be here.
 
My dad knew what had happened since I was almost 12 when he called the cops on my brother because my best friends dad came pounding on the door. His dad just found out that my brother had been molesting both of us. This would have been about 3 or 4 years later. He punched me because he was hell bent on keeping the family together as if nothing had happened. When I ran away I went to a friend's house. By the time I talked one of my friends into lending me their bike so I could go hide out in a field. He pulled up, angrier then I had ever seen him. He yelled at me and told me to get in the car. When I refused, he picked me up (upside down somehow) and threw me in the front seat of his tiny Ford Festiva. By the time he ran around to get in the driver's seat, I would open the door and get back out. This happened 3 times... The third time, my leg kicked him when he flipped me upside down. He dropped me on my head and punched me in the face. Kind of funny if you think about it. After that, we drove in the desert and the rest of the story ensues.
 
Thanks for clarifying. That's a really horrible story. I'm so sorry you had to go thru that. You're right, that car scene would have been funny if it were in a comedy movie but not so much in real life. Did you continue to have a relationship with your father after this or did you go no contact at 18. Did your dad get you any therapy back then?
 
Oncewaslost said:
My dad knew what had happened since I was almost 12 when he called the cops on my brother because my best friends dad came pounding on the door. His dad just found out that my brother had been molesting both of us. This would have been about 3 or 4 years later. He punched me because he was hell bent on keeping the family together as if nothing had happened. When I ran away I went to a friend's house. By the time I talked one of my friends into lending me their bike so I could go hide out in a field. He pulled up, angrier then I had ever seen him. He yelled at me and told me to get in the car. When I refused, he picked me up (upside down somehow) and threw me in the front seat of his tiny Ford Festiva. By the time he ran around to get in the driver's seat, I would open the door and get back out. This happened 3 times... The third time, my leg kicked him when he flipped me upside down. He dropped me on my head and punched me in the face. Kind of funny if you think about it. After that, we drove in the desert and the rest of the story ensues.
Click to expand...
Oncewaslost

I am sorry for what you lived within your family. It seemed at one point your parents accepted the truth of the abuse and then went into denial believing forgetting, burying, hiding the abuse would heal the family. Only truth can help heal but with abuse it is more complicated as the wounds of a child's mind can be deep and families cannot accept their actions can be abusive.

The way your father treated you in the desert is totally unacceptable, it was abuse. He seems to have much anger as to what happened to you. He is in denial and his emotions are shown in his anger. I am so sorry you had to live through the hitting and beating.

I am glad you are in therapy and addressing the issue. You need to heal yourself and you cannot change your family, it is up to them to seek professional help. I think many of us have been abused by others--through words, denials, actions, etc--because they could not face their issues of the need to control a false narrative.

Thank you for sharing your story. You are with a group that does not judge, for each of us has lived the consequences of the CSA.

Kevin
 
Last edited:
randomnumber said:
Thanks for clarifying. That's a really horrible story. I'm so sorry you had to go thru that. You're right, that car scene would have been funny if it were in a comedy movie but not so much in real life. Did you continue to have a relationship with your father after this or did you go no contact at 18. Did your dad get you any therapy back then?
Click to expand...
They started me in therapy when I was 12, but it ended after about 5 sessions. I complained because I wanted to play after school, but I hadn't yet realized how badly this would affect my life. My mom also said that my dad didn't want to pay for it. the therapist tah I have been seeing for the past 5-7 years says that I did something called splitting after my dad had his breakdown in the desert. I guess, (according to my therapist) I ignored the wrong my parents were doing and just tried to be a good boy, but it internalized my pain and took away my voice. The fact that my parents never moved and my neighbors older brother told all of my high school friends what my brother had done and that initially the cop was going to arrest me as well because they acted as though (at 11 and a half) I was the one who brought in the neighbor kid. Left me with a ton of guilt and shame. My friends confronted me in a horrible way. One day I went to my friends house (where all of us neighborhood kids hung out all summer long) and one of the girls (that I had a crush on) confronted me by asking, "Hey Matt, is it true that your brother f**ks you in the ass"? This made me feel like I had nowhere to go. My parents continued to ignore signs and watched me fall deeper and deeper into depression. They never moved and never attempted to talk to me to find out how I was doing or what was going on with me. They just watched me fade. I moved out on 4/20/2000 so that I could go to a program called job corps. Prior to that I had been trying to party myself to death. I wouldn't outright kill myself, but I wished for death. I didn't think that I would make it to be 21 years old. On 4/20/2022 it will be 21 years since I moved out of my parents house and 21 years since I have used Meth. Christmas of 2010 me and my dad got into an argument and he swung on me, so I layed him out. I then made him sit in a chair in the garage while told him everything that I had been wanting to say, all while my mom stood by in silent agreeance. Shortly after, my dad asked me why I never said anything about the abuse while it was happening. I told him that I knew that he wouldn't be able to handle it. He pressed on, so I let him in with one small story. I told him, "Rember grandpa's (his father) car? You know how you remember it? You know how my brother inhereted it when grandpa died? I had so many good memories of grandpa with that car (a 70s Malibu/chevelle), now all I remember is my brother making me suck his d**k while he drove us down the back road". He never asked another question. I kind of wish I hadn't said the first thing that I knew would shut him out. But I was now thirty and upset that he waited this long to ever even check on me or to try to understand the magnitude of what ha. Instead he insisted on staying in denial so that he wouldn't have to own up to his neglect. I guess I was testing him to see if he would be there, if he would finally hear me. Turns out this was just another way that my father has failed me. He has never looked past his own feelings to see how his actions have affected the entire family. In his mind, his family and all of its members should only do as he says. He would project horrible guilt on us if we didn't comply with what he wanted to see happen. I pretty much lived my entire life in a conflict. In 2012, we found out that my dad had a colloid cyst. My dad had two brain surgeries and he is now very childlike and fragile. He actually died at one point and was resuscitated. I now have a distant, but somewhat good relationship with my parents. I am trying to learn to have healthy boundaries in all of my relationships these days. I don't want to need anyone's love so much that I would do anything to get it... That has just lead to more/different types of abuse. At the same time, I am trying not to be so emotionally detached that I literally don't care who lives or dies around me. All I know is, I'm broken and always working on trying to fix myself because I have never ever felt whole.
 
KMCINVA said:
Oncewaslost

I am sorry for what you lived within your family. It seemed at one point your parents accepted the truth of the abuse and then went into denial believing forgetting, burying, hiding the abuse would heal the family. Only truth can help heal but with abuse it is more complicated as the wounds of a child's mind can be deep and families cannot accept their actions can be abusive.

The way your father treated you in the desert is totally unacceptable, it was abuse. He seems to have much anger as to what happened to you. He is in denial and his emotions are shown in his anger. I am so sorry you had to live through the hitting and beating.

I am glad you are in therapy and addressing the issue. You need to heal yourself and you cannot change your family, it is up to them to seek professional help. I think many of us have been abused by others--through words, denials, actions, etc--because they could not face their issues of the need to control a false narrative.

Thank you for sharing your story. You are with a group that does not judge, for each of us has lived the consequences of the CSA.

Kevin
Click to expand...
Thank you. I have know idea why, but your words made me tear up. I think it's because there is a group of people here who actually get me and I don't have to tell just part of my story because I don't want to offend some one... Please read my reply to randomnumber. This dialog is helping me more than my words could ever express.
 
Once was lost,
I am SO sorry you had to go through all that. I can remember how mean kids can be growing up which is why I never told anyone that a 14 year old boy was giving it to me from behind among other things…
We understand as few others do. When I was 9, I had a brief experience with my older brother which I initiated as a result of my abuse at 8. Fortunately my brother freaked out and left before I got too far
but I was beginning to service him when he stopped me. I must have been replicating the abuse but didn’t remember it then.
Take care and be gentle on the little boy, you, who was abused as none of it was your fault. We understand so keep reaching out for support as there are some great men here on MS. I wish you peace and healing…
 
I think the hardest part of it, is that I had no Power over any of it. Not the way it came out to my family and not the way it came out to my friends. I think that one of the ways that I convince myself that I am in control is to tell people. But just like how when the abuse stopped, I began abusing myself. In the same manner, telling the wrong people my story is a form of self inflicted abuse because their rejection confirms to me that to no matter how hard I try, some people will always be the wrong people to confide in.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top