I read this whole thread over a few days and it's affected me in a very surreal way.
Most of this abuse I cannot relate to at all - child prostitution, extreme beatings, snuff films etc. it is shocking. I'm so sorry.
But so much I can relate to - the broken lives. The despair and suicidal ideation. The misery and hopelessness and confusion almost from birth. I'm almost 40 now and still slipping into wishing I was dead, imagining how good it would feel to cut my wrists and let all the blood drain out. It's sick and scary.
I also relate to the sense of 'shadow creatures' following me. I had that as a kid and complained to my parents.
Reading this thread has made me feel kind of crazy-sane. I identify with you guys and your experiences, even tho I can't remember anything quite like you remember. My mind has been flicking through childhood memories the past 24 hours as if it is searching searching searching for something I can't remember. My life feels incomplete and untold and un-remembered. I feel a bit like I'm in the Truman show trying to find clues about what my life really was like. I'm suspicious and wondering about almost every childhood holliday and every adult I knew... Was it them? Was it then? I wonder.
One night after reading a bunch of this thread I tried to sleep and had mild pain in my penis and backside. After I fell asleep I woke up a couple hours later having a wet dream but I couldn't remember the dream which is weird cos I always remember. And 50+% of the time my wet dreams are not about sex or nudity but about fear and running, trying to escape etc.
I do have 'memories' of abuse. I am unoffically diagnosed with DiD and one of my alters has recorded a bunch of memories of sex with my mother, including sodomy and swearing and telling me I'm disgusting and hated by her. When I told someone about this I broke down crying uncontrollably.
The same alter remembers being sodomised by a man who first shot me up with drugs. I hadn't thought about this for awhile, but when I recently told a friend I cried again. I cried when I mentioned the needle, which is the piece of the story I was least sure about. But it was the place where I wept. So I'm more sure now.
I also have much more tangible and certain memories. I saw my dad's penis a lot as a kid. Normally flacid. I did see it erect a number of times too but always through clothing - under his nightshirt.
I remember taking my little sister behind a tree in the yard and trying to put my flacid penis in her vagina at age 4-5. She is 18 months younger than me. It didn't work. I wasn't erect. But I tried.
Somewhere in between those past two memories which are certain, and the DID memories which are very foggy and feel like someone inside me telling me things rather than feelings like memories I experienced... Is a strange sense of performing oral sex on my mother. When I remembered this it felt like a memory I had had for a very long time. But it felt more like a fantasy I had had rather than a memory. But it is there, and has been since childhood, just like a 'real' memory, and unlike the DiD 'reports' of abuse coming to me from alters inside me.
Like a lot of you guys I did a short stint of military service which I didn't enjoy. The army stripped away all my coping mechanisms and I felt naked and ashamed and under pressure to perform all the time. I was super fit but felt so fatigued all the time. I could run and lift weights all day long in my own time, but when on duty rucking through the bush I hated it and wanted to die. The only relief came when shit started blowing up and we got into contact and had to put rounds downrange and fight through or break contact. This was all training - never real. I didn't deploy. I didn't make friends in the army really. There was a couple of girls I got along with well, and a couple of guys too, but mostly everyone was so macho and sarcastic and immature I always felt threatened and scared. When cleaning weapons I remember guys making heaps of sexual innuendo and I always felt uncomfortable. When there was a big group it was always unsafe. When on piquet/watch with one other guy it was much better. We could actually talk like human beings then but when there was a mob it was a constant dick sizing contest. But nothing super bad happened to me in the army. I just did my time and discharged.
I brought that up cos I notice a lot of the guys who posted have done a lot of hard things in their lives, and had success. I succeeded in the army, though I hated it. I went to uni (seminary) at age 32 and studied for 4 years to get a degree in theology. I did really well. During this time I continued to work part-time.
I've worked for close to 20 years in blue collar work driving machinery. Now I'm finished uni I'm back there but still only part time cos I'm such a mess. Im good at it. My bosses love me and rely on me. They use me in the areas of the business that require high productivity and some level of initiative and knowledge to keep on top of everything. They leave me to it and know Il sort it all out. Despite all this I now only work 3 days a week cos I'm such a mess. They would love to have me full time but I just can't do it since I started engaging with all my trauma and depression and despair.
This is kinda insane to me cos just 2 years ago I was actually working in a church (on extended leave from my blue collar machinery job). I was preaching a lot. Not every week but at least 1-2 times a month. I had lots of other responsibilities. My boss used to comment on how large my work capacity was. I kept offering to take things off his plate so he could go look after his family etc and he was grateful. So I was working 50+ hours a week plus lifting weights for another 10+ hours a week. But when I wasn't working or training or studying I was in bed, staring at the wall a lot. I didn't really wanna live. I didn't have hobbies or meaningful friendships or relationships really. My hope was in heaven, and maybe in finding a wife, and in the meantime it was all pain management - stay busy, stay distracted and striving to achieve or get stronger or smarter or something.
Wow this post got really long and I got way off topic. Huhm, so the main point was, my life is falling to bits, and it's falling to bits more since I read this thread, and i feel kind of more and less insane at the same time. It's surreal to read about men who were brutalized so badly and identify with you all so strongly. It makes me wonder what else happened to me. I remember so little, but my life is on fire just like you guys. So I'm one of you
