OCJ
I am a discussion board junkie. Are you allowed to say that? I come here first thing in the morning, am on here during the day, and always check it before I go to bed at night. Last night I woke up in the middle of the night because there was something I needed to say. My wife has so far put up with it. She chalks it up to my healing process, but it's only a matter of time before she breaks this computer over my head and walks out the door.
Still, I have changed so much since I have been here. I have said things out loud (I always think we're talking...isn't that strange?) that I have never said before...ah, yes, anonymity.....priceless. I have begun to see a person emerge on here that I hope some day will emerge on the outside (Yes, SA is a long prison sentence.). With all its flaws, it is who I am and who I need to be...who I was created to be. It is the only being who can be happy in this shell.
I say all of this, because, even with all of those good things, I have begun to doubt my sanity. There is reality, and yet there is no reality. I have always lived in two different worlds...three if you count my closet, so that's not different. It's just that with this discussion board, the world of my SA has become far more real to me. As all of this emerges and slowly becomes a reality from my past, my present reality begins to be more obscure. All of my truths are gone. My clay feet are crumbling beneath me. Nothing is what I assumed it to be. I can find no solid ground.
So, I'm floating. This place is the most real place I have...and I can't help thinking that's somehow unhealthy. But who else am I going to talk to? Who else is going to understand? What's the point of living in what is supposed to be my reality, when in fact it has nothing to do with reality whatsoever?
I have done this before...about four years ago, right before I came out of the closet as a gay man. I found a gay chat room on the internet and obsessed over a boy that I thought I had fallen in love with. Don't worry, he was 23...young, but it was in no way a perpetrator thing. I was in no way a predator. It turned out that the boy was not real. He was made up by someone as a cruel joke. A true internet friend (we talk even today and have met, even though we live thousands of miles apart.) talked to me all night to keep me from doing something drastic to myself.
The truly ironic thing about that is that I don't think that was about being gay at all. I think it was the beginning of this process of realizing my abuse. The boy I was obsessing over had been sexually abused by his step father. His step father was coming home after a long time and he was very frightened and almost sure that his step father would continue where he had left off. I was nearly crazy to help him to avoid that abuse.
The story of how all of that led to my first flashbacks of child abuse is a fascinating one because it goes through so many blind stages that were so misconstrued by everyone, myself included. None of it made sense until that first horrible and clear memory which came about four months later in my t's office.
Anyway, that internet and that boy at that time were my reality. My "real" life, although I kept living, working, keeping up all my duties, was much less real. Now this place is more real than my life, although I have less responsibility now and my being on here has much less impact.
But when I think of him, real or not (He was certainly real to me.), I think of him as being one of us, a survivor. As I look back, I wonder if the man who created Jimmy was himself a perpetrator. He certainly knew what he was talking about. I found out Jimmy was fiction when I called him one night and his voice was old, very cold, and raspy from years of smoking. He had asked me to call him. Why? Instead of my innocent college student, endangered by a horrible stepfather, I was talking to an evil man who I at once knew was ugly, and very nasty and a predator. If I had been younger and more innocent, would I have been his prey? It is frightening to think about, and amazing to think about how naive and vulnerable we can be no matter what our age.
So here I am again, with an internet obsession. It is very different, but somehow the same. That one was very unhealthy and nearly killed me. this one, although somewhat obsessive, may just save my life in the long run. I have read several posts about how guys obsess when they first come here and then are here less and less as they heal. That is the only thing that makes me worry less and I console my wife with that. I also notice that the majority of the posts are by members with membership numbers close to mine. It makes me assume that the posting is somewhat cyclical and that the 1400 to 1600's had their intense time here and used it less and less as they healed, and that, when the 3000 to 3300's are here, we will be very much healthier alumni.
On the other hand, the fact that I assume there will be 3300 saddens me.
Anyway, I have no intention at this time of de-obsessing. It means too much to me right now to have this place to come, to talk to you, to me...to somehow communicate with my child in a better way. I am trusting that as I talk, as I allow myself to share my awful secrets with you and, thus, with myself, that I will heal and need to be here less and less. Although, I will want to come back to help, as I have been helped by you kind and wise "earlier numbers".
It helps so much to get out the horrible secrets. Somehow they seem less horrible when you share them. In some of the posts here, secrets that have plagued these men for years are shared and the reaction by all is, "Well, that's a very understandable thing that you did...you weren't horrible at all." And I think how terrible for him to have had that bottled up all this time with no one to tell it to...no way to get it out and let it dissipate into the wind.
You see the horrible things were done to us and not by us. That is the most damaging secret we keep...the one we need to share.
And so here I am. You won't be rid of me until say 2600 or 2700. I do feel guilty about how much I post, but I figure we all know who posted what. You can always just hit a button and I'm gone.
I hope my wife never finds that out.
Bobby
Still, I have changed so much since I have been here. I have said things out loud (I always think we're talking...isn't that strange?) that I have never said before...ah, yes, anonymity.....priceless. I have begun to see a person emerge on here that I hope some day will emerge on the outside (Yes, SA is a long prison sentence.). With all its flaws, it is who I am and who I need to be...who I was created to be. It is the only being who can be happy in this shell.
I say all of this, because, even with all of those good things, I have begun to doubt my sanity. There is reality, and yet there is no reality. I have always lived in two different worlds...three if you count my closet, so that's not different. It's just that with this discussion board, the world of my SA has become far more real to me. As all of this emerges and slowly becomes a reality from my past, my present reality begins to be more obscure. All of my truths are gone. My clay feet are crumbling beneath me. Nothing is what I assumed it to be. I can find no solid ground.
So, I'm floating. This place is the most real place I have...and I can't help thinking that's somehow unhealthy. But who else am I going to talk to? Who else is going to understand? What's the point of living in what is supposed to be my reality, when in fact it has nothing to do with reality whatsoever?
I have done this before...about four years ago, right before I came out of the closet as a gay man. I found a gay chat room on the internet and obsessed over a boy that I thought I had fallen in love with. Don't worry, he was 23...young, but it was in no way a perpetrator thing. I was in no way a predator. It turned out that the boy was not real. He was made up by someone as a cruel joke. A true internet friend (we talk even today and have met, even though we live thousands of miles apart.) talked to me all night to keep me from doing something drastic to myself.
The truly ironic thing about that is that I don't think that was about being gay at all. I think it was the beginning of this process of realizing my abuse. The boy I was obsessing over had been sexually abused by his step father. His step father was coming home after a long time and he was very frightened and almost sure that his step father would continue where he had left off. I was nearly crazy to help him to avoid that abuse.
The story of how all of that led to my first flashbacks of child abuse is a fascinating one because it goes through so many blind stages that were so misconstrued by everyone, myself included. None of it made sense until that first horrible and clear memory which came about four months later in my t's office.
Anyway, that internet and that boy at that time were my reality. My "real" life, although I kept living, working, keeping up all my duties, was much less real. Now this place is more real than my life, although I have less responsibility now and my being on here has much less impact.
But when I think of him, real or not (He was certainly real to me.), I think of him as being one of us, a survivor. As I look back, I wonder if the man who created Jimmy was himself a perpetrator. He certainly knew what he was talking about. I found out Jimmy was fiction when I called him one night and his voice was old, very cold, and raspy from years of smoking. He had asked me to call him. Why? Instead of my innocent college student, endangered by a horrible stepfather, I was talking to an evil man who I at once knew was ugly, and very nasty and a predator. If I had been younger and more innocent, would I have been his prey? It is frightening to think about, and amazing to think about how naive and vulnerable we can be no matter what our age.
So here I am again, with an internet obsession. It is very different, but somehow the same. That one was very unhealthy and nearly killed me. this one, although somewhat obsessive, may just save my life in the long run. I have read several posts about how guys obsess when they first come here and then are here less and less as they heal. That is the only thing that makes me worry less and I console my wife with that. I also notice that the majority of the posts are by members with membership numbers close to mine. It makes me assume that the posting is somewhat cyclical and that the 1400 to 1600's had their intense time here and used it less and less as they healed, and that, when the 3000 to 3300's are here, we will be very much healthier alumni.
On the other hand, the fact that I assume there will be 3300 saddens me.
Anyway, I have no intention at this time of de-obsessing. It means too much to me right now to have this place to come, to talk to you, to me...to somehow communicate with my child in a better way. I am trusting that as I talk, as I allow myself to share my awful secrets with you and, thus, with myself, that I will heal and need to be here less and less. Although, I will want to come back to help, as I have been helped by you kind and wise "earlier numbers".
It helps so much to get out the horrible secrets. Somehow they seem less horrible when you share them. In some of the posts here, secrets that have plagued these men for years are shared and the reaction by all is, "Well, that's a very understandable thing that you did...you weren't horrible at all." And I think how terrible for him to have had that bottled up all this time with no one to tell it to...no way to get it out and let it dissipate into the wind.
You see the horrible things were done to us and not by us. That is the most damaging secret we keep...the one we need to share.
And so here I am. You won't be rid of me until say 2600 or 2700. I do feel guilty about how much I post, but I figure we all know who posted what. You can always just hit a button and I'm gone.
I hope my wife never finds that out.
Bobby