Open Journal #1 ~ #20

[svf]

Open Journal #1

i thought i might try this and see how it goes. First day here someone suggested i keep a journal and i pointed out as i wasn’t a girl it seemed an unlikely thing to happen. The internalising aspect bothered me, why would i want to talk to or address myself, i know nothing and understand less. I know i can’t help myself, i’ve tried for years and have barely made it this far.

This place has something i have never seen before, people who understand and are willing to explore and discuss. So why not take advantage and see what we find, if the idea bores you move on and leave me to my mumblings.

In among the falling leaves of ideas and the squabbling and the soaring screams of anguish we might learn some stuff. I might learn some stuff. What’s the point of all this soul searching if nothing changes. So i thought i will treat it like an open letter, addressed to nobody and read by whoever.

Of course we have the added bonus that you guys have already created a framework where you can comment and debate and squabble and disagree. You do it with kindness and you support and you listen.

So this is my open journal. It might be every day for a week, be two pages or three, it might be a few lines, it might have nothing for three days. I am a human, i’m fickle and I go where the wind takes me.

i just had this thought process this morning, it was 3am so more the dead of the night really, where all the proper thinking occurs.

i realised that since i had disclosed my abuse that people in my work and friends and my family have all silenced me in a hundred ways. They probably didn’t mean to, they possibly would be horrified if they knew but it still happened.

You summon up the courage to say something because you feel that maybe people are forgetting that people like you exist and in some small way to get them considered. There is an impatience in the room as you sense that half the room desperately wants to move on and get off this slightly awkward subject, so you stumble to a hastily convened ending. You lower your expectations of this group of people and make a note that it didn’t really achieve what you wanted it to and now those people from the other office know about your abuse as well.

You draw a breath, summon all your courage and explain that things are ok in your life but as a survivor you have had your challenges recently. later alone in bed, hoping your feet will get warm eventually you remember the moment her eyes had a definite look of panic in them, just as the r at the end of the word survivor faded away on your lips. No matter, she was a cousin on your mothers side who always annoyed you anyway.

You had tried to explain before but it was worth another go. Oliver was a good friend and as far as you remembered had always been supportive and understanding. 'It’s not the people or even the place' you say trying to explain as Oliver piles sandwiches onto the plate, 'it’s the noise and because of the abuse i find it hard …' his eyes narrow and with almost a snarl he walks away and open the fridge door 'are you ever going to get over that?' No probably not, you think to yourself as you quietly exit the room and Oliver carries on struggling with a cake that any second is going to end up on the floor

Nobody means to, nobody plans it. A hundred ways that teach you to stay silent and just keep going. i can’t be the only one, we must have all have experienced those moments.

svf



Open Journal #2

I'm experiencing some odd things over the last week since i first exposed myself to this emporium of delights. The first thing i've noticed is that i listen and watch and pick up on little phrases and comments, and my brain kinda sifts them as i traverse the day. Sometimes a remark made at 3am in the chat room will gel with something i read at 4 in the afternoon while sipping a cup of tea.

I wasn’t looking for them to do that, i wasn’t even aware that i had remembered anything at 3am. The results are often things that make me look at my abuse slightly differently. Maybe it’s because for the first time i want to hear, maybe it’s been staring me in the face for years and i was just ignoring it, maybe i will never know the why.

i’ve mentioned it before around the place that i find it mind blowing that this place is full of male survivors. obviously there is a clue in the name but for me it is not only unusual it has had a profound impact on me. It confused me at first, then i realised that any survivor thing i had been involved with before was dominated by women.

Naturally because women have mostly been abused by men i was the enemy. Not me personally you understand but my type, and it often silenced me because i didn’t want to make things worse. It also removed the opportunity to share my hurt or view of abuse or how it felt when i was touched in a bad way.

So now i find myself in a place full of men and it is instantly better, just that one fact makes everything easier. If i need to ask a man if he feels the same about an aspect of abuse they are everywhere i go. Men who have answers and men who are willing to share their experiences and their insights.

Another brain thing and connection is perhaps the oddest of all, well so far, and it happened without any help from me. I have talked about this place with my wife, not the abuse, that doesn’t belong in my marriage, but the funny things that are said. The people i have met and the kinds of things we talk about and the stuff i discover.

When i talk about all these things i constantly refer to people as she. I tell a story and suddenly for no reason and never the same people i will say 'then she said the funniest thing … or … and she was so kind to me … and then she told me a story

it was happening all the time, he and she seemed to be interchangeable and random, no rhyme or reason, My wife has taken to correcting me live in the story and i can’t believe it keeps happening and i have no idea why.

This afternoon i was reading a message from a man here who i am rapidly learning to listen to, he wrote:

The boy inside you who went through everything he did has been desperate to be able to talk about it and not have to keep it a secret

it echoed around my head and slowly seeped into my soul

it resonated and echoed across my life as if it was a tune that had always been playing

the boy inside …

the boy inside thinks women are safer than men

the boy inside thinks women are the kind ones

the boy inside feels safe enough now


svf





Open Journal #3

The first two garnered no comments. Maybe they are making no impact, perfectly acceptable response. Abuse aside I am a robust human and I wanted to assure you I don’t have a problem with comments or discussion. I am interested in opinions and insights. Even heated debate can leave a smoke trail of interest. Please join in.

Back when I started to be abused I was in a boarding school and worked in the kitchen helping the Chef. So plenty of free cigarettes and extra food. I was a skinny tennis playing boy of 12 who could eat.

I used to creep down at dawn and steal bread and jam from the teachers dining room that had been laid out the night before. A couple of slices and leaving no evidence behind. I was never caught. This isn’t some confession, I didn’t know until recently. Week or so ago. Something has undone, something is letting me see and remember things I had no idea I knew.

The bread and jam is a weird one, I wasn’t hungry, I had access to enough food. Given that it was the Chef who was abusing me it might have been some kind of revenge, but tame if it was. Maybe it was a small thing from a powerless child to get away with.

Looking back it would have made more sense to slide one of his large kitchen knives between his ribs. That is probably harder than it looks to do smoothly, not everything in the movies is real. If it was my bat signal would have had a response by now.

Maybe my abuse placed a complicated little knot in the core of me. By the time I was married at aged 25 I was normal to slim, I could fit into my wife’s size ten jeans and never gave any thought to my body.

Something was off though, I could just eat cereal for longer than was helpful. I could dabble with eating something a lot and then drop it and never go near it again. I hated any comments on my appearance. When I say hated I just filtered it out, my jaw would tighten and it was if I had pressed skip and it just bypassed whatever it was they had said.

My wife could tell across a room by the look on my face if had been complimented, that shirt makes your eyes look great, your looking so tanned at the moment, looking great give me a hug, great my two favourite things.

There was never an eating disorder but there was something, it was if I was toying with the idea seeing if it was a fit. Maybe I was just too lazy to do it properly or maybe I just liked eating and couldn’t bear to give it up altogether.

Now that I am older and I no longer work much, there is no need for bright lights or photo shoots or worrying about how you look this week. A combination of various things meant I added a bit of weight. Then I discovered something, nobody touches you. Im heavier and older. I mean we are not talking people recoiling at the sight of me. Just not the man I was. Humans finally leave me alone.

Men are not predatory or flirting, women don’t laugh and toss their hair. Im ok with it, well I think there is maybe a happy medium and I could do with walking some of this off.

If it wasn’t revenge and it wasn’t an eating disorder. What was it? A small cry for help. Just trying any means possible to signal distress. Something was definitely off I just never quite worked out what it was.


svf



Open Journal #4

I like bits of language, cute little phrases especially ones that capture a feeling or make me laugh, and with an accent they are just delightful. Just about any phrase even just some words in Welsh. A northern English accent just lends itself to good dry delivery.

I was once jokingly telling a younger guy off for trying to get me to give him something and he grinned with boyish charm and said ‘shy boys get nowt’ (nowt is Yorkshire for nothing). I was delighted and he got what he wanted from me and I walked away with one of my favourite mantras. Try it, it covers a lot of ground.

A funny northern TV presenter walking around an art gallery and stands in front of a victorian picture of a large ample woman and he says to camera ‘by heck she’s flattened some grass in her time’. Oh I have spent years resisting the urge to use that one.

I have a phrase that I bend and play with a lot, I like the idea of ‘finding the edges of something’, playing around, feeling around, testing the edges of something. It has the sense of caution but still trying. It means you are engaged and looking but not fully committed, exploring and understanding but not getting too close.

I have been doing it here in this place where so much is said, comments and opinions and a sense or urgency, to understand and make sense, as we try to communicate our feelings and our pain.

Touching the edges of fear. Leaning against the edges of understanding. Toying with the idea of bravery. Holding the edges of panic.

I just like the idea of not rushing in, having time to feel my way and grow accustomed to the weight of the thing. I don’t want to be pushed or pulled along, I want to know what I am getting into and be sure of my footing. I like the edges of a thing. I even like the edges of a person, their smile drawing me in, their laughter drawing me in, their eyes showing me they are to be trusted. Getting me closer in my own time, not rushing me, letting me feel the edges of them first.

Over my first week there have been all these phrases that I have either never heard before, or heard them and never thought to ask what they mean. They intrigue me so I make them the question of the day. Then I realised a day wasn’t really enough time. So I figured I would take three of them and keep bugging people and reading about them until there was a glimmer of understanding.

These are the first three, Acting Out … just sound like a dress rehearsal to me, the words not the the actual thing. I have had as many different opinions as people I have asked on this one. Can’t really say it is getting any clearer at the moment. I think I get it, and it might apply, just waiting for something to click and then it will come into focus.

Hyper-Sexual, new words never heard them before. I Like the feel of it and it feels like a fit. I don’t like labels, I usually find I can’t swallow a whole one. I can tick off a few of the symptoms right off the bat and will probably horrify myself with how many get a tick and I had no idea. I’m starting to notice this whole honesty thing is not easy.

Hyper-Vigilance is also new to me and not really sure of it. I suspect maybe it manifests itself in ways that I don’t see very clearly. Or maybe what I mean is, that it is so much a part of my behaviour I just see it as ‘oh that’s just me’ ’that’s who I am’. Maybe we are too close and thats what friends and therapists are for.

Talking of therapist I was in a chat here with a friend and they asked if I had one. I explained no and why and then followed up with a favourite line of mine. ‘It’s a cultural thing as well’ I said ‘you all have one but we don’t, we keep them for special occasions.’ There was a pause and then he asked ‘Isn’t this a special occasion?

fuck

maybe


svf



Open Journal #5

I just wanted to write about this because I want my feelings about it out there. For this survivor it was an interesting experience. It revealed things to me that I wasn’t aware of, and I learnt a thing or two.

Obviously on arrival here I wandered into the Survivors Stories forum. Had a bit of a read and fell apart. I just kept crying, one moment I was horrified by the way boys have been treated, the next I wanted to hug them and comfort them. I had no idea how to put into words how they made me feel, a week later and I still can’t. I’ve carried on reading, just a few at a time, just so I can pace myself. I will get through them, it might take some time.

As I read I started to wonder what this felt like. To write and have people read it, to have people understand that part of you that is normally held close and protected. Don’t get me wrong I have possibly done more than most to tell my story. But not like that, not the details, not the graphics, not the feelings, or the aftershocks or the wounds or the scars.

I have talked to the police and made statements but they were proper grown up medical words. Not words with feelings. Not strong words. Not words that matter. Words as facts. They are different. I’ve spoken of abuse but just headlines. This age, blah blah bad man blah blah type thing.

After a few days I started to realise that if I couldn’t do it like others had I could write the first half. I could take the sanitised, suitable for human consumption version and use that as a starting point. Work on finding the bravery to write anything else later. Then the thought that spurred me on, if nothing else it will prove to myself that I mean this, this is for real, I’m not messing about. I want to heal I want to get better I don’t want to hide anymore, I want this to start. This is my first move, write it and put it out there, then do what you came here for, healing and caring. Ok then.

Once I had written it I found I had publishers block, it’s like writers block but involves more lunches and a bigger cut of the profits. Wherever I go in life I find myself drawn to people who make me laugh and make me feel safe, I find it easy to fall into friendship with the people who are right to. This place is no exception and in fact one of the best that I have ever come across. I have no idea why yet, just not figured it out yet, what is going on?

That’s not a complaint it is a delight, I have to stop myself, check and wait in case I come across as a teenage boy with crushes all over the place. It is healthy for me and I can feel it playing its part in healing me. So anyway I might have collected a few of these gems in recent days and we are having a great time.

I explained that I was just kind of frozen in the headlights of indecision and they grabbed my hand and pulled me into a discussion and got me to post it in there and they read it and I practised trying not to be sick. They assured me it was fine and then stuck around while I did the actual posting and we went into the chat room and hung out to wait for 48 hours and the reviews.

Maybe 20 minutes later it was up, apparently it says up to not after 48 hours. So there we were then it was out there. Over the next couple of hours three people read it, one of them I knew who it was. Went to bed and it was five. Which you know is ok but it’s four I don’t know.

The next morning it was 25. and I was starting to feel a bit uneasy. It’s the not knowing who has read it that was bothering me, no it wasn’t, it was the loss of control that was bothering me. It is always what bothers me. No doubt it will always bother me until the end of time.

Later I was in the chat room and I commented that I was stifling the urge to march into that forum and press delete on the whole thing. A nearby mod pointed out that you couldn’t actually do that. What is wrong with you people?! Never occurred to you we might need a delete button, right there, what do you mods do all day?! Still no idea to be honest.

Mr chirpy mod told me that all I can do is go into edit mode and delete everything back to one full stop … ok period if you need a translation. Well I can’t do that then, people would know I did it but chickened out, only thing worse than losing control? chickens coming home to roost.

My next plan was to just ignore it. Denial has a track record where this kind of thing is concerned. Just don’t think about. No need to go in that room for a bit. What you don’t know can’t hurt you.

That was going fine until I wanted to add a link to stuff in the bottom of my signature, well it pays to advertise, and I had to go in there to get the link. 52. Oh ok. That’s a lot of people. Then I noticed the person below me had 200. 200! Left the room and tried not to think about it. They probably know more people than I do. Just leave it alone don’t go back.

That was really working fine. Only thought about it a little, no actual vomit. Doing fine.

Late last night was quite sleepy and just checked a couple of messages and was about to leave when I noticed someone on their own. He had been there the night before and he was one of those quite hopeless with computers types. We all have them in our families, can’t train them can’t shoot them.

I stuck around for an hour and helped him post his story, blind leading the eyes gouged out and had to return to the forum to be able to explain the moves he would have to make. 93

Ok, well that’s that, sometime tomorrow that is going to slip over 100 and then we have just lost all control. I will never know who has read it and I don’t care anymore. You know why?

Before me hundreds of boys told their story and after me there will be hundreds more. That’s the problem with this numbers game, there are too many of us. Those numbers are the ones that really make me sick.


svf




Open Journal #6

It has to be some music today, we are going to always come back to music, it walks with me through all of this abuse stuff. At moments of pain it soothes and allows me to centre myself. When I am heading into stressful moments i arrive with it and don’t remove it from my ears until the last possible second.

The music itself enveloping my brain in sounds that seem to medicate and find the dark corners and comfort them. Then there are voices, a good vocal is my lock into a song. If I find a new one that clicks I will play it 20 times in a row until I know it, until I can sing it, until it becomes part of me. I carefully add it to my collection and love it forever and never let it go. I will hunt down versions and mixes, sometimes even covers in case someone out there has troubled themselves to make the definitive version.

Then there is what it means to you, the setting you place it in, what it evokes every time you hear it. If you just hear a snatch on a radio you are instantly transported there. I thought I would talk about some of mine, and I really could do this all day, I used to own a record shop I know how to do this properly and long into the night. So some random examples and why they matter.


Ryan Adams ~ The Rescue Blues

I had escaped to Norway right after having reported my abuse to the police. My friends had given me a guest house in the grounds of their home. Piled high with snow all around, a log fire burning making the guest house toasty and warm. A visiting English friend and I sat talking with the largest glass of bourbon you have ever seen in our hands and tears filling my eyes as he told me that the most important thing was that people would look after me and it would be ok. They did and it was, in fact we had a blast.


Lady Blackbird ~ I Am What I Am

I’m not gay but I would help them out at busy times, and this is one of those gay anthems that seems to just always be around. In the UK it was recently used for a Virgin Atlantic TV advert. First heard in the musical La Cage aux Folles and then Gloria Gaynor’s screaming in your face disco classic. For me this is a slowed down heart wrenching version that take me to the very centre of my determination to be just that … what I am … not what you tried to make me


Stevie Wonder ~ If It’s Magic

Sat in a convertible car on balmy summers evening with a young friend aged 16 who was tearfully disclosing her abuse to me. She was about to walk away from college and everything, her very future and all that potentially held. I told her that I was really struggling to find the right words. Then I told her if love was important and it could get us through maybe she would be ok. I reached forward and pressed play on this. We sat and listened while big fat tears rolled her face. A few years later she called and told me that she had just found out that she had finished her degree and got a 1st and she thanked me for playing this song.


Sara Bareilles ~ Gravity

I have a lot of friends and we all love music, we talk to each other about it, we swap notes. That is our way. Not one has ever told me about this woman. For which I will fucking kill each and everyone of them when I see them next. Then I came across this song, just yesterday. Like pouring a huge jug of syrup over my head.

As I am starting to be able to vocalise my pain, this site is getting to me. I have been sitting in chat and listening, talking to people, learning, thinking, hurting, crying. I found this song, and I just fell in love with it, with her voice, the lyrics. As I listened to it for the, oh I don’t know whose counting?, it was a lot and I haven’t stopped yet.

Something shifted in me and I had this realisation, something I had never thought before about my abuse and it changed something. I mean if I’m honest it probably made it worse in the immediate, but now I was looking at it properly. Now we are getting somewhere. I mean I am still a fucked up freak but I have made some progress such as it is.


… I don’t wanna fall another moment into your gravity

… here I am, and I stand so tall, just the way I’m supposed to be



PS
In case you don’t know, her live version of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is sublime, goosebumps the works.


svf



Open Journal #7

The first few lines of My Story talks about my father being violent and locking me in rooms and that I never talk about it. In chat a few days ago I was talking with someone and they told me they had read my story and said nice kind things to me. I asked if he had any questions, and that if he did he could ask them. Obviously feeling brave was in danger of becoming a lifestyle choice.

He never mentioned the abuse, he just stayed on the topic of my violent father. Asked me questions, which I answered, the conversation progressed and it started to dawn on me that this had never happened. I have mentioned it in passing but nobody has ever asked anything. They didn’t think it worthy of mention so I didn’t or the other way around.

The perceived wisdom is that the past was different and it was normal back then and things are better now. Recently talking to a younger friend, 30+ & 60+ at the table and we had both experienced it in the same way, so maybe not. Maybe it still happens.

We talked about how we had never told anybody how violent our fathers were, how out of control, how out of proportion any punishment was, how scared we were of our fathers. So, we told each other, that our fathers scared us. It was a silly thing to do but in a little way it helped. It was that being heard thing wasn’t it? There might be something in that, people should look into it.

The problem is that the conspiracy of silence stretches from the moment the punch landed until a moment about an hour ago when something shifted. When I realised that despite my best efforts it was clearly, and had always been a part of the abuse. Is in itself abuse. Why hadn’t I seen that?

My immediate response is that it always felt as if it was just the fabric of my childhood. It wasn’t a different thing, an act, all and of itself, it just was. It had never been any different, it was always thus, the iron fist ruled and there would never be any other way, not under his roof.


Aged 7/8 and I am stood in front of the colour television and I am being chastised for some misdemeanour. I don’t answer quickly enough or do not provide the right answer, something clearly isn’t right, he is not happy. He reaches forward and grabs the full sealed bottle of wine and throws it at my head. Two and half pounds of wine bottle smashed through the TV screen and I was beaten and kicked black and blue because I had rather stupidly ducked my head out of the way. A number of lessons were learnt that day not least my status in the house, one below the television clearly.


It wasn’t abuse it was the norm. What is becoming clear is that my will was broken. My self worth non existent and my ability to make good choices eradicated and replaced with compliance and I imagine, a deep need for love and affection. Might as well have handed me over to an abuser bound and gagged.

In the years of my adulthood it was never a subject for discussion. In his direct presence the fear was very much alive. I never trusted him not to hit me. I never ever relaxed in his vicinity, and a thousand times I rehearsed the word why but never said it out loud.

When I became a man, owned my own house, was a foster parent, ran my own business, when he was older, old, dead, gone. The fear never left me. It’s still here now. Someone somewhere someday could hurt me like that.

I never understood why nobody stood between him and I, take a turn, say something, say no, say stop!

Mother, Sisters, Aunts and Uncles, Family friends have all taken me aside and commented on his treatment of me, they are all agreed they never liked it and that he went too far. Apparently I knew what he was like.

An uncle slipped alongside me at a family gathering and casually told me how, when I was five years old, I was struggling with my shoelaces and my father because of his frustration, sorry no I think it was because I was completely and utterly useless, thumped me. A grown man thumped a five year old. I had no idea why he was telling me this story, was he hoping I would experience a series of flashbacks and confirm his version. I didn’t recall the incident in the slightest, but then I guess at that age one violent act merges into another.

Family gathering 72b and I make a passing comment about the way my father had treated me and my step-mother instantly defended him with the line ‘well you were a very difficult child’. Well as long as there was a good reason. As I glance around the room there are a few slight nods of agreement as if this had been agreed long in advance of the meeting. Once more silenced and the myth continues.

My niece is looking at photographs and one is passed around of a dolls house that my father, her grandfather, had made for her. It was basic at best and clearly lacked any finesse or skilled carpentry. I passed some kind of sneering acerbic comments and was met with a sharp rebuke from my niece who loved her grandad and loved the dolls house. Another generation of family defends him and I am silenced once more. I just won’t learn my lesson will I.?

He is dead by this time, so the truth could have been whispered, it would have cost nobody anything. Better really that I carry it, after all I’m used to it, why burden anyone else.

Back in that chat answering questions and being told that it was awful and it shouldn’t have happened a man types into a keyboard, thousands of miles away across an ocean I read the words that nobody bothered saying before. It wasn’t your fault.

walls start tumbling down.


svf


Open Journal #8

3am and woken again by nightmare. Ever since coming here it has been every night. If I’m spending every waking moment thinking about abuse, I guess it stands to reason my brain is a bit full. I have just kind of resigned myself to the fact that I am just not going to get much sleep at the moment.

I don’t like the bit when a nightmare has woken you and then you really want to get back to sleep but you can’t because you are worried about going back into the dream. I always make the decision to stay awake. Tired is better than scared.

I don’t think I have ever slept much. Six hours is a good nights sleep. Anything amiss and I can easily get by on four. When people say things like ‘oh i’m nothing without 8 hours sleep a night’. What's that like? Double what I get. Every single night. Crazy talk.

Once I am tired I go to sleep. I don’t lie there not able to nod off, then I guess I don’t try until I feel sleepy. From what I can tell the nightmares seems a common problem for survivors.

A doctor friend explained it all to me once, when abuse occurs it imprints itself on your brain in the wrong bits. It’s like when you rush into a room to put something away and you are in a hurry so you just shove it on a shelf and later forget where you put it. Only in your brain.

Because it is in the wrong bit of your brain it means you dream about it all at the wrong bit of your sleep cycle so it seems more real and you remember the dream. Even though I know why it happens it still happens. Knowing doesn’t stop it. Or make them easier to deal with. So knowing facts is interesting and it means you understand what happens. Still stuck with the nightmares though. No change there.

The irony is that sleep is probably the one thing that would help. Everyone, not just me. When we sleep we process stuff, sort through emotions, juggle dilemmas, re-organise our thoughts. We wake refreshed, more able to cope with what the day throws at us. In fact sleep is all positive.

The thing that could help me right now is being disrupted, because I am thinking about stuff too much and everything feels all over the place and nothing fits anymore and now I can’t get back to sleep. An abusive circle of abuse and abusive thoughts. How abusive.

I get a blanket and go to my desk. Maybe if I join the chat room. Daft talk and silly jokes. Heads together over there in late night deep discussion. Popping in and jumping out. People, old timers, mods and newbies like me. Nobody has the answer but the company and the feeling of together is better than alone and thinking in the dead of the night.


svf



Open Journal #9

I have just realised how to do this …gonna post this on its own and add it to the collection as well … so you can either read one or read them all … blue link to the collection in my signature below this … that way if you want to comment on the latest one you can without confusion … learning as we go

This all feels like the right thing to do, and I am starting to understand some of it. Violent childhood followed by sexual abuse, damaged adult getting by, disclosure , police and courts, two decades of working and coping. Then the realisation that I had never spoke about, addressed, admitted, described all the things that were done.

Never looked at it, never thought it mattered, understood nothing about anything. Almost a sense of shock of realising what was there, how much and how deep and how embedded it all is. Starting to wonder how I have even functioned over the last two decades.

I am struggling to not condemn myself that I was so stupid as to not see it. You wouldn’t believe how many survivors I have listened to, comforted, advised and not once applied it to myself. I think everyone else assumed I had done that bit and I had no idea I needed to. I thought the saying it out loud was the important bit, the admitting it was what mattered.

I thought it was just the way it was, deal with it, you have told the police, you have said to people you were abused, they know now, you can’t keep repeating it. The feelings and the memories and the nightmares and whatever else this is what just goes with being a survivor. I don’t think I was surviving, I think I was getting by and coping.

I keep circling the same things at the moment. Trying to understand what it all means, and how it applies to me personally. A member here answered my plea to understand what trauma of abuse actually is, listed some symptoms.

So, I searched them and read about them. Some things are just nothing I recognise. I am too Tigger for depression or anxiety, but the way I feel at the moment I am not ruling anything out. I fully expect someone to point out some behavioural quirk or habit that I was unaware of and whisk me away for help.

Someone in my actual life, not this pixels on a screen reality, what can you do you are thousands of miles away and in an opposite time zone? Don’t think I haven’t thought about re-locating to America for an extended break. I can make a list of ten friends who would accept a Brit house guest. Manage it right and I could be there for six months.

Compiling a list of what is wrong with you is a sobering thing to do. I have really tried to embrace honesty from the start of this process. I saw little point in deceiving myself and wasting time trying to side step.

Consequently I acquired a sort of mentor, I’m not sure if I have actually used that word in front of him yet. It’s how I treat him, he offered sage advice in our early conversations and he was easy to explain things to. By which i mean his responses seemed to show he understood me and what I was explaining.

Maybe this is something you are all familiar with and it’s old hat, not me, never had it before in my life. I have told him un-prompted that I want to be accountable and answerable to him. That he has my permission to call me on things, to challenge along with advising. I was very quickly aware that I couldn’t do this on my own, and it seemed the sensible thing to do. If I have found a person that is wiser, more informed, smart enough and cares enough to make the effort, why not go all in.

So I take my rambling uninformed thoughts and questions to him and he responds with answers and suggestions, questions and observations. Then while he sleeps I spend the day pondering his insights, reading more, listening to others, grappling with complicated emotional terrifying feelings. Then do it all again, I do hope I don’t break him, but I suspect he has been here before, me not so much.

You visit a new land you need a map, a guide and a friend.

So far the only things I am fairly sure of is that I have PTSD, there is trauma and I think we might be re-visiting that quite a bit, anger issues but that feels more like an internal rage, hyper-vigilance in the form of how safe a place/room/person is so that's probably a yes, trust issues like you wouldn’t believe, nightmares & sleep issues (I mean please just standard stuff surely), Hyper-Sexual but struggling to understand some of that and how it applies, and in recent days the realisation that Dissociation has been such a part of my existence and so integrated in me that I had trouble seeing it, I just thought it was normal and just how I was.

No idea what I am going do next. Listen and learn some more. It’s too early to say how it makes me feel. Currently trying not to be swamped by the idea that so much is wrong with me. I have moments of feeling hopeful that it a good thing that I know. Followed by despair at how broken I feel.

It is what it is.


svf




Open Journal #10

TRIGGER WARNING

I just always read it as Tigger warning and I’m ok with that. Oh the relief of getting that out of my head.

I did a weird thing the other night, i was talking to a mod and explaining that sometimes because of the time zones i can just go into chat and nobody is there. I can play music and just stay there, it’s a bit like a happy place, sometimes i think of all the funny things that people have said or done, and sometimes i just sit quietly and can't believe my luck that i found in this little room

Mod told he used to do that and that also used to practise
‘practise what?’ i said … ‘saying stuff i wanted to say’

It stayed with me all day that thought … i went into the treehouse and did the same thing, I wrote eight lines about the first time i was first ever touched in a bad way, every line made me cry and took me ages to write. The words were all jumbled in my head and it was like i wasn't allowed to say them, then when i was finished i just looked at them

They were like graffiti on a white wall, i felt like i wanted to leave them there so everyone could see them and then i thought i have no idea how to do that in front of people. So i left and now the wall is white again ... i just checked ... all the words are gone again

If you want to try that little exercise I would just add one small warning , if your timing is unlucky and off you could post write something at the very same moment someone comes into the room and they might see it. You know that moment when’s someone comes into the kitchen and catches you singing at the tope of your voice, well like that but a redder face. It’s ok you are all in bed when I am doing it you wont disturb me.

Over the next couple of days I keep thinking I should try. Just try to write it properly, try is better than not trying. If I try and fail nobody will know and I can try again another day.

So I wrote it and stared at it for a couple of days and kept knocking it down the list, post something else, don’t post that. Then a passing comment from The Mentor (makes him sound like a baddie, and I ain't saying who he is that would be weird) (it’s a man … if that narrows it down) … he remarked that I hadn’t actually told him anything about the actual abuse in actual words actually. He didn’t word it like that, he was right I hadn’t. I decided it was silly to not do it, so I showed him what I had written, while I waited for a response (time zone delay … he sleeps I play … he plays I sleep) I got a little bit tense.

As always he said all the right things and helped me to understand things and we continued with our discussion and the world didn’t stop turning and maybe it would be ok.

Clearly the next step was to just post it, do what I came here to do. So, this is the first time I have ever said anything about the details of my abuse.

And here it comes again …

TIGGER WARNING !

This plays in my head like a sharp coloured 4k surround sound clip from a big budget movie. It is detailed and precise, I know it’s smell and taste. There are moments when it slips into my mind without any bidding and it suddenly has me so hard it makes me light headed from the loss of blood. Other times while enjoying the pleasure of a leisurely wank it is all I can think of and the force of the release actually hurts.

I like it and despise it, it makes me feel shame and disgust in equal measure.

I am 12 years old, I worked for the Chef in the school. One day i was sat on one of the counters drinking a cup of tea and we were laughing at something and he stood in front of me and placed his hands on my knees, as he was speaking he ran his hand up my thighs until he was just shy of my cock and balls.

I instantly got hard, and was very embarrassed, i was wearing tight trousers and it was clear what was happening, I jumped down and left the kitchen as quick as possible, i was mortified that i had got an erection. I didn’t go back for two days. he eventually tracked me down and laughed it off and explained that all boys have that happen and not to worry.

I should explain that i was at that point sexually naive, actually to be fair to myself i was quite normal for the time, sexual education had been none existent for me, i had been told some very basic stuff, had no idea about masturbation, i had a few crushes on some girls at my old school but had nil experience of anything. When he had touched me and my cock had reacted i think it was as much about being touched near there not about how i felt about him, as far as i am aware i had no sexual or romantic feelings about him at all.

Life continued on for a few weeks and it was never referred to and nothing else happened. One afternoon i had been playing tennis and i walked to his home to see him. I was wearing shorts and trainers, carrying my shirt and racquet, i was very tanned (we all were then), very slim, blue eyes and completely innocent.

I complained about the fact that my shoulder was aching and i had probably been practicing my serve for too long and maybe pulled something, he offered that i could use his shower, a treat to shower alone and i did, returning with a towel around my waist still rubbing my shoulder. he told me to go and lie on the bed and he would find some oil and massage my shoulder see if that helped.

So i laid face down on his bed with the towel still wrapped around me, he massaged my shoulder and back and gradually things shifted and changed.

He pulled the towel away so he could ‘do this properly’, the massage became very sexual, i got very turned on and after a while he suggested i turn over. I was erect and didn’t want to, he laughed and persuaded me that it was no problem that we were both boys and it really didn’t matter. So i rolled over.

He was very smart, if he had grabbed my cock right away he would probably have freaked me out, but he didn’t he continued with the massage stroking and touching just about anywhere other than my genitals. Then when i was aching for him to touch me there and to do something, i’m not sure what i wanted him to do but i wanted something, he nodded at my erect cock and asked ‘what about that shall i massage that as well’ i nodded.

The moment his mouth slid over the head of my cock I convulsed with the most powerful orgasm I had ever experienced up to that moment. He stayed there gently mouthing my cock and within about 20 seconds my cock was achingly hard and I wanted more. I just wanted more.

I have felt guilt ever since. about the letting him do it, about enjoying the touching. About the intensity of the cum, about craving more of it, I was hooked from the first and I never stopped wanting more.


svf



Open Journal #11

I am fascinated by how quickly you can connect with people here. I keep coming back to it and picking at it, trying to understand it. I mean sure we all have one thing in common, but it can’t just be that. Maybe it’s a false feeling, those of you who pop into chat rooms, answer posts and generally engage are going to be the ones who would do that in real life I guess. Extroverts and outgoing and the crazy people.

The connection rate is higher though, it must be, because otherwise we wouldn’t notice and comment on it. From my side it is obvious from the start that I am heady with the excitement of being with so many male survivors, giddy almost. It is a new experience to be amongst so many and it feels like a wealth of endless possibilities.

My head fills with questions and you are egged on to ask them and ask some more. The brilliant thing is they are answered, there is no shortage of opinions, suggestions and that wonderful thing called experience.

The first thing I discover, and let me say it knocks me for six, is how joyful it is when somebody says ‘yeah me too’. Just that. Just the idea that somebody else feels the same as you, not ‘I’ve heard that can be bad’, actually feels it. In the same way. Oh so that’s what validation feels like. Well I will take any amount of that you are dishing out.

You listen in on conversations, everyone throwing things into the middle of the room, consensus on what is common and normal, realisation that you know that, feel that, understand that. Maybe, here you are normal, maybe here you could fit in. Maybe.

A random group of men lose themselves in absurdity and silliness and the laughter echoes around the room and for a flicker of a moment things don’t seem quite as bad as they were this morning. The darkest conversations that are shocking in their truth and reveal and display the honesty of deep wounds that make you realise if he can say that and be heard, then maybe you could say stuff too. Maybe

You scuttle into private chats to giggle at private jokes or to speak together of some pain that you just need to get out of your head. The very act of someone willing to throw their pain and emotions at your feet and hear yours in return seems to fast track trust and affection and it feels like you are talking to that brother who always got you, and oh how you missed him, and oh where have you been all my life.

I want to believe that the chat room has the biggest flumpiest sofas, rugs with worn edges and a fire all embers and ready to toast crumpets on a toasting fork. I want to think the coffee pot is always fresh on and that the room smells of love and kindness.

I mean sure it’s pixels and a plain white screen but a boy can dream, and if he can dream it can be anything he fucking needs it to be.

I have been here 14 days now. Two weeks of my life spent talking to virtual strangers in a virtual world and I am the better for it. I am more me because of it. I am without a shadow of a doubt safer because of it. I have never felt so welcomed, I have never experienced so much kindness and concern.

There are people who have just fallen into step beside me and walked with me, followed me out of rooms to ensure I am ok, followed me back into rooms to make sure I stay ok. Helped me and guided me, corrected me when I clearly got it wrong and reprimanded, well it has to be said, with love, which was a new experience.

Some of them I have left and gone and read their stories and cried at what they have endured. I have no idea how they find time and space for such compassion and kindness that they show me.

There are people here who have no idea what they do for the likes of me. I can walk to my desk at 3am with a blanket around me because the air is chilly and I have been woken by a nightmare and I daren’t risk going back to sleep in case I just find myself back there. I logon and slip into the room and there is mayhem, jokes and chaos, people coming and going, links and videos being splattered over the screen, little digs and calling out and quiet little corners of chatting and jokes always jokes.

Well i’m not alone anymore and I’m not sure … but I don’t think we are in Kansas anymore.


svf


Open Journal #12

I take a call from my little sister, there are three and she is the one I giggle and shop with, the eldest I adore and the middle one … let’s just go with … difficult. Well every family has one and if yours hasn’t, chances are it’s you.

We grab some tea and settle down for chat and news and silliness.
Eventually she asks how I am and what I have been doing.
In the next five seconds my mind rejects the polite noises I was about to make …

See the thing is, we don’t talk about things, it’s all just … there.

I don’t because, well you know, survivor so there’s the whole secret keeping thing and besides if I ever had, out loud, in front of my father. I don’t think I would be here to tell the tale. Oh I wanted to, I lacked courage, wherewithal, words really.

There was a siblings conversation once as adults about messy family secrets and an exchange of information, but even then it was the thing that was never said, not out loud, obliquely and without prejudice it exists in our shared history. We just don’t know what to do with it.

Little sister was seven when I walked away, so she is blameless and I have never found a reason to cast shadows where they are not needed. It has been referenced and noted, we don’t pretend it never happened but we didn’t understand it then and we don’t understand it now.

There is a silent still understanding that none of their children will ever experience the same, none of us would and he is never left alone with a single one of them. We all know how quickly anger can explode, we have all witnessed the uncontrolled rage and we all hold sacred the vow that it stops with us. I know I took that vow and I don’t need to ask I know they did as well.

I hesitate in the silence and I don’t know which way to go, two weeks ago I stepped into an arena of honesty. I had no intention to compromise or fudge this or sidestep, and I know this human loves me with all her heart, so I take a breath and I tell her.

I tell her that my time is spent thousands of miles away crying laughing talking growing understanding, being me.

For the first time I actually voice the thought ‘our father beat me a lot and locked me in rooms’ … so I have just been understanding that beating me was abuse as well and she said ‘yeah and I know your childhood was different from mine and locking in rooms as well … locking in rooms is abuse not just the beating’.

Little sister tells me how those two boys of hers who I adore and have watched grow into the most amazing adults, never once has it ever been even an idea let alone an action. Nobody does that. Its imprisonment. It’s wrong. Yeah but those two weren’t bad like me. ‘It’s wrong and it’s abuse’ she repeats.

I am starting to think I am a complete moron, of course it is.

In my head it has always been like other people say ‘naughty stair now’ or ‘you are so grounded mister’ or ‘that’s no pocket money for a week’. Just a punishment, just a way of dealing with the unruly, a way of re-establishing authority.

We tell each other how we were both scared of him. We cry a little and we speak words of comfort and love. There is nothing to be done, he is long dead and everyone is all grown up and we all survived.

Here I am. 3am. Staring at a pile of stuff that wasn’t there two weeks ago. It’s all in an overflowing box labelled ‘abuse I have known’ it used to have just the one file full of many incidents, but now there are new files, I’m not sure what order they go in. Order of appearance seems the most logical and for now I guess it’s as good as any.

Does that mean they have to be seen in sequence, handled one after the other or is ok to just pick things out and watch random clips? Who decides these things?

In the still of the night I start to ponder how I have ever got this far. Why did I never succumb to the lure of suicide? How come I didn’t end up a rent-boy? Why have I never tried to wipe away footage by swallowing gallons of vodka? Why didn’t I grab drugs and just shove them into my veins until my mind exploded into darkness and silence? What is wrong with me? Why did I just keep on trying to make sense of it? I still am.

I used to dismiss the violence .. and what is the title on the new file? … the abusive imprisonment … it was just a fact of life, well this life. So normal it was hardly worthy of note. Now I am not so sure. I admit to a sense of shock. Now it has been added to the pile of things that need my attention. The growing pile of abuse

As a child I was beaten and locked in rooms

As a teen I was sexually abused

it was all abuse … I think I know that now


Little sister is the first family member who has heard me


That’s enough for one day ~ bring on the night


svf




Open Journal #13

Disassociation is something I was aware of before I rocked up here. I knew the term, I knew what survivors meant when they referenced it and I knew that I did it. Had it. Suffered from it. Had caught it. What is the right term?. Live with it. I live with disassociation and it with me.

This is fresh, ink not dry on the page stuff, I am just starting on this winding road, who knows where this will end up. A thought process followed over the last few days has led me to some understanding of how disassociation resides in me. It has also gathered a whole slew of new questions, so there’s that.

It has been with me from the age of 5, various factors lead me to that conclusion, could possibly have been around even younger, but I am confident I can place it there around 5. I didn’t call it that, not sure I called it anything.

If I had tried to identify it I would probably have called it fear. Then again, it was a part of fear, one of the aspects of fear. A jagged edge of fear, it is hard to tell. I know I can identify it really cleary around 7-8, there is violence and I know that I am sometimes not there in the moment. I feel distant from the anger and the shouting at me. I am accused of not listening but I am not being. I am not being here and I am not being me.

It doesn’t really develop, it is just a tool to use in moments of stress, and the only moments of stress are caused by my fathers anger and temper and explosive violence. It is always on stand-by and only really switches off when I am in my bed and alone. If you are alone there is nobody to hurt you so you can relax.

Then there was the sexual abuse, and there it was shimmering and safe and easy to digest. I knew this feeling, I still didn’t have a name for it but I started thinking of it as ‘the feeling’. The problem was that it seemed to slide in alongside desire and lust. I started to think of it as part of the complex mix of feelings and chemicals that was part of being turned on.

It was a comfort that it was there, it was safety and calm and it was just let it happen and just go with the flow. It allowed me to not be there and meant that I allowed things to happen, no resistance because I wasn’t there. No fear because I wasn’t feeling. Sex made powerful feelings and they could be felt and experienced but everything else was neutral and dark. Orgasm would switch it off and post cum bliss I would be back in the room.

As I start to learn about this weird part of me, it is by now a strong part of me, almost like another emotion. I have to concede that I am left with more questions than answers. Just can’t fathom that not once have I ever resisted it, if anything I welcomed it, allowed it to take over when it needed to. I have never made a single attempt to stop it or slow it down or not do it. Once it kicks into gear I always just let it flow and go where it takes me.

Now I am asking if it can be controlled, or stopped, or changed, adjusted, or am I just subjected to its whims and have no choice.

Post the season of abuse I entered the period of an endless stream of boys at my school involving me in sex. For that period it became a little refined and highly tuned. Boys could flirt and seduce and look and suggest, nothing. The moment they touched me my cock would instantly erect and the feeling would swamp me and I would have no more control. I would allow anything, have no thought of escape and no ability to intervene or make a better choice. It just was.

Looking back now in the light of what I am learning I start to ask myself was it keeping me safe or was it making it easy for me to be abused. I will get back to you when someone spells it out for me. I agonise over trying to see clues, and I search the memory banks for patterns of behaviour and understanding of what makes the feeling work.

It is integrated into that heady cocktail of sexual feelings that in hindsight it is difficult to work out if it is good or bad. If I disassociate am I in some way contributing? If it makes me submissive and pliable does it mean I am allowing for abuse, encouraging it even.

I trust it, I know how it makes me feel and I prefer that to anything else that might be on offer. It is still here, it is always here. It still kicks in, if someone touches me it is on alert, if a hand touches my bare skin it kicks in fast and starts to swamp me, or if anyone makes a clear sexual suggestion. I still don’t have an off switch, it recedes if I realise quickly that it was a false alarm.

Smoking was useful, if something was said or done that triggered it then I could slip outside and light a cigarette. People were used to me doing that so it was a useful and actual smokescreen. If I was spotted through a window pacing the garden and blowing plumes of angry smoke it was a familiar pose and raised no questions. Nobody asked if I was ok, nobody needed an explanation. I could take a beat and allow it time to dissipate and clear. Vapourise with the smoke and leave me alone with thoughts, recede into the background and move on.

As an adult it stuck around and came into play whenever it was needed. Parties, weddings and crowds are fraught with danger. Drunken people who have lost their awareness of boundaries, theirs or yours. Prowling predatory people.

It has become over sensitive and is a little bit trigger happy sometimes. I explain that away that the job is unusual and requires me to interact with more strangers and unexpected curve balls than most.

I have no idea where I am going with this, if there is an end game I can’t see it yet. I am already worried that I will have to survive without it. Someone asking me to give it up, the idea of that is enough to start the panic rising. It is early days, nobody knows about this yet, I have time to adjust.

I keep thinking, saying, repeating the mantra, don’t take this, please don’t take this, take vodka, if I have to give up anything let it be vodka. I had no idea it mattered, not that much. It might not, given time and understanding it might be one of those thing that just might not be needed any more. It might fall into disrepair from lack of use.

I haven’t reached any conclusions, I don’t even quite understand its inner workings yet.

If it is that common, if so many of us have a form of it, albeit named something else, how come we don’t know more about it? Or do we and I just haven’t been listening again, that keeps happening. It’s almost as if I was trying to avoid the issue.

The latest, hot off the press twist is that there is a distinct possibility that it has been messing about, without me even being aware of its movements. Now that does freak me out a bit, it was bad enough when I thought I had a handle on it.

Oh and breaking news there are two types and it looks as if I have both of them. Well, isn’t that just fine and dandy.

There is no simple answer, that’s what I am learning about abuse.

No that’s it, no punchline, no tag line or adverting hook.

no simple answer


svf




Open Journal #14

I am minded to apply a Tigger warning, but to be honest in my whole life i have never met another living soul whose parents did this to them. So i don’t think a Tigger warning is needed. On the off chance that you were also locked in your room all the time consider yourself Tiggered.

I want to talk about being locked in my room. I have only just started talking about this so i am not expecting deep thoughts or well structured considered arguments. Actually never expect those things, i am not known for my depth or courtroom like rapier incisive constructs.

This has always been an aside, an afterthought. Oh and he would lock me in my room, a lot. The longest was for two weeks but it could be for just an hour.

It made me so fucking angry.

I didn’t like the isolation.
I would read and sleep and wank and daydream.
You know the kinds of things prisoners do.
It made me feel like i was nothing.

Sometimes i would have to sit on my bed and not move and then he would lock me in and i would just sit there not moving because i was scared what he would do if i did move. It was probably only an hour but it felt like forever.

i was very lonely.

My sisters were never punished in this way. Just me. I used to think it was because boys were naughtier and had different punishments.
I didn’t think it was wrong. I probably still don’t.
Of course it’s wrong. It’s no way to treat a child.
Because it happened so much i just think of it as normal.
So it is difficult when people say it is wrong because it happened and nobody stopped it.

As i have started to speak about it people say things like ‘it’s not normal’ ‘it’s extreme’ it’s not how you should treat children. None of which are true for me. it is very normal, well it wasn’t rare so what makes it extreme?, it was how this child was treated so that's not true.

Other people knew, my sisters, my step-mother, they all participated. Well they let me out to use the bathroom, then locked me in again. I mean i understand that they had no choice but they still did it. Very hard to separate action from intent or motive.

I could hear children playing outside on a summers evening but i was locked in here. I could hear the tv theme of a favourite show and i was missing it because i was locked in here.

I fucking hated it so much.

I hated that it happened and i hated that everybody knew it was happening, it left me feeling like a 2nd class citizen in the family.

Until a few days ago it had never been mentioned. Nobody ever referred to it, nobody asked me about it. Then again nor did i. I didn't grow up and challenge him, take him to task, question him, demand an explanation. Everybody would rather forget it.

I can’t forget it. I never have.
I sometimes think it was worse than the punching and the kicking.

when you are hit it is over with right away. This lingers. This leaves a bruise on your soul. This damaged my self esteem in a way that has left me feeling less than.

When i was 16 he told me that this wasn’t my mother. Mine had died when i was 12 weeks old. So then i used to think it was because i reminded him of my mother. Better if i was locked away and he didn’t have to look at me. It didn’t make me feel better, but it was a reason, well some of a reason. I am quite used to not understanding why something was done to me. It has a familiar feel to it. I have been here before so this time might be easier, well if nothing else i will quickly reach the plateau of not having any answers. A clear and concise sense of not having a clue.

Over the last 48 hours i have written about it for my mentor and i have thought about it a lot. It is strange to be thinking about it and speaking about it, to be able to explore it and start to understand it. The process feels very like the sexual abuse process. It has similar emotions and feelings. I think it has done some of the same damage and might have even been there first in some cases.

By the time i was in the hands of my sexual abuser i was already able to disassociate, i was certainly conditioned and controlled. So maybe my abuser got me ready prepped and just took me deeper very quickly. Maybe it just made everything much easier to sexually abuse me. Not that there is anything to be gained by carving up the blame. Everyone is dead and i am dead inside. Drama queen much!

This morning I am so tired from all the broken sleep and the nightmares and the overthinking. To try and energise I roamed around apple music looking for a playlist, a little less background a bit more ‘up’. I settled on Olly Alexander/ Years & Years essentials. As I clicked on it my mind thought and it would really piss off my father, Olly is a non-apologetic, confident, and very ‘out’ boy. I am probably playing it in my bedroom, very loudly while giving him the finger.


svf



Open Journal #15

I got banned from chat. Obviously I don’t think I should have been, and I am arguing my point, but not here. I am into my fourth week of nightmares and broken sleep. I am sat here at 3am alone and really missing the company and the support.

I started to ponder about my inner rage and how it probably motivates me too often to speak out when it would be prudent to just say nothing. I have touched on this with The Mentor but we haven’t fully started on that one yet. Maybe it should move up the list as matter of some urgency. There is a list, a list that is currently growing rather than working our way through.

I subscribe to that maxim “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” (Edmund Burke). If you are in the room then you speak up. Your silence might be mistaken for assent. I have no idea who Edmund Burke is and I would look it up but I’m not sure I will ever need the information again. I always find it baffling in crossword clues when they say something like Edmund ____ MP (d. 1797) , if I don’t know who the person is, knowing the year he died is not going to help with identifying him.Yes of course I looked it up, how else would I know he was an MP. I had a point to make, it became necessary. I digress.

On this occasion I did not do use swears or name calling, I truly don’t think it appropriate to be unkind to people who volunteer for things. Any other situation I don’t hesitate, I have a full range of anglo Saxon words at my disposal and I will use them with impunity if the occasion requires it. If you tell me something funny I will laugh so if you make me feel anger I will express it. The problem is that in recent weeks I keep circling this sense of something else. Something I had never been aware of before, not even sure if I have words for it yet.

The source code might have been fucked with. Great big chunks of it re-written. I don’t read code so I can’t just pick it up and spot the problem. Wife can do that, her area of expertise is to just scroll through it as if she is fluently reading French, then just stop and tweak and correct and it’s all fixed. Like watching a master craftsman. I have known her to start a new role and casually mention that she hasn’t actually used that code or looked at it for twenty years and will just pick it up in the first week, awesome but also a little bit freaky.

So my theory is this, if people who can read my code are saying that there is a reason why there are glitches and the software isn’t running properly because of badly written code, well then I should listen,. Because I know nothing and they know something.

This area is definitely glitchy, the area of anger and rage and blind fury is fuelled by the abuse. I can feel it even if I can’t see it. There has always been this faint scream ‘of course I am fucking angry don’t you know what he did?’. I mean you can’t say that out loud, if nothing else it is the weirdest thing to shout mid road rage, oh don’t judge we have all done it. Oh unless you don’t drive, I guess road rage is redundant if you don’t drive, is bus rage a thing?

Are you starting to see why I have taken so long to get around to this navel gazing exercise of tackling the issue of how my abuse has affected me? Slight problem with focus. Please don’t think I have been avoiding this whole anger thing, it just owns me. Like the abuse owns me. An internal vice like grip on things it had no business getting involved with.

Hidden in plain sight. I keep coming back that phrase. There but I couldn’t see it. I have to constantly ignore the flush of feeling like an idiot that washes over me, but the truth is it was there all the time. I once met an old school friend who had served in the army who casually but seriously offered to remove the abuser from the planet. Ask me on the wrong day and my answer would not be quite so reasoned and thought through. No, I said no, and if I hadn’t it would be beyond foolish to talk about it here.

As I start to understand and debate the why’s and wherefores I start to wonder what replaces it. If you find out that it is bad and shouldn’t be there, and if by some miracle somebody somewhere knows what to do and how to teach you to edit your code and remove the dysfunctional broken bits what happens then? Do you replace it with a calm rational version of yourself, do you become an unrecognisable version of the man you once were. Or does it just leave a blank bit and you have to start again and rebuild your whole approach to debate and argument, or losing your shit at an inconsiderate driver, which is the more likely scenario where it will be tested first.

I have this worrying stray thought that if I ever tapped into the real reason for the inner rage it would destroy me. The fear of what this has done to me is almost enough to stop me looking. I have gone too far now, I already know too much, there is now way back anymore. Ignorance wasn’t bliss so we may as well try doing it this way and see where we wash up.

I am scared though, I feel as if I keep getting glimpses of where this Is heading and I’m not keen. I struggle to trust the process, I struggle to trust the truth I am hearing, and most of all struggle to trust my ability to be up to the task. I have no idea what I am without it. Take away all the damage and what is left? I have asked often what I would have been if this had never happened to me. I might find out and I might not like it.

I mean I have a wife and dogs and friends. I have a home and croissants for breakfast and new headphones for my birthday. I could just leave everything alone. I have coped so far. I got this far. Why touch it at all? Why not leave well alone?

It wasn’t his to take. Or tamper with. Or touch.

For this and any other time my mouth has spoken out of turn … I’m sorry if what I said hurt you. That was not my intent. I’m also sorry if my anger leaks into my words. That was not my intent. I am truly sorry if my abuse was showing. Not my intent.

The content was on point, I just need to work on my delivery.


svf



Open Journal #16

This is the second night of not being allowed in chat.

I am sure it is supposed to be a punishment, I’m still not sure what it is a punishment for. I made a complaint and asked for the decision be reversed. Nothing yet and the way this is going there will be no decision until the punishment is complete so it was pointless saying anything.

I understand that they are busy, I even understand the role of a moderator, I did it myself for a few years and the role can feel like a thankless task at times. I suppose I hoped they would look at the conversation and see that the punishment didn’t fit the crime, indeed to maybe even conclude that there was no crime.

I tried to avoid the he said/he said argument, so much of the disagreement of online chatter is about the tone and intent of the writer and the tone and the hearing of the reader. That middle bit is the gap in understanding and where all the pitfalls are.

My wife works in IT and when we were first married we lived in another country and both worked for a leading software house at the time. We were early adopters of the groundbreaking idea of having a home computer and have been talking to people online before a lot of you were born. I am no stranger to the misunderstandings that can occur while communicating via the medium of the typed word on a screen.

The problem is this time it couldn’t matter more. The timing was unbelievably bad. I had just told The Mentor that I thought it was time we took our foot of the gas a little. I appreciated that he understood my need to say stuff and hear stuff back, but it had been three solid weeks and I wasn’t at risk or in danger and maybe we should be a little bit grown up and pace ourselves.

If nothing else it might be sensible for me to build in the occasional pause, have a chance to rest and stop thinking about it all every minute of the day. Ok every other minute. To say nothing of the fact that I was acutely aware of the giving of his time and it was about time I let him off the hook a little.

So we agreed that Friday, my time, I would send my last missive and he could reply or leave it as time and inclination allowed. Then I wouldn’t post anything else until Monday morning and he wouldn’t look at anything until his Monday afternoon/evening, There was a weekly plan with a built in rest and both sides knew not to have expectations of each other than what was agreed.

Friday morning wife left to organise and manage a running event for a few days and me and the dogs were left to fend for ourselves. I spent the morning writing to The Mentor, I write it and sit with it for a while, tweaking and thinking and re-wording. I send it off early afternoon.

Silence. Go in chat see who is around, I have an hour until the next thing I need to do.

Three weeks ago I had never heard of you. I had no idea this existed. I had no need for you. If you had been suggested to me I may have even scorned the very idea of you. Or you me.

I’m not going to gush, or embarrass either of us by being un-british and talk about feelings or other such stuff and nonsense. I will say that in three weeks you have established such a feeling of trust and security that I have been able to speak of things that I have carried silently for over fifty years. You might think that is an every day occurrence. Happens all the time here. See it every day. Run of the mill. It probably happened to you when you first got here.

It is no mean feat, it is a heady mix of caring, kindness and concern. There is an unprecedented level of understanding and empathy. I have sat at the back of the room and watched you do it with others, those that came after me. I don’t think I would ever be able to do what you do, you bring patience and experience and wisdom and a sense of brotherhood that washes over people, it includes them and draws them in.

On the odd occasion I have been left alone with, or strayed into a room and found myself alone with a new person wandering aimlessly, I just feel panic. I worry I will say the wrong thing, I switch off the joke button for fear of offending. I have no idea what to do or say. I make conversation and I listen, I don’t know how you hear all that stuff, it just makes me want to cry and hug them, both of which are pointless actions in this digital exchange of words.

My point is I think you are brilliant and I am glad I found you. Right now I have to cope without you and I don’t like it. I was doing ok having a little word with people via direct message. Until one of them told me that we should be careful as our private messages were probably being read.

That really messed with my head. I don’t want anything that I say to get anyone into trouble, oh in my current mood I would say it, it would be inevitable. So I have stopped doing that. Silence is safer. Weirdly I was just starting to unlearn that particular method of communication.

I think the person who exerted their power to inflict this punishment is a bit of a bully. Every interaction with them has been unpleasant for me, and I was already being cautious and keeping my distance. If it’s personal and he just doesn’t like me or the things I say, well I can’t argue with that, I feel the same way about myself.

If the idea was to hurt me it worked. If the idea was to teach me a lesson I am slightly concerned that I may have learnt the wrong ones.

I have learnt he is not to be trusted, that this place matters to me, that I am not able to do this without you and that the night can be lonely and dark.


svf



Open Journal #17

I thought I would tell you about a couple of days ago.

I was writing to The Mentor, I write about what I am feeling, what I have discovered, what I have talked about with people, what I have read. He sends it back with comments and thoughts and links and things for me to think about or where to go next. It’s a dialogue

It’s a dialogue with a man that I have never met, who lives thousands of miles away, or maybe around the corner, who I have told more secrets to than anyone else in my entire life. I have shared my innermost thoughts and feelings. Described bad things that have happened to me and discussed how my brain and body behaves and reacts.

If you had told me three weeks ago I would be doing this I would have thought you deranged. The most a group of close friends know is the fact it happened and the who, where & when. I don’t do this and it takes some adjusting too. Just the fact that someone knows what I know causes me to panic at regular intervals. The fact I wrote an outline of my story and posted it and over 200 people have read it can make me feel physically sick if I dwell on it for too long.

I have no idea what that is, maybe decades of keeping a secret and locking it down just creates an aversion to speaking about it. Perhaps it is having it beaten into me not to utter a word to anybody or there will be worse to follow has left some psychological carnage that doesn’t allow me to do this. In the end I have to just tell myself a logical little mantra of absolute truths that calm me and stop me hitting panic buttons.

I have a thing about being honest, I have been lied to quite a bit and deceived and manipulated. So my aim with this process was to apply the principle of honesty to everything, which includes anything I feel or think about anything to do with any of my abuse. Not to try and shy away from harsh truths, or try and diminish my behaviour for the sake of discomfort or embarrassment.

Writing like that to The Mentor means I examine my soul a bit, I try and face things honestly and bluntly. Which means looking at things thoroughly and intimately. Suddenly in the middle of this kind of thinking I had a train of thought which led me to something I had forgotten about.

Quite some time ago now I made statements to the police about my abuse and an investigation happened. As part of that process I hired a specialist law firm to look into suing the school and also just for the having a legal representative in case they were needed. The first thing they did was to gather together any relevant paperwork, facts, information on the subjects of me, the abuser, and the school. Some of that paperwork was my entire medical records from birth until the present day. Also some huge files of social worker reports covering from my birth to around 19 years of age.

When I was born my mother died 12 weeks later and I was placed in a series of foster homes for a couple of years. It meant social workers were involved from the start of my life. I don’t have a single memory of those two years.

The papers had just sat in a cupboard for decades. I had never read them, I had always assumed that if there had been anything important in them my lawyers would have raised it with me. Of course what I very quickly realised is that lawyers were looking for facts, timeline details, information that helped them with their mission.

For me there were different things. Everything was filed in date order. So my childhood was laid out in chronological order. All this discussion of my childhood and the way I was treated and various events and milestones, suddenly I was staring at a map. I started reading and was there for hours.

The social workers files were reports and memos and notes between colleagues. Everything pertaining to my childhood, family, schooling, and crisis. All the things I had been re-living and speaking about slotted into this framework. Suddenly I had names of people and places with an address. I had dates when things happened. Things weren’t vague or a blur anymore they could be focused a little. I didn’t need to say ‘around about this age’, I could tell you the day the month and the year.

The other thing these papers gave me was comments, asides, footnotes on my life. At least half a dozen people commenting on my father telling them he had beaten me for some misdemeanour and sending me to my room. People sticking up for me and defending me and fighting for me.

There was a letter detailing another occasion my abuser had attempted to take me away from the children’s home (blocked by an unconvinced member of staff) and requesting that the headmaster of my boarding school can vouch for him or not.

At one point a social worker who was a lovely man and really took care of me, took me home to my parents after I had run away. His comment in his report was that with parents like mine he is not surprised that I am disturbed.

He also commented that I had a mordant sense of humour (sarcastic and acerbic apparently). I am ok with that and I am calling that my first review !

All things which added texture and colour to the storyline and helped me to feel that unknown to me there were people asking the right questions. I imagine at the time I wasn’t providing any answers. If I had been asked or questioned I would have been silent for fear of repercussions.

The next morning I am once again woken with horrific dreams and I sit at my desk looking at the pile of papers I had been working through the day before. I am pondering how ironic it is that they were just sitting in that cupboard all this time.

It is too early to tell if this has had any lasting impact, I know it has helped me, I know it has been a positive thing. I know that today feels better than yesterday, just a little bit.


svf



Open Journal #18

The ban was lifted
A couple of days ago
I needed those couple of days to think about what happened next.
What I felt about it.
What it meant.

As is often the way because of time zones the chat rooms can be empty, I will often sit in one on my own and play music. I will often write something on the wall, from the practising thing idea, I will write something I want to think about, or a few lines of for and against, or a lyric from a song. If someone comes in they see a blank wall so there is no risk of embarrassment.

Hanging in the Treehouse I was joined by two men, I would say friends but I would not like to assume anything. I like them both, I trust them, and I adore their sense of humour. We had a conversation about my behaviour, the thing that got me banned. They were loving and caring and they explained what I had done. I was mortified.

I had spent three days and nights convinced I was in the right, justified in what I had said. I was absolute in my belief that the person I was arguing with was deserving of my ridicule and I had every right to be dismissive.

I asked them both if they thought he was a bully and they assured me that they had known him for years and he was anything but. I was destroyed, I had no idea how I had got it this wrong and how I could have said the things I did in the way that I did.

I have talked about it with them, The Mentor, a handful of others. My conclusion is that we are back in that area of trauma and damage. That will be on my fucking gravestone, and sooner than we think the way this is all going.

There is a knot of stuff inside me, stuff like low self-esteem, fear of people hurting me, self sabotage definitely, a tendency to keep people at arms length for safety, an urge to destroy before i am destroyed. I don't doubt the list is endless.

I am so tired and emotional at the moment that i have less control and i feel safe here so i feel less need to control. Not having a clue really distresses me, on the one hand it is certifiable behaviour on the other hand it shows how embedded it is and how unaware i am of the damage i have been living with. Which i offer as explanation not excuse.

I am fairly sure that by at least 7 years old I could disassociate almost at will, and certainly had PTSD beaten into me, out of me, something happened! So there has been plenty of time for these things to get a grip and have some effect.

I see the anger in me and I know it leaks out, inappropriately, without control, with no thought for damage limitation or safety of others. Wit is a nasty weapon if it isn’t handled with care. I have a heady disregard for the death of a relationship and will sacrifice anyone once the red mist descends.

I am sure a lot of times I felt it was justified, highly likely I was mistaken. I am equally as sure a lot of the time I was just plain wrong.

I have apologised to those involved and asked that my complaint be withdrawn. I also apologise to you, I was wrong to say the things I did in this journal. I am also sorry for showing such disregard for this space that I value so highly. I hope you can forgive me and I will endeavour to never behave in that manner again.


svf


Open Journal #19

I understand that you probably know about this
But this morning somebody told it to me for the first time


When you are not fed
love on a silver spoon,
you learn to
lick it off knives.


It hit me so deep
It made me cry
I felt it spread it everywhere
We talked about it and we agreed that it was the reason for so many things

It resonated and ended many things

it made me understand the phrase 'it's not your fault’ which i never got before

People have always said that to me, and I know they mean well and I understand they really believe that, but I don’t. I see myself agreeing to things, allowing things, not stopping things and I think to myself ‘well you don’t know’. I have to fight the urge to not question everything about the person who says it to me. How can I trust anything you say when you think that. You just don’t know what I know. It is very clearly my fault.


Well if knives are what I have been licking then of course it’s true. It’s not my fault. I was just licking knives.
When things like that shift then you can see hope.

I felt it vibrate across everything.

In a rush I started to look at things and understand that if one thing was true then maybe others in turn could be looked at again, this is going to take some time.

It explains addiction. I don’t mean there you go solved that one for the world. I just mean it gives it rhyme and reason.
We lack so we lick. Or something.
We weren’t given love so we go looking for it and in its absence we find things that stop us feeling the lack of love. We lick knives.


i think it is why i let any man do any thing to me
that has just poured itself all over that
and it just feels like truth
it changes nothing but it changes everything
it gives it a reason

and I am very ok with that

this is going to be an emotional day
and all before breakfast


svf



Open Journal #20

This last month i have slipped into being a bit of a recluse. Sleep broken by nightmares and half the night spent in the chat room or writing means i am in no fit state to socialise. Not that i had any desire to be with people either. The odd visitor to the house and i could manage an hour over a coffee but i was a bit scratchy and nervous of being asked how i was, or how i was doing, or what i had been up to.

I realised that one of the elements that has added to my stress over the years is that i have felt a little silenced, a unique set of circumstances has meant my version of my abuse story is very sanitised and palatable. Not something i am prepared to do anymore, but have not yet managed to create a new more honest version to use. So i am stuck in limbo while i process and find my feet and am slightly nervous of how i want to present myself now i know what i do.

I visited the opticians this week. because i wear contact lenses i have to have a complete check every two years, make sure the eyes are healthy and the lenses fit and scans of the eye. This means a lot of touching my face and fiddling with my eye lids. At one point a hand kind of cupping my face which just felt too intimate for me. I find the whole thing very unpleasant. This time i was very aware of what was going on, i was very aware of being touched and could feel myself slightly drifting towards disassociation. I hadn’t realised that i did that in the past, probably just did it. Now because i am watching myself i am more aware of the behaviour.

I think because i was feeling all these things i started to reason with myself, it was just an optician, i had been seeing the same one for years, she had never harmed me, in fact i quite liked her, as i was thinking all the reasonable stuff i realised i had stopped drifting and was quite calm and breathing normally. I have no idea if my rational thinking made the difference or wether i had just distracted myself enough to let myself calm down. I’m not sure if you can have that kind of control, or maybe you can.

A favourite niece visited, she has been doing therapy and I cross examined her about the experience. I have tried to persuade someone here to record one of their sessions for me so I could see what it was like, but for some reason they were very resistant to my suggestion. I told them they were being unhelpful but they were ok with that and wouldn’t budge. I worry that I am being drawn to the idea of it, it is fraught with difficulty for me and I cant seem to navigate those feelings very easily.

A friend dropped by unannounced for a coffee, which is perfectly normal behaviour and I have always liked his company. Inevitably we hit the ‘how are you?/everything ok?/what you been up to?’ Line of enquiry.

I kept meaning to prepare a press statement type of response so I could answer honestly while avoiding probing questions but had yet to get around it. I figured we were close enough to risk the truth and I explained to a real life person for the first time what I had been going through and about all of you. I was shaky and very emotional and it was fine and he couldn’t have been more caring and supportive.

We have worked together a lot and we cross over friend groups and he commented that their was a tight group of people who always kept an eye on me because they knew there was pain and that they needed to protect me. I did mention that was borderline creepy but appreciated the care.

I’m not sure I could have that conversation often, I think I need something concise and rehearsed to deal with this kind of moment. Honest, non offensive and suitable for mixed company.

The dilemma I am currently toying with is my family. Sooner or later I am going to have to decide what to say or not say. The way my father treated me and why I don’t like Fathers Day is a conversation that has to happen.

There are three daughters and a clutch of grandchildren of my fathers and I need to decide which way I am going with this. Either explain and risk upsetting 14+ people when I destroy their image of their now dead father/grandfather. Or just stay quiet for the rest of time. I have gathered a few views and opinions, explained my concerns and worries and so far have failed to come anywhere close to a plan of action.

I just know I am going to end up blurting it out at the wrong time using the wrong words and messing up the delivery. It has not helped that I am still discovering ways that he had lied to me and I have to try and keep anger out of this, or else it starts to feel like arguing with a ghost and that is never a good look.

I can always go for the perfect line for a family dinner … well turns out our father was a right bastard wasn’t he, sorry I meant can you pass the salt


svf



Open Journal #21

Traumasexuality

Clearly I am late to the party. As I am with most things to do with all of this. The Mentor mentioned it, he mentioned it in such a way that I paid attention. Thought I would get a copy and have a read. I really don’t do this, you will never see my bookshelf with its own section of self-help books or theories on this or that. Not my thing at all. I like the Malcom Gladwell 10,000 hours/Tipping point shtick so I have a few of his but they are almost pop culture, whatever he thinks he was doing the fact is he become one of those zeitgeist moments at the turn of the century.

I am a novels, literature and autobiographies reader. On the beach, a train or waiting around a hotel lobby I will always have a book to hand. Martin Amis, John Irving, Douglas Adams, Michael Chabon, David Sedaris, Tintin are what I see at a glance across my bookshelves.

I feel duty bound to warn you against going straight to the publishers as I did, maybe it is the only way to get a copy nowadays. It was expensive to start with and then more than that again with postage and import taxes. It’s dutch so the English is a translation so maybe that bumped up the cost. i decided it was about equal to the cost of an hour of therapy so it is probably worth it.

Yes I used to live there and can speak a few sentences but they are restricted to the ordering of the beer and the thanking of the person who brings me the beer school of linguistics.

So this is a departure for me, it is very much an academic book and feels aimed maybe at therapists rather than the casual survivor. I have read it through and I intend to read it again in the next week or so. Just to make sure it is in there, I read a bit fast and have a tendency to skip stuff.

I don’t want to say too much because I do think it is one of those things that has more impact if you read it with your heart open and brain willing to engage type thing, and me offering a watered down summary version is hardly fair to the expertise of the writer. If you have read it or heard about it or you have all chattered about it in the chat rooms when it was released then I am sure you get the general idea.

One second at the start where the abuse explodes in your body and does its damage everywhere. And then a whole book discussing that and the repercussions. Well of course I am being flippant I am hardly going to write the whole book here am I?

I read that first section about the one second thing almost breathless. It just slotted into me like I had been waiting all my life for someone to explain it to me in that way. It is a framework for what I always instinctively believed about abuse and what it does to us. I think because i so locked into that idea I have been so receptive to his ideas and thoughts.

Often over the years, enough that I know I say it, I will comment that I was very lucky I didn’t really notice puberty. No embarrassing voice changes, no acne or spots, hair growth subtle and one day just there. Everything so gradual over time, I assumed, that I barely noticed it.

And then I read this …

Sexual development is accelerated, halted and influenced.
You do not experience or only faintly experience puberty. Your tempo has been raised and as a result you miss the step-by-step discovery of your own sexuality with all its details and refinements that are important for your development.

One line. Now I understand. What kind of harm has that done? Is it a key to some of the other things? Have I ended up in confused places with my sexuality because of that one second, well obviously, but was I always unwittingly describing the repercussions of the one second? I just didn’t know to call it that?

I am very shaken by the idea of his sexuality being imprinted on me which the book talks about. I described it recently to The Mentor as if I had a memory chip implanted in me. In my head it was just the idea that he had taught me sexual things and programmed me to respond and do sexual things. The imprint idea is stomach wrenchingly accurate to me.

It goes a long way to explain my sense of sexual identity confusion. I could never explain it, I could never find words, I knew labels didn’t work and I have always struggled to answer the question what am I. Now I know why, I am not straight, Gay or Bi … I am him.

I don’t like that one little bit. I not only identify with that I feel it completely and utterly. The disgust I feel at that concept also extends and explains the disgust I feel about myself and my sexual feelings and the things I sexually engage with.

Before coming here and talking to you lot, a term of affection I assure you, I was adamant that I had very little use for a therapist. I have shifted slightly on that stance, just a small step to the left, (would never step to the right), if I could find an English speaking therapist trained in the ways of Traumasexuality I would book them tomorrow. Yes don’t worry, I am working on it, I have even considered slipping over to The Nederland’s and spending a few weeks there and doing some kind of crash course.

In the meantime I am happy to wear the label Traumasexual, well to be entirely accurate, if my friends are to be believed my full title should be MetroTraumaSexual, now who do I know with a badge maker?!


svf