Still 12
I think I went back by finding a good link back to that time before the abuse started, my brother.
He's been back home in Canada for about a week now, and I've thought a lot about what we said, how we reacted to each other and everything that went on.
We had a great time together, drank too much, ate out often, went for walks and had a good time.
And at the end of the 2 weeks we were so natural around each other it was as though we spent all our time together. So talking about the abuse, and both of us making bad jokes about it at times, became natural.
But it was only when the therapist who runs our group challenged me to describe the relationship I have with my inner child that I suddenly realised how much closer I had become to him.
Through the emotion I saw that young David was ok until the abuse started, I was a normal kid. No better or worse than most kids. And that was something I had never fully appreciated, I'd always carried the image that 'maybe' I was different so I was 'marked' as a victim.
I suddenly saw that wasn't the case.
I know through talking with my brother, and the benefit of hindsight that our upbringing was probably no different to so many others, our parents displayed no emotions before us and still don't, nothing sexual was ever talked about or watched on TV. It was an emotional wilderness. But I have said before, our parents were of a generation that had entirely different, Victorian, standards so they knew no different. It wasn't their fault either.
But they never learnt, my mother has never worked and we lived in the country with no neighbours, my dad worked but he was a manager at a water plant with a small workforce who until this day still call him Mr ------ and not by his first name. So the insular lifestyle was ingrained, and passed on to my brother and I.
On monday we attended the funeral of my Uncle, the last of my mothers family, and it was over 100 miles away. So my wife and I took them and we spent all day together, a long day. When we got them home I was in the kitchen and my mother took off to her bedroom to cry for the first time all day.
She didn't feel comfortable crying before her husband, son and daughter in law.
So what chance had we of ever learning about emotions ? none at all.
So bridging that gap with a blood relative has finally let me go back, both of us I would think, and re-assess that time before I was abused in greater clarity. I can now look at the picture above my monitor of David at 11yo and see that the smile wasn't forced and false, there was no need.
A friend in the group was abused from a very young age right until his late teens by the same man, and I think he might have a different take on this altogether, possibly his child is completly trapped. But he now does a lot of things that kids do, such as watch the cartoons. He's also a superbly talented artist and modeller, which are both hobbies that kids enjoy. Although his talent is as good as it gets.
As you can tell it's something that's affected me greatly, I'm still so emotional today. I guess it's one of these things we work on, make progress with and see results from, then suddenly - BANG - it makes sense.
It couldn't have happened without the hard work and therapy, maybe even the link back through my brother wasn't essential, but I do know that to understand your boy makes understanding your man so much easier.
Happy days
Dave
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I feel like I have a child inside of me and if I was to guess I'd say he was maybe 5 but my SA had already started at that point. I had been physically/emotionally abused since I was three months old (when I got out of the hospital-- I was premature) and sexually abused since age 3. I do not think there is a Josh in me that knows no abuse... does that mean it is impossible to ever reach out to him like you did?