Reaching out for help, wow, for me it was totally indirectly, yet still related to the abuse.
For the longest time (most of my life and one failed marriage) I had
absolutely no idea that my adult-life troubles were all because of the abuse I suffered as a child. Oh I remembered the abuse without a problem and as someone was so astute to point out, I tried to forget, but the drugs and alcohol werent good enough to do that. Still, there was no connection in my head between the two vats o crap.
So here I am with a beautiful wife, two beautiful kids, one boy and one girl, a new house, two years into my sobriety (thanks to that often heard ultimatum, Alcohol or me.) and I still wasnt happy. I often found myself looking out the window, crying and the only answer I could give my wife when she asked what was wrong was, I dont know, Im just not happy!
We slowly began to have some problems with the boy, just passive aggressive stuff that always had us on his back to improve in areas like responsibility, there was some lying going on with homework being finished, stuff like that. So we interviewed a few therapists and found one that would work with us as a family or as individuals, whatever we needed at the time. But things just sort of stayed the same for a while until I decided (or did my wife decide?) that I should bring up the abuse issue with our therapist. This is about a year after we start the therapy and were like, Do you think this is a problem?
Um yeah, it was a problem.
Like I said, I just never made the connection (at least on the surface). When my story came out publicly, I explained how I always said, Yes, this happened, but Im fine. However, in an interview, my wifes words described just how deep we could bury these connections where we dont have to face them.
His attitude was, Yes, this guy molested me and then he killed and cannibalized somebody else, and sure, Im fine with that, she said.
What was happening was as my son neared the age of ten, the age I was abused, I began to really push the him away with my anger, just nagging him over everything always finding fault with him and hating myself for it (but isnt that always the key? Hating ourselves?) See, I was upset that he had the protection, the life, the solid parental base that I did not. He had it easy and that made me jealous and pissed off.
So there you are. I got help for the abuse only after mentioning it to my therapist in the course or revealing everything about my life. Now I do what I can to kick guys in the shins and get them to take a good look at their life and see if they cant make a connection between all the crap in your life and the crap that happened as a kid. And what kills me is I keep running into
myself when these guys say, Oh, well yeah, that happened but thats not why I drink.
Geez, I had one guy come to me after I went public and tell me about his abuse. I asked him if he was getting therapy?
Oh no, I dont need that Im fine.
I said, Really? How many times you been married?
Uh twice.
No kidding. I said. You have a problem with alcohol?
Yeah, a little.
I said, And you dont need therapy?
Nope.
Well, you can lead a horse and all that right?
So there you are, I hope this helps to shed some light on how complicated this junk is.
