Shame never goes away

[Tryingtolive]

Shame is such a hard thing for me to get past.

It’s like the shame from the abuse. Swallowed me whole, devoured who ever I was or suppose to be.

Shame is something I’m learning to either live with or run from. Neither I think are doable.

Living with shame torments everything you do,and dictates how people perceive you.

Running from shame puts up barriers and emotional needs are never met. A lot of wasted energy comes from shame.

Sad thing about “my shame” no one knows or could imagine why I feel this shame.

A perfect family to some

But a family of incest to me.

It’s hard to forgive.

Even harder to trust.

It’s hard to feel safe.

Or be open around my family.

But so many tell me how I’m so lucky to have the family have.

Minus the sexual abuse I’d say my family ain’t too bad.

The shame is buried heavy inside me.

Anger and frustrations take they’re course on me.

I hate not being able to be vocal.

Transparent.

Worthy of others.

I feel belittled half the time.

I truly feel like there’s past relationships that went bad that I’ll never get back cause
I was going through a lot mentally and I was never understood.

People don’t know the real me.

It hurts me cause I’ve covered him up for so long.

This boy.

Who’s a man now.

Who doesn’t understand what happened to him.

What he thought was love.

He was actually being used.

What he thought was normal.

To this day his family still acts like it was.

I’m just a kid.

A man.

From a family Who won’t accept him.

Friends who can’t help him.

Mentors who couldn’t understand him.

I’m in the midst of shame.

A feeling of disgust, with myself.
A false self, a confidence easy to break.
An alter ego that I hate.
With no plans of what to do with this shame.

The thing I hate is I lost who I loved.
I love who I hate.
Others feel hated just cause I’m afraid to show the love I once had.

But truthly I never felt love.
Always went looking for it.
The way my brother taught me.
When I found it was wrong.
Everything to me was a lie.
Love especially.
Hate replaced everything.
Everything about myself was gone.
Everything I loved. The people I trusted.
We’re all gone.
Soon enough I found myself.
Crying and breaking down.
Things have changed since I’ve helped myself.
Just looking for some old friends. Familiar faces I could smile with

 

[genedebs]

Dear Trying to Live, (TRIGGERS)

The shame you find overwhelming is incest. You feel alone, violated by your family to protect their image and lies which mean they do not have to look at themselves. This is not as unusual as you think.

I know of very few incestuos families who will acknowledge it. There are more women than men incest survivors. The brothers are the primary source of incest, both for boys and girls. To use your brothers deciet and sexual perversion as the basis of your sexual abuse is a terrible starting place.

Your brother's view was he was fully justified in using your body and calling it love. My brother also felt fully justified, because his behaviour indicated he must have been abused. Though he could never remember any event that happened. He taught us a game where the three of us led by my brother got naked. My older brother would ride us (rubbing his penis on our backs). When he ejaculated on my little brother ended playing that game.

When my older brother (two years later) convinced me to suck his cock (promising he would do the same in return.) When he was about to ejaculate he shamed me for sucking him by telling me it made me homosexual.

About this time my mother had me get undressed so her friend a photographer could take pictures. After I was naked and the photographer finished taking pictures, my mother told the photographer to cut the pictures down. I asked why, she said, so I would not be embarrassed when I got older. I knew that when she said so I would not be embarrassed meant that she would be embarrassed.

At that point it was clear my mother would not take action with my brother for wanting me to suck his cock. A year later, to go a little bit further beyond incest, my mother had a friend of hers to take care of me when I was sick. Over the next six months he raped me orally and anally. Then my parents told me I should not go on a trip with him because he might be a homosexual. I explained he was a homosexual. My mother asked if I enjoyed being penetrated, I said no it hurt. She said you are O K. She would never talk with me about it again.


My value to my mother was always based on how I performed so she could be proud. Like accepting assignments to transfer registrations in black neighborhoods, where houses were being demolished. where she could be proud (and show me off). Reading Plato when I was 13, volunteering in housing projects when I was 14, running voter registration drives in Virginia during the Mississippi summer, running tutorial program with volunteer high school student and getting my first federal grant to serve an educational project in a black neighborhood with 90n% black staff. Even though the governor of Virginia held up the funding until two days before the end of the summer project, the youth continued to work when they thought they might not get paid.

Should these achievements make me overcome my shame, my sense of being worthless? No. I understand the unbelievable effects of shame of incest and sexual abuse as a boy.

I can not express the real me. I can only be the model performance my mother trained me to be. I am an old man. My exwife has not talked to me in 6 years. I see my kids maybe twice a year. J go to AA meatings, my girl friend moved from st. Louis to Santa Fe, and asked me not to come along. Nine moths later she has found another man. I am no longer wothless, I am just inadequate.


It may not be worth much ut we are here with you and some of our stories give a glimpse into similar despair. We welcome you and share our stories.

 

[LoneWolfX]

-

 

[traveler]

i too was from a "perfect family." my mom married the stepdad when i was almost 6. he changed my name to his so that no one would know that he wasn't my biological dad. when people commented on how much i resembled him, it made me feel like puking. i alone knew what he was really like. i was only a prop to make the family look good to the public. i had to dress well, behave right, get the best grades, excel in activities, and keep secrets. unfortunately, i was no good at sports, music or tech/mech stuff = the only things the step-dad valued. so i was worthless and good only to be abused. but i never broke the code - so everyone on the outside was very impressed.

So - i get it - i really do. the best thing for me was to separated myself from them and build my own life. that didn't solve all my problems, but it gave me a start - so that later, when i began working on the abuse/incest issues, i had some stability and no new or continuing negative influences from them - only the built up residue of the past - which was plenty to deal with.

Lee

 

[sorryson]

It is sad I too was from the perfect family. We hid it well and once inside we made fun of everyone, we belittled them, we were jealous of them. I think about it, Mama was never happy. She would say it was alright even if it was beautiful. She could find fault in everything. The doctors told us she must have had a lonely childhood because she did not have self esteem. They said she needed to knock down everything just to make herself feel ok. She made us believe we had the perfect family. I can tell you it does not exist. The doctors have said those they try to send this message about their family are flawed in many ways and are running from the problems.

I feel what you. It is best to get away like my Dad did. He lived a better life once we were not in it. We no longer could take him down because he would not have to hear us. I hope you find a way to protect yourself.

Paul