Survival skills

Survival skills
F

fmighell

Registrant
Sexualy abused childern learn "survival skills" to protect themselves emotionally and physically.
"nothing is happening to me"
"I won't let it bother me"
Carring these patterns into adult life,
the results can be,
"loyal beyond reason to people who don't deserve their trust"
"trouble recognizing or showing emotions"
"I wish I knew what I feel"

I had been a married man's sex object for some time, one can say pedophilia.
In time a pedofile lifestyle was not doing the job, so after bleeding from being used because of a lost of control or urge.
Inappropriate sexual outlet even for a juvenile to fear about and would want to do something about it. da
Telling my Dad what happened didn't get any where, so I was telling this guy's wife, that he was having sex with me and even taking pictures of me in the act, telling her where to find them also, to prove to her what I was saying was true, because telling one adult already who had a hard time believing what I was saying.
She takes off, with all the furniture in the house and every thing else not nailed down and file's for a devorce from him and leaves.
Then this guy is mad at this boy who told his wife about what he is doing and then she leaves him because of it, "REVENGE" is going through this adult mad man, ie... after drinking and then I get sodomized violently and bleeding again for telling.
By this time, no one is saying anything, mums the word, everyone wanted to believe nothing happened and after a day or two this teenager belived nothing happened also.

After years, I've come to know that I have survived sexual abuse and childern don't have to live like that, and with therapy and with a doctor because of needing help, believe me I know.
fmighell anc ak

[ May 09, 2002: Message edited by: fmighell ]
 
fmighell,

I am sorry for the abuse you suffered and the intense abuse you suffered after reporting your abuser to adults.

I believe some of us did repress the memories of the trauma. How some people deny recovered memories, especially when there is other evidence, makes me angry. The individuals that attack us for forgetting, don't understand the way the mind copes with some traumas.

My own PTSD is hitting hard atill after my nerves have been near the surface throughout the priest sex abuse coverage. I had evidence of the abuse without the meory of it for so long. Wish sometimes I did not have the memories that I now have so vividly.

My therapist says that my parents were told by the surgeon to forget it and never mention "it" and "it" will go away. The memory of "it" faded and only brief images and sensations remained for the longest time, but I got no help in dealing with "it." When it came back out into my conscious memory, I couldn't deal with it. I have learned how to cope, but the flashbacks still get triggered.

Jim C.
Hisatsinom
 
Thanks
I wanted to let others read about what I had gone through when I was a boy and that maybe my story would be of use to others, that were related with my story.
fmighell anc ak :)
 
Thanks fmighell.
What happened to me happened at age 13. Just on the cusp of going into puberty. Two years later, I encountered one of the abusers again and because I couldn't remember what happened the first time, it happened again. I forgot that too. I forgot acting out at that time and from then until a year ago was hounded by feelings and fears and degradations I couldn't understand and didn't know where they were coming from.
Until one sunday morning, 16 years later, when I walked out on the terrace and the memories were sitting there in my head like they'd never been gone.
I am incredibly grateful and lucky that I have my wife and a great therapist. Otherwise I probably wouldn't have come back in from the terrace this morning.
I was so effectively poleaxed by the return of the memories that I went on auto-pilot and stayed there for a few weeks. I still get detailed memories - little snippets - and there are certain foods and sensations that trigger intense feelings or memories, but I'm starting to get back good memories too. The thing is, before this, I could count, on one hand, the amount of memories from my childhood I could recall. I'm starting to remember more now. My mind, trying to protect me, threw a blanket over what happened. But also cut me off from my past - which is pretty important for a sense of identity.
The thing I remind myself of is that while there is bad stuff in there (and what is bad is really bad), there is also a lot of good.
 
It's amazing how we survive so many things if we are willing to stick them out. Because of the abuse and the victimization that MSA survivors have been through, our survival skills are stronger than most others.

You've been through a lot but been able to go past it and understand that, hard as it may seem, life does go on. The sun rises and sets and we must just find a way to move forward, not backward.

Kudos to you and everyone else who has kept going in spite of all the obstacles in our lives that we never asked for (and wouldn't even wish on anyone else).
 
One other thing ... all of us didn't really have a choice but to survive. I know that I myself comtemplated and attempted suicide and plenty of others have too.

But, thankfully, I have found a way to keep chugging along ... Why? BECAUSE I HAD NO CHOICE! I had to survive, I still have to survive, and tomorrow, I will still need to survive! Even more so now that I have a wife and son (and one on the way)!

Survival for us is not a matter of choice...it's something we have had to learn to do.
 
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