The unabridged me
A less-abridged snap-shot of me. The not-so-good stuff anyway.
According to my mom, when I was 3 and a half I was left with an eccentric aunt for an extended period (maybe a month?) while my parents were gone. She put me up in her attic alone for the duration of the period (but fed me). She wanted to cure me of my (in her estimation) unhealthy need for mommy. My mother finding out about this was a cause of tension between her and aunt for a long time. I dont know if this is the reason that all throughout childhood I had a terrible fear of being separated from my mother. Even in my early teens I couldnt go shopping without always being able to see her. Also I could never bring myself to stay overnight at friends houses.
My mom tells the story that, when I was four, she wasnt sure I would live to be 5 (not seriously, though). This is because I would start every day with a tantrum and would be beat and sent to my room. I would tear up the room and be beaten again and the cycle continued until bedtime. Mom comments that I would get beatings the whole day long; day after day. But she is proud to say that after a year she finally beat the devil out of me. All of a sudden I changed at 5 and became the golden child who never disobeyed or threw another tantrum.
I was wetting the bed yet at 6. Also, when I was 5 and 6 we had a babysitter that consistently sexually molested me. She would fondle me in the bathtub and then put me in bed naked with her and she would fondle me more. I dont remember any particular trauma from that. This memory came back to me when I was in my 30s. When I mentioned it to my parents they seemed to have been aware of it or at least highly suspicious, but never told me. They thought I would be too young to remember. During this 5-6 year old time I know I still made a scene whenever my parents left my sister and I at home (which was quite often) and I was always afraid to be out of sight of Mom.
I never really knew much of my father until I was 8 or so. He worked second shift until I was 7 and then started his own business. There is a story that is told of me that when I was about 4 my father came home from work unexpectedly and I asked my mother, Who is that man? Personally, I think my tantrums at that age was a cry for a father and I suddenly became good, not because of the beatings but because I finally just gave up hope of getting my needs met through crying. I remember on my fifth birthday I threw a fit when my father tried to hug me and give me a kiss. I rejected his affection totally from that day on. My 5th birthday was his last attempt to ever hug me or show any other physical affection. I have no memories of him ever touching me except when punishing me; either in rare spankings or he would very often grab the back of my neck and squeeze, which was always quite painful, and I would try and squirm away from him. Although later I spent a fair bit of time with him fishing, he never seemed interested in my personal life. This is true to this day; I have never seen him express affection toward me. I think he liked fishing with me because it is a sport that requires silence. He could do the father-son thing without actually ever having to talk. The pet names he often used for me in my teens were good-for-nothing or worthless-kid. He didnt use them in a condescending tone of voice unless I was bad, which was rare. Maybe because I was extremely physically immature for my age and my father liked sports; something I could never participate in. (Or ever wanted to.) Instead I excelled at playing the piano, a pursuit he was never thrilled with me following.
I enjoyed playing with my sisters dolls (which she never played with). I wore out her Barbie dolls. I spent an inordinate amount of time playing in a small closet, which my mom nagged me about. I usually played alone in my own fantasy world. I was never interested in boy sports. I was very small for my age anyway. I did enjoy hiking through the woods alone.
During these years (8-12) I would sometimes see my parents having sex. They didnt keep their door shut and sometimes made love on Saturday mornings. I also took baths with my mom. I remember being embarrassed about having erections while being with her.
My older sister always had a terrible relationship with my mom ever since she was 5 or 6. (Although she was Dads angel.) My sister refused to be the daughter my mom always wanted. So, my mom sort of raised me as the daughter she never had. I learned all about cooking, sewing, crocheting, needle work. I liked to play with dolls and dress up in womens clothes. I could always please my mom (and get what I wanted) the more I became the perfect daughter. I grew up hearing stories from Mom about how bad her father was.
[Note about Mom: She grew up without a father. Her father, abusive and a severe alcoholic left home when she was 6 and didnt return until she was 16. She grew up in fairly severe poverty with her mother being a very strong personality, raising her family by herself in a basement. Mom did the cooking and cleaning for her two older brothers. She got married at 18 and had my older sister 11 months later. My fathers sister (whom I am close to) told me that Mom treated my sister very unmotherly, because she was competition for my fathers affection. I know she was unable to breast feed any of us kids.]
At least by age 7 I had a problem with pronouncing rs. (I was mimicked all the time by parents about this.) I remember being on show to my parents friends and they would tell me to say Little red rabbits crossed the railroad tracks, which would make everyone laugh. I remember feeling horrible at the ridicule. The r problem improved with a speech therapist but I started to stutter badly instead.
Meanwhile, when I was about 11 or 12 I had my first homosexual experience with a cousin (who is openly gay and was abused by his uncle). I was staying with his brother who was my age. At night he crawled into bed with me and fondled me. I remember it wasnt pleasurable as he was always trying to bring me to orgasm but that wasnt possible, but I felt terribly guilty because I knew it was wrong. Perhaps because sin always got punished in our family I never said anything about it for fear of being punished. This was true for subsequent abuse as well.
Our family was a fairly strict conservative Christian family. Sex was never talked about in any circumstance whatsoever. (I remember at church once my mother asked what a foreskin was.) I was never told the facts of life and was very frightened the first time I ejaculated. I thought I was bleeding somehow or being divinely punished for having an erection. Until I was in my mid teens, I never knew what a homosexual was, however already at 13 I knew I was attracted (though not yet sexually) to the same sex.
There is also a piece of memory missing when I was around 11 having to do with a neighbor man, Mr. N. Something to do with a room behind his garage, but I dont know what. It MAY be where I was first sodomized, but I cant remember many details. However, I remember a time when Mom was finding blood in my underpants. She once checked my anus and decided I had hemorrhoids. I remember her telling me how to use Preparation H.
When I was 12 and 13 I was raped on a regular basis by my older sister. This was definitely unpleasurable and painful because it involved intercourse. I knew nothing about the female body and I thought that I was being forced to enter her anus. I was very immature for my age. At 13 I still looked about 10. I remember doing everything I could to avoid her but couldnt always do it successfully without raising suspicion. She was also having sex with my older cousin. I was terribly afraid of being punished because this felt more sinful than anything before and I was sure the punishment would fit the crime. So I didnt tell anyone.
From about 8 to 17 I had a bad stutter and was always being mimicked, especially by my father. I think he thought the shame would make me stop. I finally overcame the problem in college. I also always had unexplained stomach aches throughout my growing up. The doctors could never find the cause but gave me some little blue pills to take. I took them for many, many years.
Puberty came very, very late. I got my first pubic hair when I was 17. (I was about 410 then.) I was 25 before I first shaved. Throughout my teen years I was ridiculed for my lack of masculine traits. Sports were not in the realm of possibility (although I excelled in music). I was ridiculed for my immaturity not only every single day in P.E. (where the State required every student to have a nude shower at school) but by my family (though they did it unknowingly). I tried very hard to act like a man but I was always treated like a little boy. My father was getting me into the movies with an under-12 ticket when I was 16 and 17. I often overheard my parents telling others how immature I was. I have always despised my body because of my lack of adult characteristics. No one ever told me the facts of life. It wasnt until I was 16 (having taken the required sex-education classes in school) that I knew what intercourse was about. Up to then, I still had wild ideas about how babies were made. It was difficult getting a drivers license at 16 because I had to sit on a phonebook and a pillow to see over the dash and could just barely reach the pedals. My body has caused me only pain and shame.
High School was just one big nightmare. I cant remember much from it. Only that I truly hated every minute of it. I was ostracized by the other boys and made fun of. It didnt help that I was so small and that my name rhymed with mouse. That was my pet name with the students. I was easy to beat up and easily intimidated. Even as a senior, I could be intimidated by freshmen. I was frightened of the boys in HS and hated them as much as they hated me. I got very good at being invisible. The thought of having to go to PE made me physically ill (which often got me excused). The unsupervised locker room was hell on earth for me. Im feeling sick just writing this. My immature looks nearly prevented me from taking the ACT test for college and the GRE test for graduate school. The testers absolutely would not believe I was as old as I said I was.
My father was as emotionally cold toward my mom as toward me. Additionally, my mom has always felt love-starved. As a result, my mom came to me for emotional strength. This was especially true from 13-17 when they were going through very difficult times with my sister. Mom would wake me up in the middle of night so she could talk and cry on my shoulder and she would say how cold my father was. She called me her rock where she could pour out all her pain. I vowed then and a hundred times since never, ever to be like my father. {I failed miserably.} There were times in the middle of the night when her emotional intimacy was translated physically beyond what was normal toward a son. I only felt confused by the whole thing, not feeling like a rock or knowing how to respond to her expressions of intimacy. She also didnt seem to mind being naked around me. There were other non-normal encounters with her; she would put her hands down the front of my pants; even when I was 16. But my mom and I were so incredibly close; there wasnt anything that seemed wrong about any of it. I didnt feel guilty about it because I honestly didnt believe my mom was capable of doing anything wrong. I also didnt feel I owned my body; she did.
I agonized about my same-sex attraction throughout my childhood. I first realized I had the attraction long before puberty when I was about 13 (but after the raping episodes stopped.). I was careful to never give a moment of lustful thought about girls because it was sinful. Instead I saved all my lustful thoughts for men which for some reason I didnt feel was wrong. In my teens, I didnt desire sex with men, only envied their big, strong, hairy bodies. I wished I had their bodies and went to lengths to try and secretly see men naked. At the same time I was totally ashamed to let anyone look at me. I was very prudish. I never wore a tank top or shorts for fear that others would see I had no hair under my arms or on my legs like all my age mates did.
I finally got free from all the chaos of home when I went to college. But my barely pubescent body followed me there and felt extremely inferior to the men on campus. It was less humiliating there because I could at least have some control over what environment I allowed myself to be in (i.e. no P.E.). It was a time I was able to forget all the bad things that happened during childhood. I learned to totally shut down some memories. However, I was, for the first time, confronted with girls that showed a romantic interest in me and this caused me extreme stress. I had absolutely zero romantic interest in them and had no idea how to relate to them on that level. (However, most all of my friends in HS were girls.) I could relate extremely well with them as friends but after a while, they always wanted more. However, I couldnt really relate to men on campus because they looked very different than me (like men rather than a boy) and were mostly interested in girls, cars, sports and other boring subjects. I began to see myself as an alien; neither male nor female. In my late teens and early 20s my sexual desires were just coming on, but they were all directed toward men; though not any particular man. Although I fantasized a lot, I never had sex during my college years.
During graduate school I lived with two gay men (not knowing at the time they were gay). After a while I realized what was going on and I sort of envied their relationship, but they were only interested in my half of the rent and not in a threesome. After they felt free to act out in front of me I couldnt take it anymore and moved out.
At 25 I first had adult sex with another man. At the time, I relished the way my partner would always compliment my body and the adequacy of my equipment. For the first time, I liked my body and I felt I was really pleasing someone and loved just being held tightly. Because of my upbringing this, of course, was followed by guilt and shame.
Last December, at age 44, I was reading a book and it mentioned a situation of male childhood sexual abuse and memories started percolating to surface. For the next 6 months more and more memories came and brought about anxiety attacks, lack of sleep, lack of appetite, headaches, malaise and sexual dysfunction. It got to the point where I had to leave my job of 22 years in SE Asia and return to the US for help.
This is where I am at now. Trying to find help. Trying to understand what happened to me. My mother died 1 month after I arrived back in the US after 22 years abroad. Im taking this time away to address my abuse of alcohol and masochistic tendencies.
And kudos to anyone who had the patience to read this tome. But it is out there now and that feels kind of good.
According to my mom, when I was 3 and a half I was left with an eccentric aunt for an extended period (maybe a month?) while my parents were gone. She put me up in her attic alone for the duration of the period (but fed me). She wanted to cure me of my (in her estimation) unhealthy need for mommy. My mother finding out about this was a cause of tension between her and aunt for a long time. I dont know if this is the reason that all throughout childhood I had a terrible fear of being separated from my mother. Even in my early teens I couldnt go shopping without always being able to see her. Also I could never bring myself to stay overnight at friends houses.
My mom tells the story that, when I was four, she wasnt sure I would live to be 5 (not seriously, though). This is because I would start every day with a tantrum and would be beat and sent to my room. I would tear up the room and be beaten again and the cycle continued until bedtime. Mom comments that I would get beatings the whole day long; day after day. But she is proud to say that after a year she finally beat the devil out of me. All of a sudden I changed at 5 and became the golden child who never disobeyed or threw another tantrum.
I was wetting the bed yet at 6. Also, when I was 5 and 6 we had a babysitter that consistently sexually molested me. She would fondle me in the bathtub and then put me in bed naked with her and she would fondle me more. I dont remember any particular trauma from that. This memory came back to me when I was in my 30s. When I mentioned it to my parents they seemed to have been aware of it or at least highly suspicious, but never told me. They thought I would be too young to remember. During this 5-6 year old time I know I still made a scene whenever my parents left my sister and I at home (which was quite often) and I was always afraid to be out of sight of Mom.
I never really knew much of my father until I was 8 or so. He worked second shift until I was 7 and then started his own business. There is a story that is told of me that when I was about 4 my father came home from work unexpectedly and I asked my mother, Who is that man? Personally, I think my tantrums at that age was a cry for a father and I suddenly became good, not because of the beatings but because I finally just gave up hope of getting my needs met through crying. I remember on my fifth birthday I threw a fit when my father tried to hug me and give me a kiss. I rejected his affection totally from that day on. My 5th birthday was his last attempt to ever hug me or show any other physical affection. I have no memories of him ever touching me except when punishing me; either in rare spankings or he would very often grab the back of my neck and squeeze, which was always quite painful, and I would try and squirm away from him. Although later I spent a fair bit of time with him fishing, he never seemed interested in my personal life. This is true to this day; I have never seen him express affection toward me. I think he liked fishing with me because it is a sport that requires silence. He could do the father-son thing without actually ever having to talk. The pet names he often used for me in my teens were good-for-nothing or worthless-kid. He didnt use them in a condescending tone of voice unless I was bad, which was rare. Maybe because I was extremely physically immature for my age and my father liked sports; something I could never participate in. (Or ever wanted to.) Instead I excelled at playing the piano, a pursuit he was never thrilled with me following.
I enjoyed playing with my sisters dolls (which she never played with). I wore out her Barbie dolls. I spent an inordinate amount of time playing in a small closet, which my mom nagged me about. I usually played alone in my own fantasy world. I was never interested in boy sports. I was very small for my age anyway. I did enjoy hiking through the woods alone.
During these years (8-12) I would sometimes see my parents having sex. They didnt keep their door shut and sometimes made love on Saturday mornings. I also took baths with my mom. I remember being embarrassed about having erections while being with her.
My older sister always had a terrible relationship with my mom ever since she was 5 or 6. (Although she was Dads angel.) My sister refused to be the daughter my mom always wanted. So, my mom sort of raised me as the daughter she never had. I learned all about cooking, sewing, crocheting, needle work. I liked to play with dolls and dress up in womens clothes. I could always please my mom (and get what I wanted) the more I became the perfect daughter. I grew up hearing stories from Mom about how bad her father was.
[Note about Mom: She grew up without a father. Her father, abusive and a severe alcoholic left home when she was 6 and didnt return until she was 16. She grew up in fairly severe poverty with her mother being a very strong personality, raising her family by herself in a basement. Mom did the cooking and cleaning for her two older brothers. She got married at 18 and had my older sister 11 months later. My fathers sister (whom I am close to) told me that Mom treated my sister very unmotherly, because she was competition for my fathers affection. I know she was unable to breast feed any of us kids.]
At least by age 7 I had a problem with pronouncing rs. (I was mimicked all the time by parents about this.) I remember being on show to my parents friends and they would tell me to say Little red rabbits crossed the railroad tracks, which would make everyone laugh. I remember feeling horrible at the ridicule. The r problem improved with a speech therapist but I started to stutter badly instead.
Meanwhile, when I was about 11 or 12 I had my first homosexual experience with a cousin (who is openly gay and was abused by his uncle). I was staying with his brother who was my age. At night he crawled into bed with me and fondled me. I remember it wasnt pleasurable as he was always trying to bring me to orgasm but that wasnt possible, but I felt terribly guilty because I knew it was wrong. Perhaps because sin always got punished in our family I never said anything about it for fear of being punished. This was true for subsequent abuse as well.
Our family was a fairly strict conservative Christian family. Sex was never talked about in any circumstance whatsoever. (I remember at church once my mother asked what a foreskin was.) I was never told the facts of life and was very frightened the first time I ejaculated. I thought I was bleeding somehow or being divinely punished for having an erection. Until I was in my mid teens, I never knew what a homosexual was, however already at 13 I knew I was attracted (though not yet sexually) to the same sex.
There is also a piece of memory missing when I was around 11 having to do with a neighbor man, Mr. N. Something to do with a room behind his garage, but I dont know what. It MAY be where I was first sodomized, but I cant remember many details. However, I remember a time when Mom was finding blood in my underpants. She once checked my anus and decided I had hemorrhoids. I remember her telling me how to use Preparation H.
When I was 12 and 13 I was raped on a regular basis by my older sister. This was definitely unpleasurable and painful because it involved intercourse. I knew nothing about the female body and I thought that I was being forced to enter her anus. I was very immature for my age. At 13 I still looked about 10. I remember doing everything I could to avoid her but couldnt always do it successfully without raising suspicion. She was also having sex with my older cousin. I was terribly afraid of being punished because this felt more sinful than anything before and I was sure the punishment would fit the crime. So I didnt tell anyone.
From about 8 to 17 I had a bad stutter and was always being mimicked, especially by my father. I think he thought the shame would make me stop. I finally overcame the problem in college. I also always had unexplained stomach aches throughout my growing up. The doctors could never find the cause but gave me some little blue pills to take. I took them for many, many years.
Puberty came very, very late. I got my first pubic hair when I was 17. (I was about 410 then.) I was 25 before I first shaved. Throughout my teen years I was ridiculed for my lack of masculine traits. Sports were not in the realm of possibility (although I excelled in music). I was ridiculed for my immaturity not only every single day in P.E. (where the State required every student to have a nude shower at school) but by my family (though they did it unknowingly). I tried very hard to act like a man but I was always treated like a little boy. My father was getting me into the movies with an under-12 ticket when I was 16 and 17. I often overheard my parents telling others how immature I was. I have always despised my body because of my lack of adult characteristics. No one ever told me the facts of life. It wasnt until I was 16 (having taken the required sex-education classes in school) that I knew what intercourse was about. Up to then, I still had wild ideas about how babies were made. It was difficult getting a drivers license at 16 because I had to sit on a phonebook and a pillow to see over the dash and could just barely reach the pedals. My body has caused me only pain and shame.
High School was just one big nightmare. I cant remember much from it. Only that I truly hated every minute of it. I was ostracized by the other boys and made fun of. It didnt help that I was so small and that my name rhymed with mouse. That was my pet name with the students. I was easy to beat up and easily intimidated. Even as a senior, I could be intimidated by freshmen. I was frightened of the boys in HS and hated them as much as they hated me. I got very good at being invisible. The thought of having to go to PE made me physically ill (which often got me excused). The unsupervised locker room was hell on earth for me. Im feeling sick just writing this. My immature looks nearly prevented me from taking the ACT test for college and the GRE test for graduate school. The testers absolutely would not believe I was as old as I said I was.
My father was as emotionally cold toward my mom as toward me. Additionally, my mom has always felt love-starved. As a result, my mom came to me for emotional strength. This was especially true from 13-17 when they were going through very difficult times with my sister. Mom would wake me up in the middle of night so she could talk and cry on my shoulder and she would say how cold my father was. She called me her rock where she could pour out all her pain. I vowed then and a hundred times since never, ever to be like my father. {I failed miserably.} There were times in the middle of the night when her emotional intimacy was translated physically beyond what was normal toward a son. I only felt confused by the whole thing, not feeling like a rock or knowing how to respond to her expressions of intimacy. She also didnt seem to mind being naked around me. There were other non-normal encounters with her; she would put her hands down the front of my pants; even when I was 16. But my mom and I were so incredibly close; there wasnt anything that seemed wrong about any of it. I didnt feel guilty about it because I honestly didnt believe my mom was capable of doing anything wrong. I also didnt feel I owned my body; she did.
I agonized about my same-sex attraction throughout my childhood. I first realized I had the attraction long before puberty when I was about 13 (but after the raping episodes stopped.). I was careful to never give a moment of lustful thought about girls because it was sinful. Instead I saved all my lustful thoughts for men which for some reason I didnt feel was wrong. In my teens, I didnt desire sex with men, only envied their big, strong, hairy bodies. I wished I had their bodies and went to lengths to try and secretly see men naked. At the same time I was totally ashamed to let anyone look at me. I was very prudish. I never wore a tank top or shorts for fear that others would see I had no hair under my arms or on my legs like all my age mates did.
I finally got free from all the chaos of home when I went to college. But my barely pubescent body followed me there and felt extremely inferior to the men on campus. It was less humiliating there because I could at least have some control over what environment I allowed myself to be in (i.e. no P.E.). It was a time I was able to forget all the bad things that happened during childhood. I learned to totally shut down some memories. However, I was, for the first time, confronted with girls that showed a romantic interest in me and this caused me extreme stress. I had absolutely zero romantic interest in them and had no idea how to relate to them on that level. (However, most all of my friends in HS were girls.) I could relate extremely well with them as friends but after a while, they always wanted more. However, I couldnt really relate to men on campus because they looked very different than me (like men rather than a boy) and were mostly interested in girls, cars, sports and other boring subjects. I began to see myself as an alien; neither male nor female. In my late teens and early 20s my sexual desires were just coming on, but they were all directed toward men; though not any particular man. Although I fantasized a lot, I never had sex during my college years.
During graduate school I lived with two gay men (not knowing at the time they were gay). After a while I realized what was going on and I sort of envied their relationship, but they were only interested in my half of the rent and not in a threesome. After they felt free to act out in front of me I couldnt take it anymore and moved out.
At 25 I first had adult sex with another man. At the time, I relished the way my partner would always compliment my body and the adequacy of my equipment. For the first time, I liked my body and I felt I was really pleasing someone and loved just being held tightly. Because of my upbringing this, of course, was followed by guilt and shame.
Last December, at age 44, I was reading a book and it mentioned a situation of male childhood sexual abuse and memories started percolating to surface. For the next 6 months more and more memories came and brought about anxiety attacks, lack of sleep, lack of appetite, headaches, malaise and sexual dysfunction. It got to the point where I had to leave my job of 22 years in SE Asia and return to the US for help.
This is where I am at now. Trying to find help. Trying to understand what happened to me. My mother died 1 month after I arrived back in the US after 22 years abroad. Im taking this time away to address my abuse of alcohol and masochistic tendencies.
And kudos to anyone who had the patience to read this tome. But it is out there now and that feels kind of good.
