Two Posts...Second Very Triggering
Lke me, damnit! That's what I'm here for...for you to like me. I need you to like me. I have to have your approval. If you don't like me, I have to work until you do. There can be 500 people in a room, 499 of whom like me. There will be only one that I see, only one that I care about...the one who ignores me, could care less about me, doesn't know hat I exist.
Does he like me? Did I do something to make him not like me? How can I make him like me? What can I do to find out if he likes me or not?
I may not like him. I may think he's the world's biggest a-hole, but I have to know he likes me. Once I find out, if he doesn't like me, I have to make him like me. I'll figure out a way. He'll like me in the end, and if he doesn't, I'll stew about it...have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach...have that awful knawing feeling in my brain.
And after I know he likes me, I can go on. I may never see him again. I may have known that before, that I'd never see him again. But he had to like me.
What a horrible burden that is...to have to be liked. I hate it. I don't want it. It is paralyzing. I know I'm doing it while I'm doing it, and yet I can't stop.
Is that dishonesty? Honesty is important to me. Honesty is the only thing I have that has not been scared in some way....I think.
But you were in the closet for 30 years. That's dishonest. I know, you'd think it was, but I didn't see it that way. I saw that as something else. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't dishonest...I guess because I knew I would never take action on my homosexuality. That was necessary. I wasn't going to be gay. I wasn't in the closet, I simply had no intention of ever being gay. I rationalize very well, don't you think?
I hate having to have everyone like me. It keeps me from saying things that I think. If someone asks me for an opinion I always give a truthful answer. But, could I ever walk into a room and say this or that sucks? Nope, not me. People don't like people who say this or that sucks. And, anyway, I always think I'm wrong if I disagree. I don't think I am at the time I say it. Nope, I'm usually angry when I disagree because I've kept it bottled up so long, so I disagree in a non-productive way. And then I immediately feel that I have no right to my opinion...it has to be inferior, and, besides, he won't like me because I disagreed. He'll think I'm argumentative and disagreeable. I must make amends. He must like me.
And so, you have no life of your own. Life is an endless billiards game. You are constantly running around the table avoiding getting hit by any balls, no arguments please, no disagreements, nothing negative. I simply cannot do negative. You have to like me.
If a job gets too tough, or I don't like something there, do I try to change what I think is wrong and make the job better? Nope, not a chance. I move on. It's too hard to say this or that stinks about this job. Worse yet, to feel that I might be competent enough in the job that they would want to keep me enough to make the changes so I would stay...impossible. I'm really not very good at it. My talents are adequate at best.
So they have to like me. That's how I survive. Life is to scary otherwise. Exist on my own? What a concept! Me, have the ability to navigate in the world and take care of myself and not end up homeless and in a ditch somewhere? Not gonna happen. And so, I make them like me.
I make strangers like me; I make friends like me; I make my family like me; I make the clerk at the Seven-Eleven like me. He's such a nice person, isn't he? He's always so pleasant...never moody...always willing to help...never says a bad word about anyone...so loving...so sensitive.
They like me. They really like me.
I'm trying desperately to figure out here what part of my weird little dysfunctional self is the result of SA or just the result of being weird, little and dysfunctional. I know all of my quirks cannot have come from SA...or can they?
Any input would help.
Oh, by the way. I don't do the "like me" thing here. I am anonymous here, which is wonderful for me. I can just be who I really am and say what I need to say. That helps so much. I'm still scared that you won't like me....once a phobia always a phobia, I guess. But this place is my last chance...my only chance to find out who I am at my core. I gotta know that before I die. I gotta leave this earth as me, raw me, without any coatings. I've spent too many years making myself into something someone can love...has to love. I'm horribly afraid that if anyone got to know me...really know me that I am completely unlovable. But here I've got to take that chance.
The day that someone here is nasty, or even unkind, I know it will hurt. My head will go into that tail spin and I will want to cry like a little child. But I need that. I need to get through that. I need to experience that pain over and over so I can live with it...get used to it...get over it.
And now I'm going out of one post into another, because what I've just said is causing other things to come up inside. Please treat them as two different posts. That was my adult. My child wants to speak. Isn't that strange? I can never get used to having to separate entities in there, but sometimes I think I do....totally different people.
I'm writing this after the fact. What you are about to read is my child speaking to me. He has never spoken to me this explicitly before. This is all so much more vivid than anything I have experienced. Something about what I wrote above must have triggered my child. After I wrote this I cried like a baby. Does that make it true? You know how unsure I am about my SA because my memories are all repressed ones. I know the mind can do amazing things, but what this child said...what I saw through his eyes while he said it...what I felt in my body, these things were real. He saw them as he wrote them. Please be aware that this may be a trigger. My child is actually talking here and telling me, his adult, about the abuse. Bobby
You see, I feel this way because he beat me. Not with fists or sticks, but with his eyes. Everytime he looked at me, he beat me. He was so angry at life...so angry that he was dying. He hated me for living. He hated me for being who I was. That'w why he fucked me. That's why he did those things to me. Over and over he did them. I never understoood why. I just knew he did. It was my life...those things. When I wanted to be held.....well he did, I guess, hold me, but not the way I wanted...not the way I needed. I never understood why he didn't like me. I blamed it on the skirts that I liked to put on and whirl around. I blamed it on the musical instruments I loved to play. He was a football coach. I blamed it on being so weak when he wanted a son who was strong and masculine.
But I knew it was deeper than that. I knew he was mad at me because I was going to live and he wasn't. I'm not even sure that he knew why he hated me. I'm not even sure that he knew that he did hate me. But he did.
Late at night, when it was dark. I was afraid of the dark...he would come into the room...to my crib. I was afraid. I can't remember what happened...I only remember the face and the awful eyes...and then nothing more.
Then when I was older again in the dark...the light behind him coming through the door. I don't remember exactly then either, except the eyes red, and horrible. But I know he did things to me. I know I knew that he would. I know that depression would encompass my body and my mind as I got ready for what was to come. He didn't hurt me. He just did things, you know? When I write about it, parts of my body feel things, and I know that's where he touched me, did those things. Only he didn't just touch me. He did more...inside me. It didn't hurt exactly...it was just there. And I knew...that he sort of had to...put his hand up there. Oh, God, the memories, the awful memories.
And then he wonders if he was abused? Can't he hear me? Can't he see me? Does he think I could make this up? It was awful. Please make him believe me. Please let him understand that someone who could be so loving and kind later, could have done these things when he was three or four. I want him to believe so I can stop hurting...stop feeling...stop seeing him come through the door...stop wishing I was dead.
Sorry, guys, I didn't see that one coming. It just came from somewhere deep inside. It was a whole new memory. My child has never talked to me that way before...not that emphatically. See what this website does to people...for people?
And yet, tomorrow...tonight...I will still doubt that I was SA, that he could do it. He was a saint you know...to the people of the town.
I truly am sorry for this...that I would write it here, but I can't not send it out. It's too important to him...to the child.
Does he like me? Did I do something to make him not like me? How can I make him like me? What can I do to find out if he likes me or not?
I may not like him. I may think he's the world's biggest a-hole, but I have to know he likes me. Once I find out, if he doesn't like me, I have to make him like me. I'll figure out a way. He'll like me in the end, and if he doesn't, I'll stew about it...have a terrible feeling in the pit of my stomach...have that awful knawing feeling in my brain.
And after I know he likes me, I can go on. I may never see him again. I may have known that before, that I'd never see him again. But he had to like me.
What a horrible burden that is...to have to be liked. I hate it. I don't want it. It is paralyzing. I know I'm doing it while I'm doing it, and yet I can't stop.
Is that dishonesty? Honesty is important to me. Honesty is the only thing I have that has not been scared in some way....I think.
But you were in the closet for 30 years. That's dishonest. I know, you'd think it was, but I didn't see it that way. I saw that as something else. I don't know what it was, but it wasn't dishonest...I guess because I knew I would never take action on my homosexuality. That was necessary. I wasn't going to be gay. I wasn't in the closet, I simply had no intention of ever being gay. I rationalize very well, don't you think?
I hate having to have everyone like me. It keeps me from saying things that I think. If someone asks me for an opinion I always give a truthful answer. But, could I ever walk into a room and say this or that sucks? Nope, not me. People don't like people who say this or that sucks. And, anyway, I always think I'm wrong if I disagree. I don't think I am at the time I say it. Nope, I'm usually angry when I disagree because I've kept it bottled up so long, so I disagree in a non-productive way. And then I immediately feel that I have no right to my opinion...it has to be inferior, and, besides, he won't like me because I disagreed. He'll think I'm argumentative and disagreeable. I must make amends. He must like me.
And so, you have no life of your own. Life is an endless billiards game. You are constantly running around the table avoiding getting hit by any balls, no arguments please, no disagreements, nothing negative. I simply cannot do negative. You have to like me.
If a job gets too tough, or I don't like something there, do I try to change what I think is wrong and make the job better? Nope, not a chance. I move on. It's too hard to say this or that stinks about this job. Worse yet, to feel that I might be competent enough in the job that they would want to keep me enough to make the changes so I would stay...impossible. I'm really not very good at it. My talents are adequate at best.
So they have to like me. That's how I survive. Life is to scary otherwise. Exist on my own? What a concept! Me, have the ability to navigate in the world and take care of myself and not end up homeless and in a ditch somewhere? Not gonna happen. And so, I make them like me.
I make strangers like me; I make friends like me; I make my family like me; I make the clerk at the Seven-Eleven like me. He's such a nice person, isn't he? He's always so pleasant...never moody...always willing to help...never says a bad word about anyone...so loving...so sensitive.
They like me. They really like me.
I'm trying desperately to figure out here what part of my weird little dysfunctional self is the result of SA or just the result of being weird, little and dysfunctional. I know all of my quirks cannot have come from SA...or can they?
Any input would help.
Oh, by the way. I don't do the "like me" thing here. I am anonymous here, which is wonderful for me. I can just be who I really am and say what I need to say. That helps so much. I'm still scared that you won't like me....once a phobia always a phobia, I guess. But this place is my last chance...my only chance to find out who I am at my core. I gotta know that before I die. I gotta leave this earth as me, raw me, without any coatings. I've spent too many years making myself into something someone can love...has to love. I'm horribly afraid that if anyone got to know me...really know me that I am completely unlovable. But here I've got to take that chance.
The day that someone here is nasty, or even unkind, I know it will hurt. My head will go into that tail spin and I will want to cry like a little child. But I need that. I need to get through that. I need to experience that pain over and over so I can live with it...get used to it...get over it.
And now I'm going out of one post into another, because what I've just said is causing other things to come up inside. Please treat them as two different posts. That was my adult. My child wants to speak. Isn't that strange? I can never get used to having to separate entities in there, but sometimes I think I do....totally different people.
I'm writing this after the fact. What you are about to read is my child speaking to me. He has never spoken to me this explicitly before. This is all so much more vivid than anything I have experienced. Something about what I wrote above must have triggered my child. After I wrote this I cried like a baby. Does that make it true? You know how unsure I am about my SA because my memories are all repressed ones. I know the mind can do amazing things, but what this child said...what I saw through his eyes while he said it...what I felt in my body, these things were real. He saw them as he wrote them. Please be aware that this may be a trigger. My child is actually talking here and telling me, his adult, about the abuse. Bobby
You see, I feel this way because he beat me. Not with fists or sticks, but with his eyes. Everytime he looked at me, he beat me. He was so angry at life...so angry that he was dying. He hated me for living. He hated me for being who I was. That'w why he fucked me. That's why he did those things to me. Over and over he did them. I never understoood why. I just knew he did. It was my life...those things. When I wanted to be held.....well he did, I guess, hold me, but not the way I wanted...not the way I needed. I never understood why he didn't like me. I blamed it on the skirts that I liked to put on and whirl around. I blamed it on the musical instruments I loved to play. He was a football coach. I blamed it on being so weak when he wanted a son who was strong and masculine.
But I knew it was deeper than that. I knew he was mad at me because I was going to live and he wasn't. I'm not even sure that he knew why he hated me. I'm not even sure that he knew that he did hate me. But he did.
Late at night, when it was dark. I was afraid of the dark...he would come into the room...to my crib. I was afraid. I can't remember what happened...I only remember the face and the awful eyes...and then nothing more.
Then when I was older again in the dark...the light behind him coming through the door. I don't remember exactly then either, except the eyes red, and horrible. But I know he did things to me. I know I knew that he would. I know that depression would encompass my body and my mind as I got ready for what was to come. He didn't hurt me. He just did things, you know? When I write about it, parts of my body feel things, and I know that's where he touched me, did those things. Only he didn't just touch me. He did more...inside me. It didn't hurt exactly...it was just there. And I knew...that he sort of had to...put his hand up there. Oh, God, the memories, the awful memories.
And then he wonders if he was abused? Can't he hear me? Can't he see me? Does he think I could make this up? It was awful. Please make him believe me. Please let him understand that someone who could be so loving and kind later, could have done these things when he was three or four. I want him to believe so I can stop hurting...stop feeling...stop seeing him come through the door...stop wishing I was dead.
Sorry, guys, I didn't see that one coming. It just came from somewhere deep inside. It was a whole new memory. My child has never talked to me that way before...not that emphatically. See what this website does to people...for people?
And yet, tomorrow...tonight...I will still doubt that I was SA, that he could do it. He was a saint you know...to the people of the town.
I truly am sorry for this...that I would write it here, but I can't not send it out. It's too important to him...to the child.