"I wish I could trust."

My name is Brian Johnston and I'm like the others who read and respond to this blog. I've come a long way, but I still don't know how to trust anyone. I'm constantly suspicious. I doubt what people tell me and think everyone lies to me.

Maybe that sounds like I need therapy, and I started it a few months ago. I feel better about most things in my life, but so far therapy hasn't helped me trust people.

I don't trust God either. I want to, but I can't believe God truly loves me. I know what the Bible says and people preach to me all the time. So that's not something I say very often.

Dear Cec, if any of your readers know how to help me, will you post their responses? I want to trust people and most of all, I want to be able to trust God.

Living with Fear

This post comes from Gary.

For a long time I worried that I would turn around and abuse boys the way I had been abused. I don't know if that was a rational fear or not, but I know the thought tormented me. What if I ended up hurting a boy or many boys the way I had been hurt.

After we married, we had two girls and that didn't seem to be any problem, but our third was a boy. That almost freaked me out. I told my wife about my fear and I had never done that before.

She said, "As long as you're afraid of doing it, I think you'll be fine. That fear holds you back."

Maybe that sounds too simple, but it did so much for me. Our son is now ten and I've never hurt him. Maybe sometimes fear is good.

Afterward (Part 2 of 2)

This is a second post from Brad.

The worst part of the abuse wasn't what happened, but it was the effect of the abuse. Marvin did it to me only three times. Then I told my parents that I didn't like Marvin. I don’t remember what I said but they didn't hire him again.

The abuse was over but the effects weren't. Something is wrong with me. I'm not normal. I won't say I thought like that every day, but often enough.

I've read about the results of abuse from a lot of guys. Mine was that I couldn't—really couldn't—express affection. When I touched someone it felt as if something inside my head yelled, "That's wrong!"

My pastor let me come into his office every week for more than a year. I cried and I told him some of the same things again and again. And he listened. I guess that's what helped most of all.

One day he hugged me and I can only say that it didn't confuse me because I knew he cared about me. I hugged him back—very, very gently.

I still struggle. I've been married for two years and I've told my wife my problem and she's understanding.

I can't believe I still struggle with the abuse, but I do. I'm getting better. It's slow, but I'm getting better.

My Mind and My Body (Part 1 of 2)

This comes from Brad.

After Marvin, my babysitter, finished with me, I was confused. I was eight years old but I couldn't figure it out. I felt dirty and that it was wrong—that part is clear to me. But it also felt good. And if it felt good how could it be bad? Or if it was bad, how could it feel good?

I'm nearly forty and now I finally—finally—understand. My body responded to Marvin, but my spirit resisted. And at that age and being faced by someone twice my age, my spirit couldn't win.

Hand-in-glove Dysfunction

This post comes from an anonymous reader.

Thank you for your shattering the silence blog and your openness. It's been nearly 20 years now since my first 20-year marriage ended. I knew I had been sexually abused as a girl, but had no idea until many years later that my children’s dad also had been a victim.

It explained why we fit “hand in glove” in our dysfunction. He watched me go through recovery with a Christian counselor's help, but he said nothing. When men started speaking out, though, he discovered he wasn't unique and alone. He got good help and it changed him completely.

He’s a good friend today and a great dad/grandpa to my children and grandchildren. You are doing such a service to families everywhere by speaking out. Thank you.

Creating New Personalities

By Linda Harriss, RN, LPC

On rare occasions, people actually develop a true Multiple Personality Disorder, which is a complex, chronic form of post-traumatic dissociate psychopathology. However, anyone who has experienced abuse may selectively create personalities in [his] mind as a means of escape.

Children who use this coping device have extraordinary imaginations. When a child who has been abused encounters overpowering emotions, he may choose to escape into a safe personality, one who hasn't been abused. . . to detach himself from the memories and pain.

Many normal children play with imaginary companions; abused children can use such creative resources to a pathological extent, in extreme cases falling prey to MPD.

(Nobody Understands My Pain: Dealing with the Effects of Physical, Emotional, and Sexual Abuse by Linda Harriss, Friendswood, TX: Baxter Pres, 2004, page 121. Used by permission.)

Silent Participation

A note from Cec: The following email from Heather is one of the saddest I've received. I kept asking myself how a mother could behave as she did.

I am so glad that the conspiracy of silence in many of your families is over. Ours was different. My mom kept notebooks of every time my father came into my room for sex. She would wake up each morning after and say, "I heard him in your room last night. Tell me what he did."

I told her and she told friends, but no one came forward to help me. They gave me advice about how to stop him from touching me, advice that would have gotten me killed had I implemented it. So I felt guilty for surviving the abuse and for not stopping him.

My sister and brother found out about the abuse. They too had been abused but waited until I was 15 to ask me about it. After I was placed with my sister by the courts my mother blamed me for what he did, and then would abuse me if I sought help and betrayed the secret to anyone else.

It took years before I found an understanding therapist and later a pastor to help me. But even today, 25 years later, the family doesn't want to know what happened or to deal with it. It saddens me because they won't find the freedom God gave me.

Thanks for your posts. You always find ways to touch my heart through what you share.