Thank both of you for your comments. It's difficult dealing with all the effects that abuse can leave on you. Some it might take years to realize them for what they are. Here is a poem I wrote about being married and dealing with the past. 

That Room

I want to sleep through life

Just drift away without a care

cause when I try to awaken

I always seem to awaken there.

I snuggle close and feel the warmth

I'm hoping you are not aware

that when I'm in it deep and hard

I close my eyes to smell your hair

Distracting with everything I have

but the memory of it's hard to bear

There's nothing left I've lost the fight

to distract from being right back there

I'm sorry

Roger

 Childhood’s End

I didn’t die that day but something did.

I didn’t feel it, I didn’t see it.

But it was very real.

A few moments in silence, a touch.

And it was gone forever and I never heard it leave.

I didn’t miss it nor had any idea of its value.

You can’t miss what you didn’t know you had.

Eventually much older and wiser I noticed it was gone.

Why did it have to leave so early.

I’m left with memories of what was left in place of.

I’m left with a deep longing for a myth.

A fantasy.

A cruel glimpse of what could have been.

Maybe should have been but wasn’t.

The ghost of should that haunts adulthood.

Childhood aborted

Childhood’s end.

 The following is my Letter to my inner little Rog.

Hey, Booger.

I have a different attitude toward that name now that I’m older. When I was you, I didn’t mind. From mom, it was a token of affection as in “Booger boo Alan Mann”. I know you loved mom. Her displeasure could always get to you. She didn’t have to get mad or spank. All she had to do was give you that look and you felt crushed and contrite. I love that about you. You were tenderhearted even back then. You wanted to please and when you hadn’t you were ashamed. You are such a sweet loveable kid. A very handsome boy with a wonderful smile.

I owe you an apology. I realize now you couldn’t help what happened to you. You didn’t even know it was bad. I know now how much you loved your dad and wanted him to like you. I think he did Rog. He just had some serious problems with what we now know was sex.

Back then you didn’t know about that stuff. Everyone else seemed to know or at least know more than you. But you were imaginative, inquisitive, and enjoyed discovering new things. You did know a few things about God and Heaven and Jesus. And you knew God loved you bunches and would always listen to you and hear your prayers. Did you know he was always with you? Even in the bad times.

I remember how you felt when after his “visit” he would just leave and not stay and talk to you. You wanted him to lay down beside you and hold you and tell you he loved and cared about you. But he didn’t did he? He just left you in the dark naked and sad. I too am sad for you now that I’m all grown up and have lived an amazing life. But God was there and helped you to sleep and forget some of the feelings.

I loved the way you could play with friends or just by yourself and be content and find the day fulfilling.  You were a smart kid too. Not that anyone noticed right away. I know you zoned out a lot in class at school. The teacher thought you were just not getting the lesson but you were escaping the loneliness and sadness by imagining other times and places that you read about. And you read a lot too. You were a good reader and read lots of books. Oh, the imagination you had. I think mom saw it in you and probably appreciated it. She thought the flying saucers and spaceport you created out of cardboard were amazing. I’m sad that after you left for college she threw it all away.

I’m sorry dad didn’t understand you or how his actions had impacted you. I mailed him a tape in my late 20s and described how I was hoping to be healed of my homosexuality issues. It made him very sick for three days and he burned it so no one else could hear it. I think he was sorry for what he did. He did try to apologize to me once.

I suspect he loved you in his own way. They must have known there was something wrong. The underwear, the firebug thing, the sleeping naked, and him catching you with other boys. I don’t think he told anyone about that.

You did have a couple of good friends who were “nice” and didn’t want to do bad stuff. I like the fact that you could really be a good friend to others when they needed one. I’m glad you’re my inner boy. I love you so much. I understand you so much better now. I wish we could really talk and I could sit and hold you and tell you how wonderful you are. If you were here today like Jack, my grandson I would love you like I do Jack. He’s a wonderful boy very loving and sweet. Just like you were back then and probably still are deep inside of me.

Well, I can’t really be there for you for real but I will love you through Jack and I will think of you and what a treasure you are to me. You saved me back then in a thousand different ways. I thank you for that.

I have to stop now my eyes are getting misty and it’s hard to see the page. Just know that I love you bunches and like you a lot.

All my love, Roger

 

 Sometimes, Father God

Sometimes in my anger and arrogance, I want to march into Your presence and just tell You how I feel about the way things seem to be handled in my life.

Sometimes You let me.

Sometimes I want to rush into Your presence and fall on my face and just cry my heart out.

Sometimes You let me.

Sometimes I approach You with all my demands, requests, and lengthy petitions.

Sometimes You let me.

Sometimes I just want to tell You I’m sorry for being such a putz and can You just hold me for a while?

And You always let me.

Then I notice that You have saved all my rants, all my tears, all my recriminations, all my demands, and lengthy petitions, all carefully there in Your lap.

I no longer wonder if You love me, just why?

I may never understand that till I see You face to face, but can I just say thank You right now?

When I grow up, I want to be just like You.

 

Roger

 I grew up in the  50s, a TV kid. I watched a lot of TV. Father Knows Best, The Donna Reed Show, The Nelsons, Leave it to Beaver. My Three Sons. These were all designed to be wholesome family shows and were of course probably totally unrealistic. Each had their own little issues solved usually in 20 to 25 minutes. Brothers for the most part were affectionate and helpful, Sisters seldom had issues with each other that couldn’t be solved with a chat from mom or dad. And moms and dads were loving and respectful. It was a little slice of heaven between five thirty and seven each evening. I loved it. I ate it up. That was the fifties.

Then the sixties came along. Sitcoms were getting a little grittier. They were dealing albeit carefully with more social issues. There was Rowen and Martin’s Laugh-in. I loved it and all the little innuendos they managed to slip it now and then. It was my guilty pleasure.

But I was becoming more aware that my father sometimes didn’t know best and that I was not the Beaver Cleaver of the family.

The facade was slipping and I was really clueless about how to handle what was under it. There were contradictions and confusion on many levels that were becoming overwhelming not just in my family but in the societal environment I was in. My escapism was becoming a bigger part of my daily life.

As I look back I think what really got me the most was the disconnect between those fifties shows and my own family life. I wanted a dad I could come home and talk to about what I was being exposed to in school and with my peers. I wanted a dad that would sit with me and ask me how my day was and impart wisdom and affection to me. I wanted a dad I could look up to and brag about. I wanted to come home to Fred MacMurray from My Three Sons. But the reality was quite different.

I don’t think I’ve ever really grieved that loss. I came home to a quiet house where we all kind of did our own thing. Where being around dad was uncomfortable. He looked at me in odd ways sometimes and really didn’t want to talk about anything. I was given directions instead of affection. What affection I did get was usually in the middle of the night and with few or no words. Sometimes when he was near me I got a weird kind of quivering in my stomach and I’d leave the room. I didn’t want to talk about my dad to my friends. I didn’t want them to meet him. I remember feeling uncomfortable with the way he sometimes looked at my friends.

It was a tremendous letdown and no matter how I tried I could not make excuses for him. He was not Fred MacMurray. I don’t know what or who he was and eventually, I decided around 15 years old that I didn’t want to know. I would continue to envy all the other dads of my friends and change the subject when a question about mine came up. And I hated that. I have never enjoyed Father’s Day and was always glad when it was over.

Even after all these years, it still hurts. And I’ve hated myself for all the lying to myself about him and making excuses and trying to please someone who couldn’t have cared less. I didn’t know that at the time. When you’re young you always hope. When I finally was forced to accept it at his death, a part of me died.

To this day I can’t help but still feel robbed. I can’t watch those shows anymore and don’t want to. My wife loves all of those and especially Little House on the Prairie. I just can’t watch. My dad loved The Rifleman. I’d watch it with him and wish I could be the kid in that show. He had a great dad. I loved the dad but I suspect dad loved the boy and that still hurts.

And so, I grieve I guess in my own way, and trust that my Heavenly Father will be all that I’ve missed when I see Him.

 

 Life Is Messy

by Roger Mann

Life is messy. Messier than I ever imagined. I grew up in a house that celebrated truth and honesty. At the same time, I was told/taught to keep secrets and lie. I was just a kid but there was something about it that didn’t sit well with me. But being 9 or 10 years old, what did I know.? “Father knows best, I was told.

Even as a kid I got an uncomfortable feeling in my stomach about what was going on, but I was conditioned to override that and obey my parents. 

 But stuff like that won’t stay silent for long. As a teenager, I began to see that dad was not as all-knowing and perfect as I had been led to believe and that made me mad. I had been lied to, betrayed, and eventually set aside. He hadn’t given me much attention throughout my childhood but what he did give changed to less and less as I got older. I think he began to worry about what I might say or do.

I let it go. There was nothing I could do that would not cause even more problems, so I left home as soon as I could. I think he was relieved. I thought I’d managed to get away and put all that behind me. I was wrong. All the secret abuse and lies didn’t stay buried. The older I got, the more problems I seemed to have until finally, I had to deal with it all. 

The anger didn’t go away. The flashbacks and the bad dreams that scared my wife led to my trying to deal with it on my own. That only made it worse. I was a lost soul and the foundation I had so carefully laid began to crumble beneath me at around 45 years old. I needed help and I searched to find it.  

When we reach a certain age, we often look back on things. That’s when the façade shows its cracks. For me, it was 45 and I have talked to many others around that age with similar stories. 

Whatever your age, get help.

You can’t do it alone.

The results are so worth it.

 The Father Wound Discussion

I've been quiet and doing a lot of pondering lately. This thing about my loneliness and feeling like I need some guy around my age that I can relate to and form a deep friendship with is still doing gymnastics in my head. The last men's bible study I attended was very interesting. (I don't know why they call it a bible study because hardly anyone brings a bible and it is usually just a video and Q and A after which can turn into a chit-chat session.)

The vid was a guy talking about his relationship with his father which was complicated as usual and how God used it to give him insight and healing. The follow-up Q and A, of course, were the dreaded "How were you and your dad's relationship and what have you learned". 

I HATE having to go there but every group I've ever been to always ends up with the "father" session. I kept my mouth shut hoping we'd run out of time. It didn't work. I think I handled it well alluding to some unspoken issues that deeply affected me but that God helped me through. Later one of the men who does know my story said he was wondering how I was going to handle that. 

I admit I came really close to just vomiting it all out right then and there because I was angry. I just knew though if I did I'd regret it. The thing that made me so angry is being put on the spot again. I don't want to be the poster child for incest abuse and the token ex-gay guy in the church. Also, I was angry that I WAS that guy and full of shame to be completely honest. Having confessed that I struggled with P they would all then go "Ahhh, THAT kind of P" and then I'm watched to see if I'm checking out guys in the church. Which of course is only reasonable I suppose.

I don't want to share my story! I don't want to be that guy. I did it before and it always felt like poop after whenever we'd meet. These were two different churches and we eventually left. I just never felt the same acceptance after that. (Although one guy did slip me a small note saying you are not alone. He was killed in an accident soon after that.) Being friends, associating with "that guy" seemed to make them uncomfortable and me too.

But, the longing is still there to be accepted for who I am and completely comfortable around each other. Not having to watch everything I say and do for fear it would be misinterpreted.

And, then of course there's the effect it'd have on my wife and extended family. "That guy's family, you know, that guy" Arrrgh!

Well, my life is what it is. My history, what is known or would be known, would all be out there. Unless it's someone who has some similar history or struggles most men, especially Christian men would find it tedious and problematic. So, anyone who did reach out well would certainly raise the eyebrows of the more pious. 

Life is messy. The church is messy. Christ's body is messy just like our natural bodies are messy and require constant Hygenic cleansing in order not to offend the sensibilities. I wish we could all accept that and just love each other, history and all. 

God, I can be such a whiner. Forgive the rant. I apologize.

Just my thoughts. 

I need ice cream. 

 We live in a world that is very hectic. We are inundated with news, requests for weird "How did we do?" surveys, not to mention all the usual work and responsibilities we must take care of on a daily basis. We hardly have time to keep up with our binge-watching. 

A hundred years ago life was much simpler. If something momentous or traumatic happened in our life, we had time to process it, accept it, and move on. But today, we have very little time to do anything with such things because there's a line of stuff waiting for us to deal with as soon as we turn around. 

I suspect this is why men in their 45 to 55 range are now suddenly overcome with feelings, memories, and confusion about their lives and who they really are. The life that has been stuffed down deep so they can keep moving, around this time in their life begins to surface and demand attention. I've experienced it myself and I've talked and read about so many other men to whom this has happened also.

It's unnerving, confusing, and can leave one feeling a bit lost. My own childhood traumas seemed all well taken care of for so long that when my own life began to unravel from the most unexpected places, I was ill-prepared and lost my second marriage over it. 

Lesson: Slow down. Give me a break and let me feel whatever I feel. It could be God trying to heal some wound whose bandaid has started slipping a bit and needs some air.

Just my thoughts

 Not sure if this qualifies as healing but...

I've noticed this past year that I'm much more comfortable in my own skin. I had an occasion not too long ago to have to tell my story once again. It had been a while and I approached it with no real nervousness. I made my introduction to the Zoom attendees and began with the account of my abuse in a vague general way. I'm not sure why I was reluctant to admit certain detail but I found myself skirting details. That's when I realized I was feeling the shame all over again when I'd convinced myself it was gone. That not only shocked me but made me a little angry with myself. At that point, I stopped and told them I need to be honest here and really opened up with at least the PG version as I call it. 

I became emotional as I waded into it and I just let the tears flow. I didn't care. It happened, it was bad, I didn't handle it well and it messed me up badly. That said, I'm ok now and I'm working on being better, at a lot of things. 

Life happens, but it's not all bad. I've worked hard to address and repair as much as was within me what was broken and I've had a lot of help from some really great people. I thank God for that often. I thank God for this site and I know I should be here more. It helps. 

I realize I couldn't do this alone. God knows for a while I did try. It was awful. But the support I've had has pushed me to keep reaching for this elusive thing called wellness. People tell me I've come a long way. I'm just glad it shows. I'm too close to the trees sometimes to tell if the forest is still there. 

Thanks for reading this.

R

 My wife and I were watching a movie last night called Mistic River. It was painful to watch and had a rather bad ending and I found myself upset and disturbed after for a while. This happens every once in a while. I've been doing some reading and research on human trafficking too which doesn't help. Still, I want to educate myself on this stuff and what to look for. I have grandchildren now that are in the at risk demographic for being kidnapped and sold and it haunts me. I remember my youngest boy age 9 wandering off from my backyard in Long Beach, CA one day. The panic was awful but he was found safely twenty minutes later watching a neighbor working on his car.  

I've never been stolen away although back in the day kids were pretty safe in most areas. I was sent to others' homes a couple of times for "play" but came back with no trouble as they were friends of my dad.

Still, it brings back uncomfortable memories. If other stuff happened I don't remember and that's probably a good thing. There's a lot of my childhood I can't remember and I'm ok with that given the alternative. I've had enough nightmares to last me for the rest of my life. 

I think God watched over me and protected me a lot back then. That's what I pray for my grandchildren too. I had bad stuff happen but I know it could have been much worse. If it was worse and I can't remember, that's another reason I'm reluctant to do any more therapy. 

While I'm dealing well I guess with all this right now I'm sad that the world is getting so much worse for kids. You just can't let them out of your sight anymore it seems. Still, there is a lot of people going after these scumbags that prey on children and that's encouraging. God bless them all. 

Just my thoughts

 Misdirection

I've always been short-tempered especially in certain situations. These special situations are always where I'm being criticized, attacked for something I've done or said, or when I'm working on something and can't seem to get it accomplished in a manner that doesn't make me feel adequate. 

Feeling helpless and/or inadequate is a real trigger. I feel suddenly overwhelmed and furious and sometimes will break things in my frustration. 

But most of the time I feel quite in control and can be pretty full of myself if not careful. In thinking about this the other day I began to wonder if maybe my bravado and pride if you will, is not just masking my insecurity. And I do have a lot of that if I'm honest with myself. I've been such an ass most of my life due to feeling like I'm less than most other men I meet. 

In High School is where I first began to sense this. I was not athletic in the more common sense. I liked math and science instead of football and basketball. I was drafted into my freshmen football team due to the size of the male population in my school. I was humiliated in front of the whole school and just dropped out. I've always felt other boys seem to have some secret "book of rules" that I just didn't get. Growing up that way and failing at my first marriage didn't help. 

So I think maybe I've been lying to myself a little, pretending to be so together and feeling betrayed when put in situations that I'm at loss to navigate thus exposing once again my true inadequacies. At this stage of my life, I know intellectually that all men are broken and failures in some area or another. But that doesn't help how I feel and feelings are difficult to shake. 

One thing that has helped me is a group of men that I'm allowed to be perfectly honest with about my true self. This has been huge in helping me deal with this attempt at misdirection I've tried to accomplish my whole life. God bless me I may turn out to be a fairly decent human being probably just before I die.

Just my thoughts

 Isolation

If there's one thing I've learned this last year it's that I cannot isolate and stay healthy. Since about February of last year I've been pretty much stuck at home. Not as much as my wife but too much for me. It's brought up a lot of bad feelings. I remember back in the 80's struggling with it and not really understanding what was going on. I can remember feeling desperation and a hunger to get out and meet someone, anyone just for the company. I can remember putting up with all kinds of stuff just to be with someone for a while. I didn't have to like them but to be with someone, to feel human touch was almost intoxicating I was so needy.

This plandemic and brought back a lot of that. Not nearly so bad and being married has definitely helped a lot. Getting out to work at my part-time job is like a fix though. I look forward to it each day I'm scheduled and when they call me in on my day off it like a present. 

We were made to be connected and social. It's part of our makeup psychologically and maybe spiritually too. I think this is why so many young people are deciding to off themselves rather than depend on social media alone. We're not wired to exist on just that alone. 

Those of us who have been severely abused and deprived of healthy connections tend to deem connections as all unhealthy and withdraw from people. We build walls and while it keeps the hurt out it also keeps out the love. We become numb and even though we might be in a crowd, we are still isolated. Maybe we get it, or maybe we just accept it because we know nothing else, I don't know, but the result is a handicap emotionally when in social situations. A real awkwardness that we sense but everyone else can see. 

We have started attending church again. No masks, no social distancing and it feels good to shake hands and even hug occasionally. Even though it's uncomfortable for me, I've come to realize I need it and I'm not going to avoid it anymore. 

Just my thoughts

 Housekeeping

I've been alerted to some spam that has come across the comments section. I've cleaned it up and all comments will be sent to me before posting. We've been packing for our move to a new home and things I've not been on here as I should have been. Thanks for the heads up. 

And speaking of moving, we moved a lot when I was a kid. I'm not kidding, once or sometimes twice a school year I was once again the new kid. It's hard to make friends when you think you might be leaving before the end of the year anyway. It wasn't until I was grown and married that I found out some of those moves and bankruptcies were because of my Dad's fooling around. I know for sure there was one because he was being blackmailed. There was another one where we ended up in a trashy apartment in San Diego. 

To this day I have trouble making friends and every time my wife and I have moved for whatever reason, I get a little crazy. Even changing the churches which we have done twice, I just don't feel comfortable making new friends. I know I have to get over that but for some reason, it's difficult and brings up a lot of emotions. How I longed to be able to grow up in one place and have a few best friends my whole life. I'm so jealous of guys who have best friends they've known forever.

One of the things I love about God is that He says he will never leave me. Not much else I can count on these days. 

Just my thoughts

 Looking back from the age I'm at now I'm beginning to see how difficult parenting is for someone so flawed. Yeah, I'm thinking of my dad too I guess but I'm also thinking of me. I did very poorly with my first son. I did better with the second but that's in large part to him being around his mom more than around me. Those were difficult years for me. 

I thought I'd done better with my daughter but that's not the case. She struggles and has her own difficulties probably stemming from the time she spent with her parents. We were both pretty selfish and we raised a selfish kid. 

As I've improved in my own character and behavior I've tried to impart some of that learning experience to her but she doesn't listen to me much anymore. Truth is truth but it can lose credibility with the next generation if we have not established some kind of credibility with them. I've apparently lost much of mine. She receives my advice from others better than she does from me.

There is much-needed room for giving some grace and allowing her to make her own mistakes and loving her through them rather than pointing them out. I've received much grace for my own failures. I need to extend that to others. 

Just my thoughts

 Not sure if I'm alone in this or not but all this election and political nonsense are giving me some anxiety. While I was thinking about it I realized it was triggering feelings I had of the insecurity I  had with my parents. They never argued in front of us kids or fought about anything that I know of but the feeling of my parents not having my back, so to speak, and not being about to really know what was going on with all of our moving around was telling on me especially with my grades and school work.

I think that's why I spent so much time in my head and alone with a rare friend or two. Home held a deep undercurrent of uncertainty that I couldn't articulate back then but was definitely felt and impacted me. I immersed myself in books of fantasy and science fiction and television shows like "The Outer Limits", "Twilight Zone" and "Science Fiction Theater". I couldn't go to movie theaters till much later in High School where I was able to sneak off with a friend.  But when I was, it was mostly science fiction or horror. 

I liked a happy ending where the monster got his comeuppance. I hated the ones that left you wondering if more was to come or if it really died. It felt too much like my life. 

My faith has been a great help in dealing with all this. I'm learning over and over again that there is someone who has my back, watches over me, and will always be there for me no matter what. 

Just my thoughts

I have a six-month-old grandson. I look in his eyes and he's so trusting and loving to me. I realize I too must have been like that at some point. But when a child looks at someone older and bigger and is completely helpless and they are let down, I suspect it begins right then. 

The child must trust the adults or older ones in their life for safety, love, and all their care early on. But what happens when they no longer, even for a few minutes feel safe? Or what happens when they become fearful of their caretakers? Or when they no longer feel they are loved and valued? 

I suspect it's at that instant they begin to lose some of their innocence and the sudden reality of how helpless and vulnerable they are at that moment hits them. That must be a terrible feeling especially to the very young. 

I'm not sure exactly when it happened to me. But at some point I realized, probably on some primal inarticulate level, I'm on my own right now. I do remember one evening I was about 14. I was talking to mom while she was doing dishes about how strained I and my father's relationship was. It got quiet for a few seconds and I decided to tell her why I no longer respected him. I can't remember the exact words but she must have known what was coming and immediately changed the subject. 

As I stood there looking at her back and realizing she had just shut me down, I got this sinking, heavy feeling in my chest and realized she didn't want to hear what I was about to say. I was on my own. 

Thankfully for me, as a Christian, I was never alone and never would be in a spiritual sense and that helped ease the blow that night. For many though, that sudden realization, whenever it happens can be tragic and devastating even if they can't articulate it. 

Just my thoughts

 Self-worth

Growing up part and maybe a large part, of my self worth came from my desirability as a boy and young man. I wasn't good at sports and I wasn't a rough and tumble kind of guy. I was interested in sports but not to the degree my peers were. If my team won that was great but I wasn't all "end of the world" if we did badly. It was a game, period and that's how I saw it. I went to school to learn stuff I felt I needed to know. Anything else going on was incidental. 

I was teased a lot, pushed around some too. I got into very few fights because I was pretty vicious when it came to fighting. I always felt if I hurt someone badly enough they would leave me alone and that's pretty much what happened. I always felt I was an outsider in grade school and especially in the jr and high schools.

Where I felt really desired, appreciated and special was during the abusive moments, even the unpleasant ones. I found out early how to open doors as the song goes with just a smile. And that eventually just made things worse. 

I had trouble with jobs as I got older because I craved the level of attention and acceptance that I seemed only able to get with those certain situations that seemed to harken back to my early abuse days. Maybe it would have been better if they all had been really scary and awful but most were not bad and the ones that involved my dad led me to conclude that was what I was really good for. 

I have spoken to others who were abused and ended up feeling similar. Their self-worth seemed only positive when they were in some form of reenactment of their abuse.

Learning to find value and self-esteem from healthier activities has been a life long process bu;t has definitely been worth it. I look forward now not back to find myself and it has freed me from a lot of depression and self-harm.

 Addictions and fetishes?

In my discussions with a lot of victims and a few perps, I've noted an amazing variety of addictions and fetishes that have been born as it were, from these abuses, especially the ones begun in childhood and teen years. I've had to deal with my own issues in both of these categories and trust me, it wasn't easy. I went for years in weird behaviours never realizing that in some cases, I was reenacting childhood trauma. Several times in my own personal counselling sessions I was led to view things from a more normal perspective and thereby realizing I was totally missing what should have been an obvious inappropriateness. 

I can remember several times leaving my sessions after spending minutes weeping uncontrollably over some revelation that turned my world upside down. Or maybe I should say right side up. It was painful.

One that I will relate here is the time my counsellor asked me to relate my first experience with sex. I talked about it for a few minutes and then he asked about my second, then my third. I was beginning to get the uncomfortable feeling he was perving on me when he stopped me and said he wanted to point something out to me. 

What he then pointed out was that he had asked me about my earliest experience with sex and I would always go to my earliest experience with my abuse/abuser. He pointed this out and said "Roger, you equate sex with your abuse. That's not sex." 

When I realized that in my marriage I was reliving my role as the victim instead of really relating to my wife as my lover; when I realized where I had been placing her as the seducer, I broke down for probably five minutes. I knew nothing about intimacy at all. I'd failed in my role as husband and lover and ruined intimacy for both of us. 

We never really know sometimes the whole ramifications of what might have been done to us and our view of healthy normality. With good professional help, much can be done to steer us back to healthy sexuality. I am forever grateful to those who were willing to wade through the mess of my life and lead me back out of the twisted mindset to which I was blind.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. It's worth it. 

Shattering the Silence: Walls and Perceptions

Shattering the Silence: Walls and Perceptions: (This post comes from Roger Mann.) Sometimes I have trouble being around other men because we tend to get close after a while. That makes me...

When I was growing up still just a kid, I never thought it remarkable that my sleeping habits were marked by what I understand now was some strange experiences. I was a very sound sleeper when finally and fully asleep. That's not unusual I guess but there were times I'd wake in the morning undressed or uncovered or both. I just assumed I'd kicked off the covers, (we lived in Phoenix, AZ), and/or my sleeping attire for that night.

There were other things but those were the most remarkable as I look back now. I was used to having strange dreams and was an occasional sleepwalker. I'd often wake up in the living room or kitchen again sans clothing. The sleepwaking carried on through college which gave me a lot of ribbing from other guys in the dorm. I also talked in my sleep occasionally which for my roommate was entertaining/annoying too. I accepted this as not normal but not unusual for someone my age.

The nightmares didn't start till after I was married and in therapy. While in therapy things I'd repressed began to surface and that led I guess to the nightmares. They weren't often but me waking up screaming was upsetting my wife. Luckily those only lasted a few years and tapered off. I'll have maybe one a  year or so now. I'm not sure what it's all about and I don't usually remember what it was I dreamed so I just take it a part of the package.

Seriously, I never really accepted that I was as screwed up as the above would indicate. It was just what was for me. In reading about other's experiences I'm a little taking aback that only a small minority share many of my symptoms and those that do have gone through hell.

We each deal with our own demons but I've come a long way with mine and I never really thought I would. I attribute that to my faith in God. He's amazing.