I thought I would take a moment to explain a few things.
Open Journal is posted on an American site, hence the odd explanation of Britishness to avoid confusion. You don’t need to know where, clearly it is for the likes of me. Imagine I am a stamp collector and it is a site for people interested in the fine details of stamp collecting.
I realised that while I had said quite clearly I was a survivor, I had gone to the police and done all the things I had done. I hadn’t ever had therapy, never focused on the ways it had damaged me. I had never looked at the trauma and I had never seen or discussed all the abuse in any detail. For many complicated reasons I had just never done any of the things I perhaps should have done.
The survivors site helped to keep me safe and empowered me to be able to discuss unspeakable things. The route to therapy was weird and unusual and led me to embrace a very specific and intense method.
There are a few reasons why I decided to publish it on a blog. I felt the discussion of abuse should be had in a wider context. I have always felt this and I am aware there are some who think I should shut up about it now. Thing is that it doesn’t stop or become less of a problem.
I thought that it might be of interest to explain the road I have travelled the last six months. That I didn’t just wake up one morning and decide that after all these years I needed to discuss it all again.
Also it is for me, to take steps forward. To apply the principle clearly and loudly that none of this was my fault. There is no shame in speaking about it and acknowledging the impact it has had on me. Where it has left me and what I deal with every day. How it feels to navigate the world and what I need to do to cope.
It helps me to avoid the urge to step back and avoid and sidestep. Facing something head on and putting myself in situations where I can’t avoid it means I am forced to keep moving forwards. The more of you that know the truth means the less I can hide and pretend.
That matters because the aftermath and repercussions don’t stop and if you stand still and let them overwhelm you then it can be tempting to return to old ways of coping.
You are allowed to ask questions, or comment, or quibble.
and here is a pilot of the first entry, i am working on turning the whole thing into a podcast. This a rough mix. The majority is recorded i am just working on mixing and production. just press play
Open Journal #1
i thought i might try this and see how it goes. First day here someone suggested i keep a journal and i pointed out as i wasn’t a girl it seemed an unlikely thing to happen. The internalising aspect bothered me, why would i want to talk to or address myself, i know nothing and understand less. I know i can’t help myself, i’ve tried for years and have barely made it this far.
This place has something i have never seen before, people who understand and are willing to explore and discuss. So why not take advantage and see what we find, if the idea bores you move on and leave me to my mumblings.
In among the falling leaves of ideas and the squabbling and the soaring screams of anguish we might learn some stuff. I might learn some stuff. What’s the point of all this soul searching if nothing changes. So i thought i will treat it like an open letter, addressed to nobody and read by whoever.
Of course we have the added bonus that you guys have already created a framework where you can comment and debate and squabble and disagree. You do it with kindness and you support and you listen.
So this is my open journal. It might be every day for a week, be two pages or three, it might be a few lines, it might have nothing for three days. I am a human, i’m fickle and I go where the wind takes me.
i just had this thought process this morning, it was 3am so more the dead of the night really, where all the proper thinking occurs.
i realised that since i had disclosed my abuse that people in my work and friends and my family have all silenced me in a hundred ways. They probably didn’t mean to, they possibly would be horrified if they knew but it still happened.
You summon up the courage to say something because you feel that maybe people are forgetting that people like you exist and in some small way to get them considered. There is an impatience in the room as you sense that half the room desperately wants to move on and get off this slightly awkward subject, so you stumble to a hastily convened ending. You lower your expectations of this group of people and make a note that it didn’t really achieve what you wanted it to and now those people from the other office know about your abuse as well.
You draw a breath, summon all your courage and explain that things are ok in your life but as a survivor you have had your challenges recently. later alone in bed, hoping your feet will get warm eventually you remember the moment her eyes had a definite look of panic in them, just as the r at the end of the word survivor faded away on your lips. No matter, she was a cousin on your mothers side who always annoyed you anyway.
You had tried to explain before but it was worth another go. Oliver was a good friend and as far as you remembered had always been supportive and understanding. ‘It’s not the people or even the place’ you say trying to explain as Oliver piles sandwiches onto the plate, ‘it’s the noise and because of the abuse i find it hard …’ his eyes narrow and with almost a snarl he walks away and open the fridge door ‘are you ever going to get over that?’ No probably not, you think to yourself as you quietly exit the room and Oliver carries on struggling with a cake that any second is going to end up on the floor
Nobody means to, nobody plans it. A hundred ways that teach you to stay silent and just keep going. i can’t be the only one, we must have all have experienced those moments.
. . .
Open Journal #2
Over the last week, since stumbling into this emporium of delights, I’ve noticed some odd things happening in my head.
Lately, my brain has been catching little phrases and comments like driftwood throughout the day.
Sometimes a remark made at 3am in the chat room will click into place at 4pm while i’m sipping a cup of tea.
I wasn’t trying to make those connections.
I didn’t even remember half the things at the time.
But they come back – uninvited, unplanned – and they make me look at my abuse slightyl differently.
i’ve mentioned it before around the place that i find it mind blowing that this place is full of male survivors. Obviously there is a clue in the name but for me it is not only unusual it has had a profound impact on me. It confused me at first, then i realised that any survivor thing i had been involved with before was dominated by women.
Naturally because women have mostly been abused by men i was the enemy. Not me personally you understand but my type, and it often silenced me because i didn’t want to make things worse. It also removed the opportunity to share my hurt or view of abuse or how it felt when i was touched in a bad way.
So now i find myself in a place full of men and it is instantly better, just that one fact makes everything easier. If i need to ask a man if he feels the same about an aspect of abuse they are everywhere i go. Men who have answers and men who are willing to share their experiences and their insights.
Another brain thing and connection is perhaps the oddest of all, well so far, and it happened without any help from me. I have talked about this place with my wife, not the abuse, that doesn’t belong in my marriage, but the funny things that are said. The people i have met and the kinds of things we talk about and the stuff i discover.
When I talk about all these things I constantly refer to people as she. I tell a story and suddenly for no reason and never the same people I will say ‘then she said the funniest thing … or … and she was so kind to me … and then she told me a story
It was happening all the time, he and she seemed to be interchangeable and random. My wife has taken to correcting me live in the story and I can’t believe it keeps happening and I have no idea why.
This afternoon I was reading a message from a man here who I am rapidly learning to listen to, he wrote:
The boy inside you who went through everything he did has been desperate to be able to talk about it and not have to keep it a secret
It echoed around my head.
It seeped into my soul.
It resonated and echoed across my life, as if it was a tune that had always been playing
The boy inside …
The boy inside thinks women are safer than men.
The boy inside thinks women are the kind ones.
The boy inside feels safe enough now.
. . .
Open Journal #3
Back when I started to be abused I was in a boarding school and worked in the kitchen helping the Chef. So plenty of free cigarettes and extra food. I was a skinny tennis playing boy of 12 who could eat.
I used to creep down at dawn and steal bread and jam from the teachers dining room that had been laid out the night before. A couple of slices and leaving no evidence behind. I was never caught. This isn’t some confession, I didn’t know until recently. Week or so ago. Something has undone, something is letting me see and remember things I had no idea I knew.
The bread and jam is a weird one, I wasn’t hungry, I had access to enough food. Given that it was the Chef who was abusing me it might have been some kind of revenge, but tame if it was. Maybe it was a small thing from a powerless child to get away with.
Looking back it would have made more sense to slide one of his large kitchen knives between his ribs. That is probably harder than it looks to do smoothly, not everything in the movies is real. If it was my bat signal would have had a response by now.
Maybe my abuse placed a complicated little knot in the core of me. By the time I was married at aged 25 I was normal to slim, I could fit into my wife’s size ten jeans and never gave any thought to my body.
Something was off though, I could just eat cereal for longer than was helpful. I could dabble with eating something a lot and then drop it and never go near it again. I hated any comments on my appearance. When I say hated I just filtered it out, my jaw would tighten and it was if I had pressed skip and it just bypassed whatever it was they had said.
My wife could tell across a room by the look on my face if had been complimented, that shirt makes your eyes look great, your looking so tanned at the moment, looking great give me a hug, great my two favourite things.
There was never an eating disorder but there was something, it was if I was toying with the idea seeing if it was a fit. Maybe I was just too lazy to do it properly or maybe I just liked eating and couldn’t bear to give it up altogether.
Now that I am older and I no longer work much, there is no need for bright lights or photo shoots or worrying about how you look this week. A combination of various things meant I added a bit of weight. Then I discovered something, nobody touches you. Im heavier and older. I mean we are not talking people recoiling at the sight of me. Just not the man I was. Humans finally leave me alone.
Men are not predatory or flirting, women don’t laugh and toss their hair. Im ok with it, well I think there is maybe a happy medium and I could do with walking some of this off.
If it wasn’t revenge and it wasn’t an eating disorder. What was it? A small cry for help. Just trying any means possible to signal distress. Something was definitely off I just never quite worked out what it was.
. . .
Open Journal #4
I like bits of language, cute little phrases especially ones that capture a feeling or make me laugh, and with an accent they are just delightful. Just about any phrase even just some words in Welsh. A northern English accent just lends itself to good dry delivery.
I was once jokingly telling a younger guy off for trying to get me to give him something and he grinned with boyish charm and said ‘shy boys get nowt’ (nowt is Yorkshire for nothing). I was delighted and he got what he wanted from me and I walked away with one of my favourite mantras. Try it, it covers a lot of ground.
A funny northern TV presenter walking around an art gallery and stands in front of a victorian picture of a large ample woman and he says to camera ‘by heck she’s flattened some grass in her time’. Oh I have spent years resisting the urge to use that one.
I have a phrase that I bend and play with a lot, I like the idea of ‘finding the edges of something’, playing around, feeling around, testing the edges of something. It has the sense of caution but still trying. It means you are engaged and looking but not fully committed, exploring and understanding but not getting too close.
I have been doing it here in this place where so much is said, comments and opinions and a sense or urgency, to understand and make sense, as we try to communicate our feelings and our pain.
Touching the edges of fear. Leaning against the edges of understanding. Toying with the idea of bravery. Holding the edges of panic.
I just like the idea of not rushing in, having time to feel my way and grow accustomed to the weight of the thing. I don’t want to be pushed or pulled along, I want to know what I am getting into and be sure of my footing. I like the edges of a thing. I even like the edges of a person, their smile drawing me in, their laughter drawing me in, their eyes showing me they are to be trusted. Getting me closer in my own time, not rushing me, letting me feel the edges of them first.
Over my first week there have been all these phrases that I have either never heard before, or heard them and never thought to ask what they mean. They intrigue me so I make them the question of the day. Then I realised a day wasn’t really enough time. So I figured I would take three of them and keep bugging people and reading about them until there was a glimmer of understanding.
These are the first three, Acting Out … just sound like a dress rehearsal to me, the words not the actual thing. I have had as many different opinions as people I have asked on this one. Can’t really say it is getting any clearer at the moment. I think I get it, and it might apply, just waiting for something to click and then it will come into focus.
Hyper-Sexual, new words never heard them before. I Like the feel of it and it feels like a fit. I don’t like labels, I usually find I can’t swallow a whole one. I can tick off a few of the symptoms right off the bat and will probably horrify myself with how many get a tick and I had no idea. I’m starting to notice this whole honesty thing is not easy.
Hyper-Vigilance is also new to me and not really sure of it. I suspect maybe it manifests itself in ways that I don’t see very clearly. Or maybe what I mean is, that it is so much a part of my behaviour I just see it as ‘oh that’s just me’ ’that’s who I am’. Maybe we are too close and thats what friends and therapists are for.
Talking of therapist I was in a chat here with a friend and they asked if I had one. I explained no and why and then followed up with a favourite line of mine. ‘It’s a cultural thing as well’ I said ‘you all have one but we don’t, we keep them for special occasions.’ There was a pause and then he asked ‘Isn’t this a special occasion?
fuck
maybe
. . .
Open Journal #5
I just wanted to write about this because I want my feelings about it out there. For this survivor it was an interesting experience. It revealed things to me that I wasn’t aware of, and I learnt a thing or two.
Obviously on arrival here I wandered into the Survivors Stories forum. Had a bit of a read and fell apart. I just kept crying, one moment I was horrified by the way boys have been treated, the next I wanted to hug them and comfort them. I had no idea how to put into words how they made me feel, a week later and I still can’t. I’ve carried on reading, just a few at a time, just so I can pace myself. I will get through them, it might take some time.
As I read I started to wonder what this felt like. To write and have people read it, to have people understand that part of you that is normally held close and protected. Don’t get me wrong I have possibly done more than most to tell my story. But not like that, not the details, not the graphics, not the feelings, or the aftershocks or the wounds or the scars.
I have talked to the police and made statements but they were proper grown up medical words. Not words with feelings. Not strong words. Not words that matter. Words as facts. They are different. I’ve spoken of abuse but just headlines. This age, blah blah bad man blah blah type thing.
After a few days I started to realise that if I couldn’t do it like others had I could write the first half. I could take the sanitised, suitable for human consumption version and use that as a starting point. Work on finding the bravery to write anything else later. Then the thought that spurred me on, if nothing else it will prove to myself that I mean this, this is for real, I’m not messing about. I want to heal I want to get better I don’t want to hide anymore, I want this to start. This is my first move, write it and put it out there, then do what you came here for, healing and caring. Ok then.
Once I had written it I found I had publishers block, it’s like writers block but involves more lunches and a bigger cut of the profits. Wherever I go in life I find myself drawn to people who make me laugh and make me feel safe, I find it easy to fall into friendship with the people who are right to. This place is no exception and in fact one of the best that I have ever come across. I have no idea why yet, just not figured it out yet, what is going on?
That’s not a complaint it is a delight, I have to stop myself, check and wait in case I come across as a teenage boy with crushes all over the place. It is healthy for me and I can feel it playing its part in healing me. So anyway I might have collected a few of these gems in recent days and we are having a great time.
I explained that I was just kind of frozen in the headlights of indecision and they grabbed my hand and pulled me into a discussion and got me to post it in there and they read it and I practised trying not to be sick. They assured me it was fine and then stuck around while I did the actual posting and we went into the chat room and hung out to wait for 48 hours and the reviews.
Maybe 20 minutes later it was up, apparently it says up to not after 48 hours. So there we were then it was out there. Over the next couple of hours three people read it, one of them I knew who it was. Went to bed and it was five. Which you know is ok but it’s four I don’t know.
The next morning it was 25. and I was starting to feel a bit uneasy. It’s the not knowing who has read it that was bothering me, no it wasn’t, it was the loss of control that was bothering me. It is always what bothers me. No doubt it will always bother me until the end of time.
Later I was in the chat room and I commented that I was stifling the urge to march into that forum and press delete on the whole thing. A nearby mod pointed out that you couldn’t actually do that. What is wrong with you people?! Never occurred to you we might need a delete button, right there, what do you mods do all day?! Still no idea to be honest.
Mr chirpy mod told me that all I can do is go into edit mode and delete everything back to one full stop … ok period if you need a translation. Well I can’t do that then, people would know I did it but chickened out, only thing worse than losing control? chickens coming home to roost.
My next plan was to just ignore it. Denial has a track record where this kind of thing is concerned. Just don’t think about. No need to go in that room for a bit. What you don’t know can’t hurt you.
That was going fine until I wanted to add a link to stuff in the bottom of my signature, well it pays to advertise, and I had to go in there to get the link. 52. Oh ok. That’s a lot of people. Then I noticed the person below me had 200. 200! Left the room and tried not to think about it. They probably know more people than I do. Just leave it alone don’t go back.
That was really working fine. Only thought about it a little, no actual vomit. Doing fine.
Late last night was quite sleepy and just checked a couple of messages and was about to leave when I noticed someone on their own. He had been there the night before and he was one of those quite hopeless with computers types. We all have them in our families, can’t train them can’t shoot them.
I stuck around for an hour and helped him post his story, blind leading the eyes gouged out and had to return to the forum to be able to explain the moves he would have to make. 93
Ok, well that’s that, sometime tomorrow that is going to slip over 100 and then we have just lost all control. I will never know who has read it and I don’t care anymore. You know why?
Before me hundreds of boys told their story and after me there will be hundreds more. That’s the problem with this numbers game, there are too many of us. Those numbers are the ones that really make me sick.Those are the numbers that really make me sick.
. . .
Open Journal #6
It has to be some music today, we are going to always come back to music, it walks with me through all of this abuse stuff. At moments of pain it soothes and allows me to centre myself. When I am heading into stressful moments i arrive with it and don’t remove it from my ears until the last possible second.
The music itself enveloping my brain in sounds that seem to medicate and find the dark corners and comfort them. Then there are voices, a good vocal is my lock into a song. If I find a new one that clicks I will play it 20 times in a row until I know it, until I can sing it, until it becomes part of me. I carefully add it to my collection and love it forever and never let it go. I will hunt down versions and mixes, sometimes even covers in case someone out there has troubled themselves to make the definitive version.
Then there is what it means to you, the setting you place it in, what it evokes every time you hear it. If you just hear a snatch on a radio you are instantly transported there. I thought I would talk about some of mine, and I really could do this all day, I used to own a record shop I know how to do this properly and long into the night. So some random examples and why they matter.
I had escaped to Norway right after having reported my abuse to the police. My friends had given me a guest house in the grounds of their home. Piled high with snow all around, a log fire burning making the guest house toasty and warm.
Lady Blackbird ~ I Am What I Am
I’m not gay but I would help them out at busy times, and this is one of those gay anthems that seems to just always be around. In the UK it was recently used for a Virgin Atlantic TV advert. First heard in the musical La Cage aux Folles and then Gloria Gaynor’s screaming in your face disco classic. For me this is a slowed down heart wrenching version that take me to the very centre of my determination to be just that … what I am … not what you tried to make me
Sat in a convertible car on balmy summers evening with a young friend aged 16 who was tearfully disclosing her abuse to me. She was about to walk away from college and everything, her very future and all that potentially held. I told her that I was really struggling to find the right words. Then I told her if love was important and it could get us through maybe she would be ok. I reached forward and pressed play on this. We sat and listened while big fat tears rolled her face. A few years later she called and told me that she had just found out that she had finished her degree and got a 1st and she thanked me for playing this song.
I I have a lot of friends and we all love music, we talk to each other about it, we swap notes. That is our way. Not one has ever told me about this woman. For which I will fucking kill each and every one of them when I see them next. Then I came across this song, just yesterday. Like pouring a huge jug of syrup over my head.
As I am starting to be able to vocalise my pain, this site is getting to me. I have been sitting in chat and listening, talking to people, learning, thinking, hurting, crying. I found this song, and I just fell in love with it, with her voice, the lyrics. As I listened to it for the, oh I don’t know whose counting?, it was a lot and I haven’t stopped yet.
Something shifted in me and I had this realisation, something I had never thought before about my abuse and it changed something. I mean if I’m honest it probably made it worse in the immediate, but now I was looking at it properly. Now we are getting somewhere. I mean I am still a fucked up freak but I have made some progress such as it is.
… I don’t wanna fall another moment into your gravity
… here I am, and I stand so tall, just the way I’m supposed to be
PS
In case you don’t know, her live version of Goodbye Yellow Brick Road is sublime, goosebumps the works.
. . .
Open Journal #7
The first few lines of My Story talk about my father being violent, locking me in rooms, and that I never talk about it. In chat a few days ago I was talking with someone and they told me they had read my story and said nice, kind things to me. I asked if he had any questions, and if he did, he could ask them. Obviously, feeling brave was in danger of becoming a lifestyle choice.
He never mentioned the abuse. He stayed on the topic of my violent father. Asked me questions, which I answered. The conversation progressed and it started to dawn on me that this had never happened before. I have mentioned it in passing, but nobody has ever asked anything. They didn’t think it worthy of mention, so I didn’t. Or maybe the other way around.
The perceived wisdom is that the past was different, that it was normal back then, and things are better now. Recently, talking to a younger friend — 30+ and 60+ at the table — we realised we had both experienced it in the same way. So maybe not. Maybe it still happens.
We talked about how we had never told anybody how violent our fathers were. How out of control. How out of proportion any punishment was. How scared we were of them. So, we told each other that our fathers scared us. It was a silly thing to do, but in a little way it helped. It was that being heard thing, wasn’t it? There might be something in that. People should look into it.
The problem is, the conspiracy of silence stretches from the moment the punch landed until about an hour ago, when something shifted. When I realised that despite my best efforts, it was — and had always been — part of the abuse. It is abuse. Why hadn’t I seen that?
My immediate response is that it always felt like the fabric of my childhood. It wasn’t a different thing, an act, an event — it just was. It had never been any different. It was always thus. The iron fist ruled and there would never be any other way, not under his roof.
Aged seven or eight, I am standing in front of the colour television, being chastised for some misdemeanour. I don’t answer quickly enough or I don’t provide the right answer. Something clearly isn’t right. He is not happy. He reaches forward, grabs a full sealed bottle of wine, and throws it at my head. Two and a half pounds of wine bottle smashed through the TV screen. I was beaten and kicked black and blue because I had rather stupidly ducked my head out of the way. A number of lessons were learnt that day — not least my status in the house, somewhere below the television, clearly.
It wasn’t abuse. It was the norm. What is becoming clear is that my will was broken. My self-worth non-existent. My ability to make good choices eradicated and replaced with compliance and, I imagine, a deep need for love and affection. Might as well have handed me over to an abuser bound and gagged.
In the years of my adulthood, it was never a subject for discussion. In his direct presence, the fear was still very much alive. I never trusted him not to hit me. I never, ever relaxed in his vicinity, and a thousand times I rehearsed the word “why” but never said it out loud.
When I became a man, owned my own house, fostered children, ran my own business — when he was older, old, dead, gone — the fear never left me. It’s still here now. Someone somewhere someday could hurt me like that.
I never understood why nobody stood between him and me. Why nobody took a turn. Why nobody said no. Said stop.
Mother, sisters, aunts and uncles, family friends — all have taken me aside and commented on his treatment of me. All agreed they never liked it. All agreed he went too far. Apparently, I knew what he was like.
An uncle slipped alongside me at a family gathering and casually told me how, when I was five years old, I was struggling with my shoelaces and my father, frustrated — or no, I think it was because I was completely and utterly useless — thumped me. A grown man thumped a five-year-old. I had no idea why he was telling me this story. Was he hoping I would experience a series of flashbacks and confirm his version? I didn’t recall the incident in the slightest. But then, at that age, one violent act probably merges into another.
Family gathering 72b and I make a passing comment about the way my father treated me. My stepmother instantly defended him with the line, “Well, you were a very difficult child.” Well, as long as there was a good reason. As I glanced around the room, there were a few slight nods of agreement, as if this had been agreed long in advance of the meeting. Once more silenced. The myth continues.
My niece is looking at photographs. One is passed around — a dolls house my father, her grandfather, made for her. Basic at best, clearly lacking any finesse or skilled carpentry. I made some kind of sneering, acerbic comment and was met with a sharp rebuke from my niece, who loved her grandad and loved the dolls house. Another generation of family defends him. And I am silenced once more. I just won’t learn my lesson, will I?
He is dead by this time. So the truth could have been whispered. It would have cost nobody anything. Better really that I carry it. After all, I’m used to it. Why burden anyone else?
Back in that chat, answering questions, being told that it was awful and it shouldn’t have happened, a man types into a keyboard — thousands of miles away, across an ocean — and I read the words nobody had ever bothered saying before.
It wasn’t your fault.
Walls start tumbling down.
. . .
Open Journal #8
Woken again by nightmares. 3am. Same as every night since I got here. If I’m spending every waking moment thinking about abuse, I guess it stands to reason my brain is a bit full. I’ve just kind of resigned myself to the fact that I’m not going to get much sleep at the moment.
I don’t like the bit when a nightmare has woken you and then you really want to get back to sleep but you can’t because you’re worried about going back into the dream. I always make the decision to stay awake. Tired is better than scared.
I don’t think I have ever slept much. Six hours is a good night’s sleep. Anything amiss and I can easily get by on four. When people say things like “oh I’m nothing without 8 hours sleep a night,” I wonder what that’s like. Double what I get. Every single night. Crazy talk.
Once I am tired, I go to sleep. I don’t lie there, not able to nod off. I guess I don’t try until I feel sleepy. From what I can tell, the nightmares seem a common problem for survivors.
A doctor friend explained it all to me once. When abuse occurs, it imprints itself on your brain in the wrong bits. It’s like when you rush into a room to put something away and you’re in a hurry so you just shove it on a shelf, and later you forget where you put it. Only in your brain.
Because it’s in the wrong bit of your brain, it means you dream about it at the wrong part of your sleep cycle. So it seems more real, and you remember the dream. Even though I know why it happens, it still happens. Knowing doesn’t stop it. Or make it easier to deal with. Knowing facts is interesting and it means you understand what happens. Still stuck with the nightmares though. No change there.
The irony is that sleep is probably the one thing that would help. Everyone, not just me. When we sleep, we process stuff, sort through emotions, juggle dilemmas, re-organise our thoughts. We wake refreshed, more able to cope with what the day throws at us. In fact, sleep is all positive.
The thing that could help me right now is being disrupted, because I’m thinking about stuff too much and everything feels all over the place and nothing fits anymore and now I can’t get back to sleep. An abusive circle of abuse and abusive thoughts. How abusive.
I get a blanket and go to my desk. Maybe if I join the chat room. Daft talk and silly jokes. Heads together over there in late night deep discussion. Popping in and jumping out. People, old timers, mods and newbies like me. Nobody has the answer, but the company and the feeling of together is better than alone and thinking in the dead of the night.
. . .
Open Journal #9
Violent childhood. Sexual abuse. Damaged adult getting by. Disclosure, police, courts. Two decades of coping. And now — the realisation I never really faced any of it.
This all feels like the right thing to do, and I am starting to understand some of it. I had never spoken about, addressed, admitted, described all the things that were done. Never looked at it, never thought it mattered, understood nothing about anything. Almost a sense of shock, realising what was there, how much and how deep and how embedded it all is. Starting to wonder how I have even functioned over the last two decades.
I am struggling not to condemn myself for being so stupid as to not see it. You wouldn’t believe how many survivors I have listened to, comforted, advised — and not once applied it to myself. I think everyone else assumed I had done that bit and I had no idea I needed to. I thought the saying it out loud was the important bit. I thought admitting it was what mattered.
I thought it was just the way it was. Deal with it. You have told the police. You have said to people you were abused. They know now. You can’t keep repeating it. The feelings and the memories and the nightmares and whatever else — this is just what goes with being a survivor. I don’t think I was surviving. I think I was getting by and coping.
I keep circling the same things at the moment. Trying to understand what it all means, and how it applies to me personally. A member here answered my plea to understand what trauma of abuse actually is, and listed some symptoms.
So I searched them and read about them. Some things are just nothing I recognise. I am too Tigger for depression or anxiety, but the way I feel at the moment I am not ruling anything out. I fully expect someone to point out some behavioural quirk or habit that I was unaware of and whisk me away for help.
Someone in my actual life, not this pixels-on-a-screen reality — what can you do, you are thousands of miles away and in an opposite time zone? Don’t think I haven’t thought about relocating to America for an extended break. I can make a list of ten friends who would accept a Brit house guest. Manage it right and I could be there for six months.
Compiling a list of what is wrong with you is a sobering thing to do. I have really tried to embrace honesty from the start of this process. I saw little point in deceiving myself and wasting time trying to side step.
Consequently, I acquired a sort of mentor. I’m not sure if I have actually used that word in front of him yet. It’s how I treat him. He offered sage advice in our early conversations and he was easy to explain things to. By which I mean his responses seemed to show he understood me and what I was explaining.
Maybe this is something you are all familiar with and it’s old hat. Not me. Never had it before in my life. I have told him, unprompted, that I want to be accountable and answerable to him. That he has my permission to call me on things, to challenge along with advising. I was very quickly aware that I couldn’t do this on my own, and it seemed the sensible thing to do. If I have found a person that is wiser, more informed, smart enough and cares enough to make the effort, why not go all in.
So I take my rambling, uninformed thoughts and questions to him, and he responds with answers and suggestions, questions and observations. Then while he sleeps I spend the day pondering his insights, reading more, listening to others, grappling with complicated, emotional, terrifying feelings. Then do it all again. I do hope I don’t break him, but I suspect he has been here before. Me, not so much.
You visit a new land, you need a map, a guide and a friend.
So far the only things I am fairly sure of is that I have PTSD, there is trauma — and I think we might be revisiting that quite a bit — anger issues, but that feels more like an internal rage, hyper-vigilance in the form of how safe a place/room/person is, so that’s probably a yes, trust issues like you wouldn’t believe, nightmares and sleep issues (I mean please, just standard stuff surely), Hyper-Sexual but struggling to understand some of that and how it applies, and in recent days the realisation that Dissociation has been such a part of my existence and so integrated into me that I had trouble seeing it. I just thought it was normal and just how I was.
No idea what I am going to do next. Listen and learn some more. It’s too early to say how it makes me feel. Currently trying not to be swamped by the idea that so much is wrong with me. I have moments of feeling hopeful that it’s a good thing that I know. Followed by despair at how broken I feel.
It is what it is.
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Open Journal #10
In the world of survivors the phrase ‘Trigger Warning’ means more than it has become to mean in common parlance. The content may be of a nature that has the potential to trigger a flashback or similar for a survivor and may deal with a subject matter or describe things in such a way as to connect a survivor with their own trauma.
In this case it is a little explicit. The reason is that sex is, explicit. Sexual abuse is not an easy subject to discuss because it is of itself unpleasant and tough to look at.
I could choose to not publish this entry. I could re-write and sanitise the piece. Thing is, I don’t want to. Adhering to my new found principle of being honest about this subject and not being silenced I will speak of it in any way I see fit.
Society may say a collective no. I say I have a voice and I will use it.
You may choose not to read it.
TRIGGER WARNING
I just always read it as Tigger warning and I’m ok with that. Oh the relief of getting that out of my head.
I did a weird thing the other night, i was talking to a moderator and explaining that sometimes because of the time zones i can just go into chat and nobody is there. I play music and just stay there, it’s a bit like a happy place, sometimes i think of all the funny things that people have said or done, and sometimes i just sit quietly and can’t believe my luck that i found this little room
Mod told he used to do that and that also used to practise, ‘practise what?’ i said … ‘saying stuff i wanted to say’
It stayed with me all day that thought … i went into the treehouse and did the same thing, I wrote eight lines about the first time i was first ever touched in a bad way, every line made me cry and took me ages to write. The words were all jumbled in my head and it was like i wasn’t allowed to say them, then when i was finished i just looked at them
They were like graffiti on a white wall, i felt like i wanted to leave them there so everyone could see them and then i thought i have no idea how to do that in front of people. So i left and now the wall is white again … i just checked … all the words are gone again
If you want to try that little exercise I would just add one small warning , if your timing is unlucky and off, you could post/write something at the very same moment someone comes into the room and they might see it. You know that moment when’s someone comes into the kitchen and catches you singing at the top of your voice, well like that but a redder face. It’s ok you are all in bed when I am doing it you wont disturb me.
Over the next couple of days I keep thinking I should try. Just try to write it properly, try is better than not trying. If I try and fail nobody will know and I can try again another day.
So I wrote it and stared at it for a couple of days and kept knocking it down the list, post something else, don’t post that. Then a passing comment from The Mentor (makes him sound like a baddie, and I ain’t saying who he is that would be weird) (it’s a man … if that narrows it down) … he remarked that I hadn’t actually told him anything about the actual abuse in actual words actually. He didn’t word it like that, he was right I hadn’t. I decided it was silly to not do it, so I showed him what I had written, while I waited for a response (time zone delay … he sleeps I play … he plays I sleep) I got a little bit tense.
As always he said all the right things and helped me to understand things and we continued with our discussion and the world didn’t stop turning and maybe it would be ok.
Clearly the next step was to just post it, do what I came here to do. So, this is the first time I have ever said anything about the details of my abuse.
And here it comes again …
TIGGER WARNING !
This plays in my head like a sharp coloured 4k surround sound clip from a big budget movie. It is detailed and precise, I know it’s smell and taste. There are moments when it slips into my mind without any bidding and it suddenly has me so hard it makes me light headed from the loss of blood. Other times while enjoying the pleasure of a leisurely wank it is all I can think of and the force of the release actually hurts.
I like it and despise it, it makes me feel shame and disgust in equal measure.
I am 12 years old, I worked for the Chef in the school. One day i was sat on one of the counters drinking a cup of tea and we were laughing at something and he stood in front of me and placed his hands on my knees, as he was speaking he ran his hand up my thighs until he was just shy of my cock and balls.
I instantly got hard, and was very embarrassed, i was wearing tight trousers and it was clear what was happening, I jumped down and left the kitchen as quick as possible, i was mortified that i had got an erection. I didn’t go back for two days. he eventually tracked me down and laughed it off and explained that all boys have that happen and not to worry.
I should explain that i was at that point sexually naive, actually to be fair to myself i was quite normal for the time, sexual education had been none existent for me, i had been told some very basic stuff, had no idea about masturbation, i had a few crushes on some girls at my old school but had nil experience of anything. When he had touched me and my cock had reacted i think it was as much about being touched near there not about how i felt about him, as far as i am aware i had no sexual or romantic feelings about him at all.
Life continued on for a few weeks and it was never referred to and nothing else happened. One afternoon i had been playing tennis and i walked to his home to see him. I was wearing shorts and trainers, carrying my shirt and racquet, i was very tanned (we all were then), very slim, blue eyes and completely innocent.
I complained about the fact that my shoulder was aching and i had probably been practicing my serve for too long and maybe pulled something, he offered that i could use his shower, a treat to shower alone and i did, returning with a towel around my waist still rubbing my shoulder. he told me to go and lie on the bed and he would find some oil and massage my shoulder see if that helped.
So i laid face down on his bed with the towel still wrapped around me, he massaged my shoulder and back and gradually things shifted and changed.
He pulled the towel away so he could ‘do this properly’, the massage became very sexual, i got very turned on and after a while he suggested i turn over. I was erect and didn’t want to, he laughed and persuaded me that it was no problem that we were both boys and it really didn’t matter. So i rolled over.
He was very smart, if he had grabbed my cock right away he would probably have freaked me out, but he didn’t he continued with the massage stroking and touching just about anywhere other than my genitals. Then when i was aching for him to touch me there and to do something, i’m not sure what i wanted him to do but i wanted something, he nodded at my erect cock and asked ‘what about that shall i massage that as well’ i nodded.
The moment his mouth slid over the head of my cock I convulsed with the most powerful orgasm I had ever experienced up to that moment. He stayed there gently mouthing my cock and within about 20 seconds my cock was achingly hard and I wanted more. I just wanted more.
I have felt guilt ever since. about the letting him do it, about enjoying the touching. About the intensity of the cum, about craving more of it, I was hooked from the first and I never stopped wanting more.
continue reading 11-20
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a blog less ordinary 