I had a bad night last night with pain. I awoke at 2am first of all , had a pee, a little water and went back to bed only to be awoken at 4am with pain again. This time I got into quite a tiz and fear almost overwhelmed me. I cried a little and eventually went back to bed at about 4.30am. No pain but slept fitfully till I got up again and 7. No swimming today.
I know what is going on with me.
I spent my childhood in fear and most of my adulthood. The fear as a child was overwhelming, paralysing. Literally. It is why I just let the abuse happen. I couldn't react. I like to say it was my only revenge - showing no emotion. No doubt it did infuriate the perpetrators of this abuse but revenge wasn't in my mind. I made that up later to explain why I just stood there. The fear was so intense I believed it would kill me if I let it out so I disassociated from it.
This fear has stayed with me all of life. I feel it now because my life is good. I am afraid it will be taken from me. What really pisses me off is that part of me is still afraid that I deserved all I got and do not deserve love or happiness now. As for the love part, I am never sure about it anyway. I don't really know what it means or what it feels like to be loved. I know that I am loved by John, that is obvious by all he does for me and how he thinks of things for me that I wouldn't have thought of. I don't feel it though. I was constantly told god didn't love me and I certainly was told I wasn't worthy all the time and was shown this by the treatment I received.
I go though periods, further apart and less intense, where I feel like this and something always triggers it. I think this time it is because I spent some time in the company of a person who I felt found me wanting.
I am well aware that this may not have been so.
I found myself feeling ashamed and found it very hard to look them in the eye. I also wanted their approval. In short, I felt like an unworthy child wanting love and acceptance. I have been feeling this shame since. I also feel quite ridiculous that at 48 I can still feel this. I felt I needed to explain my life. I didn't but did say things I wish I hadn't. I was so nervous.
So anyway, this whole fear and shame business has been doing it's bit on my life at present. I feel grief again for what for what I didn't have. Anger that I am not as grown up as I would want to be.
Yet when I can look at my life objectively, I know that I have done well. I have survived. I have experienced the deepest, darkest sorrows. I have almost lost my mind. I have almost given up. I have experienced fear so intense that death seemed preferable. I have felt grief so intensely that it caused tremendous physical pain which on it's own felt like it would kill. I have experienced such intense loneliness.
I survived it all. I may not be whole but I am not a vengeful person nor a selfish one. I feel empathy and compassion. I have love for others. I have talent. I have fortitude and strength. I can and do give of myself.
The god I was taught of that hated me doesn't exist. Those that believe he does have a real problem. Those that could have loved me growing up missed out.
And those that find me wanting should look to themselves as to why they they feel that.
PS: One thing that has never changed is my attitude to sex. I have never felt comfortable with it. Have always felt guilty and ashamed for having sexual feelings. Even now. One thing I feel glad about getting older is that I feel less sexual. I hope for it to go away altogether.
I was always told that sex was wrong. That is was a necessary evil to produce children but that was it. Girls only had periods because they had impure thoughts. Boys who masturbated were wicked and murderers.
I of course was sexually active from the age of five. So I believed. I remember this was my answer when asked how old I was when I first 'did it'.
It is a good part of why I never told. I truly believed it was my fault.
As a grown up I felt that I shouldn't enjoy sex. How could I enjoy abuse? Others have given me the feeling that I really ought not to like sex because of my abuse and that there was something wrong with me because I did. I find it next to impossible to see sex as an expression of love. I might add I would feel exactly the same way if I were st8. I have always seen sex as bad. End of. Yet I have always been rather obsessed by it too. Truly good people don't feel sexy and certainly don't indulge. I never had sex sober until I was in my late 30's.
So maybe one thing is true. Sex 'f***s' you up......
First Quarter Review:) Warning a LONG post!
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10 comments:
Actually, in my opinion, it is the PEOPLE who f**k you up. Sex just is, it has no desire on its own or thought of intent or malice. It is the PEOPLE who embody these things. It doesn't matter if you are "straight" or "gay" (foolish words, those). It is understandable that you feel this way. That poor little boy is still inside. Even though he can rationalize things away for awhile, he can't really escape.
Colin, at least you have one that you love, that loves you, and who is kind. You broke out of the ugly cycle. THAT is one of the things that makes you Colin and I like Colin very much.
Colin is a good boy to whom bad things were done. I, this straight, short, chubby, heterosexual female Yank who has never met him, thinks Colin is pretty special. Whatever diety there may be loves him.
first remember that what was done to you was not anything but abuse and the exercise of power, sex was the form it took at least sometimes. That is the worst thing about abuse, it is not over when it is over! It continues to negatively affect the person forever. I thnk those people (all abusers of children in particular) should be dealt with in the harshest manner possible.
Having a very very small brush with it has affected me deeply so I cannot imagine what you have and are still dealing with.
i do understand. i've been there. standing on the edge. i believe in you.Dearest Colin, you are a good boy and God does love you.
All that stuff that we know in our heads doesn't matter much in the middle of the night when our brains are sleeping and our injured souls are in charge.
I couldn't have said it any better than Silly Stitcher, so...what she said. Again.
Also, surviving is the best revenge, especially with all the unique gifts and talents you have displayed over time. You create beauty in spite of the darkness. In your best times, you already know this. In dark times -- how well I know -- nothing anyone says can snap us out of it.
But I'll try anyway.
You are wonderful, you are worthy, you are brilliant, and I am really glad that I found my way to your blog. You are a nice man, and I enjoy you. You are quite a presence in the world.
Peace and a big (hug).
Paula
I think you are very brave and strong to be able to write these things out. It takes a real human being to be able to express your fears and nightmares the way you do. It gives me insight into many things that I haven't experienced, and even into things that I may have experienced but not understood. Try to love yourself as well--accept yourself as what you are--a very valuable and dear person.
this isn't the first time I have read your blog and shed tears. tears not just for the little boy inside you that still cries from the abuse, but for the small fearful child inside myself that experienced simmular tramma. for years I have referred to myself, and those who have been through abuse, as "the walking wounded". walking refers to the fact that we seem to be functional, just living life as usual, (whatever "as usual" might mean), however the wounded part of "walking wounded" speaks to those wounds, some seen and some buried so deep as to be unseen. thank you Colin, for voicing what I know to be painful to you, yet by doing so you have put, so many of my "wounds", and probably the "wounds" of many others, to paper, (computer screen).
Oh Colin, you touch our hearts in so many ways. Please know that you have loving friends in many parts of the world who would take your pain away if only we could. You are loved and cared for because you are Colin. Please remember our love in the dead of night when the bad thought and pain come to you. Because we really are here for you, even if it is only in our thoughts and/or prayers. You are important to us all and we want you to be happy and whole in whatever way you can.
Hugs,
DJ in SW MI
There's nothing like sexual abuse to make you feel worthless for life. But I know one thing: if you let it walk with you, beside you, and not try to put it behind you, it cannot bite you in the ass. If it can, it will, and the effects last a lifetime. Maybe the feelings are more intense sometimes, and less intense others, but it's there. It's just there and if you are able to tell yourself that someone hurt you and that you are not guilty of it, even if you enjoyed it, you were manipulated, tricked, and it nearly murdered your soul. You lived. You are a good person. You have the ability to care for yourself and others, and what is love anyway? It is the ability to have concern for others, to care for them, and to be responsible in your actions toward them. It is not whacky romance, it goes much deeper when it is real. I think you have that. Love is not a feeling; love is an action.
It sounds Colin as though Colin the child did not have the opportunity to voice his concerns to all those who criticised and violated him. I read once that we need to pass through certain stages in our lives and with each stage we progress, we move on to the next one. This sounds a bit whacky, but maybe you have some unfinished business you need to attend to. Finding a way to do that is tricky. If it were me, I might sit down at a time when I know I will have support from those who love me if I need it and get Colin the child to write a letter to all those who hurt him. Get Colin the child to say all he wanted to but felt unable to. When you have finished, don't send any of the letters, set fire to them (somewhere safe please!). Maybe by committing your thoughts to paper and destroying them it might help to weaken the demons. Sounds a bit rich coming from me, but I always try to give advice, am useless at taking it!
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