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The Journey

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

We all have our journeys in our lives. We all have our tales to tell and our high and low points; we all have our ‘private’ selves and our secrets, and we all have our lives to live regardless of the past. In all of this we often lose track of where we came from and how life became the way that it is. In the thrum of our adult lives we usually give little regard to the lessons of the past that have led us to who and where we are, because we believe we don’t need to. We have learned behaviors that help us cope with the monstrosity that life can be, but we also have learned behaviors that can dog us and cause us issues in our lives. We view the past as exactly that – the past. What if that journey wasn’t what you expected it to be, but that you had simply ‘forgotten’ the past? What if your childhood was hidden from plain sight? What if it started to come back, and in that moment your reality started to fall apart? The lessons learned in the formative years fall into question then, and life seems to take on a slant in the wrong direction. That realization, in itself, is enough to create imbalance, and that is where my journey begins.

I have journeyed hard and long into my past this last five years. I have journeyed back to the past to the things that my mind had hidden from me; to the events that had formed who I was; to the habits and coping mechanisms that had massive negative effects on me, but kept me alive none-the-less; to the memories of events that shouldn’t have happened and a new awareness of who I am not. Now it’s time to introduce you to that journey in the hope that it helps you on your journey, whatever that may be, and in the knowledge that it will help me. I started this journey alone. I am no longer alone. I am no longer weak. I was not responsible; I was not to blame; it was not my fault.

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How it began

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

I wrote a four page letter to someone I respect highly. In that four page letter I managed to encapsulate the essence of my journey to such a degree that the next chapter, ‘Path of Discovery’, is based on that letter. I thought it the perfect, poignant way to frame this journey; a rightful beginning to put a face to a monster that haunted my life for so many years yet lay hidden in the darkest corners of my mind. The words are very real, true to the point and true to the memory; a written graphic reminder of what was real – emphasis on ‘was’.

It’s hard to paint a picture when you have no canvas. Without the basic tools, no matter how talented you are, you cannot complete the picture. It will remain in your minds eye, unable to be expressed yet still ever present in your day to day life. In my view, without the nurturing of loving parents it is nigh on impossible to build and grow into a functional adult. The tools to build a young life towards adulthood are supplied mainly by those closest to you over those formative years – more to the point – your parents hold the key. Without them it becomes a guessing game; trial and error. Mistakes in this guessing game could destroy a life, literally and metaphorically. Hence the canvas mentioned in the first sentence of this paragraph is foundation for building your life. What are your views if they are formed on lies?

The learning process for me, getting from then to now, has been incredible, hence calling it a journey. The transition from what I was to what I am is incredible also, almost like day and night, and it continues to morph and grow daily, yet I have a profound feeling that I am the same core person – I can’t tell you how comforting that one thought is. In dealing with the nightmare of my past I have opened new doors to a richer, happier life. I understand the strength necessary to take this journey, it is not easy, and I maintain that all survivors do have that strength they just don’t know how to access it yet. I also understand, with sadness, that there are those that don’t have the will to survive. There are those that either want to die to end the pain, or want to endure the pity of others and live a sad, lonely life. I don’t pity them, I hurt for them and, in my own way, understand them and wish I could give them the strength to make that change. That is not mine to give. Human nature can be cruel at times.

There is something in the core of everyone that yearns to survive and be happy. I believe that there can sometimes be something at the core of us that yearns to be a victim. Maybe that yearning is our subconscious mind playing out coping mechanisms. Maybe that yearning is familiarity, better the devil we know so to speak. Maybe that yearning is a misplaced and misunderstood emotion or response that grips us like a vice. Maybe I have missed the point entirely, who knows. It’s not my place to do anything other than express my own feeling right here, right now.

Who knows how anyone else perceives the world around them. Who knows whether the color that I know as red looks the same as the color you know as red. Who’s to say that my perception of how a life should be is anything other than just that, my perception. In the grand scheme of things, in the myriad dimensions of thought, life and of the universe there is so much that we don’t know, that we don’t comprehend that it almost seems impossible to comprehend the scale of what our minds can achieve – we don’t know – we really don’t know. The scale of that thought is part of what kept me alive during my childhood. The chapter called ‘The Box’ goes some way to explain the scale of my thought.

Reading through the chapter ‘Reflection on What Was’ will give you an idea of where I was when I started this process of healing. It’s brutally honest and to the point and can be somewhat disturbing, even though I still feel I couldn’t adequately describe the gravity of how I felt and what I was going through. Beyond that point in time is the journey in more detail, from a different standpoints and perspectives and, some would say, from a different person. I remain the same core person; my perspective has changed – my life has changed, almost polar opposites. I learned to love, and be loved, and that is one of the greatest gifts that there is. There is hope – no matter how deep the crap is, no matter how thick the fog is we can beat this. Don’t be alone in your pain – do what I did and become a winner.

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It’s all about me

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

The content of this blog is entirely my view. This is entirely my perception. These are my words, my thoughts and my experiences. I don’t claim to be right. I don’t claim to be anything other than one man sharing his experiences, ideas and thoughts with those that might listen; no more and no less. To think any different is to misinterpret my intention. To misinterpret my intention is to misinterpret me, and that doesn’t belong with me anymore.

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Path of Discovery

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

(a letter to a friend)

I would like to share with you my path towards healing and hopefully give you an insight to the spirit of ‘me’ that has aided my journey. It’s not an easy thing to write and it will not be an easy thing for you to read. In understanding my words I hope that you will better understand the real me, my journey, and why the journey means so much to me. The journey is just as important as the goal; the journey is the struggle towards a normal life; the journey is a Path of Discovery.

It’s hard to know where to begin. There is so much information, so much life that I have lived, or not as the case may be. There is a paragraph by Charles Swindoll called Attitude, and a text called Mastery by Stewart Emery that are both so very powerful and pertinent messages and have such deep meaning for me, more so if you have been where I have been and seen what I have seen. In my journey towards becoming whole again I have often pondered the meaning of both texts. Now that I am on the other side of the curve I better understand them. It is easy to read the words and know the meaning. It is not so easy to truly understand and feel the meaning, let alone live by it. Any journey such as mine reminds you of that fact.

In the forty something years leading me to ‘here’ and ‘now’, I have been so many people and seen so many places (yes, I meant to say it that way), and I have been in awe of life itself so many times, but never as much or as such as I am right now, right here in this moment that I am sharing with you. It is time to let loose the past and in doing so, embrace the future. It’s an incredible journey to say the least, and it has left its mark.

In late 2004 I began a journey of discovery. My blanketed past had so many jaded edges that I could not understand, memories that didn’t belong let alone make sense, and flashbacks to events I didn’t even know occurred. I knew that my childhood was hard and I knew that it was not a loving time for me, but I had no real concept of what really went on, just many fast and loud memories that would haunt me in my sleep and shadow my life. Not knowing what they were, they remained in the darkened corners of my mind where they ate at my spirit every hour of every day. To understand them I had to wake up to something I had been denying. To wake up I had to acknowledge my past. To acknowledge my past I had to remember, and I did not want to remember.

As I grew weaker through illness more memories came to the surface. These were disturbing images and emotions that I couldn’t quite grasp. The more I remembered, the harder I pushed my body when training, and the sicker I got. Five hours of surgery served to remind me how frail the human body really is. I was also diagnosed with narcolepsy during this time and the only saving grace of that was the ability to sleep within three minutes of lying down. At least that would mask the trail of memories and cosset me from the sharp edges of my past by giving me some rest.

It was a time of reflection, a time of discovery indeed, but in that discovery laid the reasons for my life mistakes; answers to questions I longed to ask and understand, and memories of events that no one should ever see. This was the truth of where I came from. It was killing me, literally and metaphorically.

I knew the past held something I did not want to remember. I knew that something was hiding in my subconscious and had to come out. I consciously chose to face the past head on. I chose to pull the memories to the front of my mind where I could deal with them. I knew that it would be a trying time and I knew that it would hurt me but I also knew that my survival was dependant on truth, honesty and integrity. I could only give myself truth if I was true to myself and faced the ghosts of my past; faced the true reality that was buried in my past. My very limited memory of childhood afforded me no real clues. That, in itself was a clue.

I couldn’t look in the mirror and say ‘I know you, I understand you and I love you’ to myself. I was living in a world that I had subconsciously created to cushion myself from my reality. As I grew up I had no concept of what was supposed to be real so I did something to help myself. I watched those around me and copied the parts of them that I liked. I modeled successful people. I built my life around what I saw around me and I adapted, added, took away and altered what I saw to adapt myself to my current surroundings. I joined the military at age sixteen and served twelve years for Queen and country. I buried myself in my duty to defend my country. I had purpose and was growing and learning, always knowing that my superiors controlled my life. That was the key, not controlling my own life. Was that a subconscious decision I wonder? I built the person I wanted to be from what I saw and experienced but I knew, still, that I wasn’t whole.

For the longest time the coping mechanism I had forged worked in my favor. For the longest time I thought I was happy and perhaps, in a way, I was; but in reality I was hiding from the one thing that should have been important, and that was the real ‘me’. I could feel the past tugging at me at every corner and the weakness was gnawing away at my mind, my body and my spirit. The only way forward was to go back but it had to be the right time, the right place and with the right people.

I told my closest friends of my decision and of my reasoning. I asked them if they understood because I have tried to face this in the past but I could not do this alone. In the past those around me chose to ignore and rebuff me through their own ignorance, their own fear and their own sense of disgust which was aimed at me even though they knew it wasn’t my fault. Therein lies a truth, it wasn’t my fault. Their fear of my past was aimed at me. In reality I should have known that my true friends would stand by me. They are still standing by me through all the memories that I have had to face since deciding to confront this. This being the faceless monster that has tried to kill me, tried to deface me and had taken away my capacity to love and be loved, and had denied me my self esteem. My spirit was dying and it had to stop.

Through countless sessions with a counselor I furrowed into the memories. Each time I saw a little more and my heart died a little. I knew it would get worse before it got better but I wasn’t ready for the sheer gravity of events and emotions that would follow. Each time I remembered I withdraw from my reality in anger, shock and disgust. Each morsel offered me an insight into why I was the way I was and why I reacted the way I did, and then that same reality stabbed me in the back when I wasn’t looking and tried to steal another part of me away. Each memory was an answer to a question on human nature and a lesson in my capacity to evolve, and each memory gnawed at my reasons for living. Through all this my body weakened and my demeanor became stooped and low. My friends still loved me and tried to help, but I withdrew from that reality and lived a daily existence. All this time no-one really knew the depth of my pain, no-one knew the truth, but those close to me tried to support me. I trained harder still to focus myself somewhere constructive. I knew if I could master my situation I could evolve, learn and move on. I knew that to challenge the past I had to master the present. That would afford me the strength to carry on. I just didn’t know how.

Early 2005 I chose to tell my story to some close friends. I chose to not hide the details from them and I chose to ask for their help in my journey. I asked them all to not share any information, knowing that if this leaked out it would do irreparable damage to my foundation, to my being, to my soul, the very part of me that I was trying to regain; or that was how I perceived it. I risked losing them in my insular knowledge of how others had rejected me from not understanding my past, but I knew it had to be done. None of them flinched or judged me. They are still my pillars of support, my true family and they have stood by me through thick and thin. Through all that has happened I have felt a bond that will never be broken.

Now I choose to open my heart to you and let you see the real me. I choose to share with you the reality of my life, past and present. This I do with my head held high. This I do not only for you, but for me. There is no shame, it wasn’t my fault.

Here I am: my father was a leader in the community and someone that demanded and got respect. My mother was a psychologist in a hostel for wayward teenage children. My father sexually abused me for ten long, empty years, my earliest memory being at age three and last at age thirteen. That was when I finally fought back. Once, he threw me in the deep end of a swimming pool at age five and walked away … I couldn’t swim. The look on his face as he walked away burned into my memory and became my nightmare. He knew what he had done. Had a kind soul not pushed me to the side I believe I would have drowned. He knew that, I saw it in his eyes. If I made any noise during his sexual advances I was beaten for betraying him. My mother would attack me in a drunken rage, sometimes for what appeared to be no apparent reason but, as I found out later in life, she attacked me because she knew what he was doing and somehow blamed me for it. There was too much in this for it to be real I was told, and that is what I told myself. I had a vague perception that I must have been very naughty to be punished this way, and that God must not have loved me to let this happen.

The general perception around me was that there was no way that these wonderful parents would ever be capable of such atrocities. I was called a liar by my family and rebuked by anyone and everyone that I tried to tell. I didn’t live, I didn’t even exist, I just ‘was’. I didn’t cry nor love. I didn’t speak much at all. I was painfully shy, very, very sad and very scared. I had a dream world that I had created to focus myself on. No one else mattered there. I had the place [in my mind] that I went when my father wanted to use me and I went there often to hide. To cope I had to master leaving my body behind. I had to take my mind to a place where it didn’t connect to the real world, that way I felt no physical pain. That way I was safe from him. He could defile my body but he would never get my mind. I created my reality as I went along and believe I survived because of it. I would wonder in awe at the size of the universe and immerse myself in the dream world of science. I saw myself from a distance. My body was on the bed but my mind was in a box, floating in space, free from him and free from pain. I still using similar coping mechanisms today, but only to release myself from stress.

My father had made me feel like it was my fault and that I deserved what he did to me. He had told me that he would love me if I let him have his way so I let him, time and time again, because all I wanted was for him to love me. There were days when I begged God to take me away and make me whole because surely he wouldn’t want me to stay there and suffer. If he took me to heaven someone would love me and I wouldn’t have to hurt anymore. I didn’t realize the impact of my thoughts. I couldn’t fathom the gravity of where I was. I was too young.

The memories surfaced one by one over an eighteen month period. More and more information came forward and from that, more and more pain and anguish in my heart for that little boy. I hated myself for what had happened even though I knew it wasn’t my fault. I felt used and dirty, even in the memory. There have been times when I wished that I could go to sleep and not wake up because in that sleep there would be calm; the noise, the pain and the memories would stop and I would be at peace. It would be an eternal peace. No, it wasn’t suicide or a cry for help. It was a wanton desire to be at peace, misguided by too many memories that occurred too often, and was offset knowing that the world around me, as I saw it, was based on someone I didn’t really know [me]; and that the world around me watched as I suffered at the hands of my parents and did nothing. Not one person stepped forward to rescue that little boy. He was utterly alone and that thought hurt me so much.

I fought through memories that no one should ever see, in so much graphic detail that I almost felt it again but this time the person being defiled was the adult ‘me’. With the help of my friends, and a therapist that refused to let me give up, I faced the past, I lived it again. Every Thursday morning I would enter a room with a therapist and I would fight for my life. I would force myself to recount the horror and then rebuild myself after it. My therapist would walk me through the things I saw and felt and then gently bring me back into the real world. She would never let me face them alone. She never once judged me.

The honest truth is that I nearly didn’t make it. The gravity of the past was so heavy that I wanted to give up. I couldn’t deal with the emotional turmoil that I felt and I couldn’t hide from any of it. I was at an impasse that had no escape and despite the support I had I could see no end to it. The fibers of my life were being torn apart. Someone literally turned the light at the end of the tunnel off. Suddenly that metaphor meant much more than it ever had. My body was failing and my mind was full of self pity. I had cursed myself by trying to face something that was bigger than me, or so I thought.

Through all this turmoil I had to maintain my career, and kept training and teaching martial arts. My sanity was teaching. My mood would break the minute I entered the floor and I was free, confident, happy, and I felt wanted, even respected. I managed my career as a separate entity to the person suffering the past. That way I could detach and maintain, but it was getting very difficult to stop the memories from intruding to both work and training.
I had to rebuild myself in spite of the memories. Everything that I felt was so raw that I suddenly realized that those were the real emotions, and that I had lied to myself about how I felt up until that point. I was new, like a child in an adult’s body. I was a child with an inner adult. I was starting the growing up process again because all that I was up until that point was built around a lie, and was built by a child to protect himself from the pain that was his life. It was finally time to grow up.

My spirit was tested to the end of its limits through all of the memories. I had an inner strength that I didn’t know existed, stronger than I thought possible that grew stronger every day. My friends have stood by me while I fought. My life has begun again. I am learning to love and be loved and I grow each and every day, and evolve each and every moment that I live. I always knew life was special, I just never thought I would experience it. Even as a child I could see it, I could smell it and touch it and taste it, but I knew that I could not have it. Life makes no sense when you don’t have the tools to work through it, tools that are taught with love and nurturing as a child grows up and touches the reality of life.

I have grown beyond the past now. I see it for what it was. I accept it as a part of me and I am stronger in spite of it. Within me the fire burns brighter and stronger than I have ever felt. I forgave myself for the sins of the past, and in doing so released all those years of burden from my shoulders. I have won that battle. I still cannot forgive him. I’m not sure I ever will. I have been told that to forgive is to finally let go – maybe I am just not ready for that finality yet.

In the vain of mastering the present, I give you these words and in giving you these words I bear my soul to you. It is with great respect that I offer you my journey towards personal mastery. I am who I am in spite of my past, not because of it. I learned that the hard way, but learned it none the less. My journey is just beginning and my life is anew. My health returns slowly and my strength builds as my mind matures beyond the past. I am ready; I am willing; I am free.

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A little about me

April 6, 2009 By Leave a Comment

It’s all about me. In this post it is ‘I’.

I am not old. I am 45 years old at the time of writing, an executive in a fast paced, multi-faceted, high tech company. My career is trying, extremely stressful but is successful and I have a great salary, a beautiful house and a fast car – ironic isn’t it? More importantly now, I have a caring, loving and committed partner who accepts me for all that I am, and all that I am not. That, in itself, is priceless. That makes it all worthwhile. I know I can love, and I know I can be loved. That is huge!

I write music. I use music as a lever to express what I am feeling. I can lose myself in the music and music can affect me; my emotions; my being. I am self taught; I am passionate in it; it is a reflection of me –plus it’s fun of course.

I am a black belt. The discipline of martial arts helps me to control aggression and release it if need be, not necessarily using violence or force. Teaching martial arts allows me to express myself in a forum of control, and I teach with passion.

I’m a geek! I love computers and tech toys. I am the ultimate child when it comes to technology, never growing up, never wanting to grow up. With computers I can write music, I can design graphics, web sites and can express myself in so many ways. It is a form of freedom that is in my control and I can lose myself in it.

I’m narcoleptic. I was diagnosed only a couple of years ago. Narcolepsy is a condition and not a disease. I wonder sometimes if the narcolepsy developed as a mechanism to protect me from the horrors of my past, but there are no facts to support that. During the process of healing, learning and change it served me well. It takes an average of three minutes for me to fall asleep and I tend to stay asleep. There are other symptoms, some of which can be very trying, but so is life.

I’m hyper-vigilant. Day to day my brain is active all the time. I am constantly thinking, analyzing and multi tasking; running scenarios and occasionally daydreaming. It is hard for me to relax; it is hard for me to switch off but I am learning. It has been said that I hear and see more than most. I see it that I am more aware of my surroundings and it served to keep me alive after I left home. Perhaps that is also a part of creativity, who knows.

The journey. My view is that the journey never ends. Once beyond the hold of the past it becomes a process of learning and growing. It can still be painful; emotions seem new and raw, but it is exciting to be so alive without the encumbrances of the past weighing you down and trying to draw you in. The past will still be there and it will still affect me, but now I know what it is and I am well prepared to deal with it.

There’s a child in me. I still believe I look through the eyes of a child. Sometimes my partner tells me that I have a childish quality, good or bad, in an action or reaction. He sees it as an endearing quality, being able to embrace the child that we all hold inside. I believe that we are in too much of a rush to grow up and be ‘adult’, and that the child in us has to have a voice. Denying all parts of who we are can stop us reaching our full potential in life I think.

This is me – so much more than I was!

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Leaving a Therapy Session

April 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

At the end of every therapy session I  felt disconnected, confused and vulnerable. It felt almost like I had to rebuild my inner self, and my outward persona  so that I could patch the holes that were leaking the real me into the real world, and go back to the daily gind in some semblance of order. That process started in the therapy room and extended to the reception area. It was  always daunting, stepping from memories to the real world, not sure if it would spill, not sure if I had enough control to keep it all inside. I would chat with the receptionist just to take my mind off where I had just been – long enough to get to a level of comfort.

The conversations with the receptionist became a routine, a reality check to see if I was ready to face the world. It began a routine of helping to let go of the session, sanitizing if you like, rebuilding the wall that stopped me losing control where it wasn’t welcome. I knew that from leaving the therapy room to getting to the reception area I had to regain enough composure to look somewhat normal at least, that was a good start. So much of me was out in the open when the sessions finished that I felt literally raw and disoriented. It took so much effort to put myself back together at the end of the session alone, let alone trying to get back into the daily routine.  I had to make sure I was ‘safe’ to leave the building. Much as this sounds dramatic, it was how it felt. The reality of it might not have had to be so intense, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

Leaving the therapy center without rebuilding the walls around me that protected me would have been dangerous, or so I thought, and I knew I could not afford to lose any footing at any stage of the game. Though deeply hurt, disturbed and troubled, and very confused, something burned inside me to keep me alive and I consciously and subconsciously took every available step to keep myself sane and safe. One of those steps was decompressing through a process from leaving the therapy room, to getting back to work.

The realism of moving from the therapy room to the front office was innocuous enough, after all it was just a walk up the corridor. I could never predict from session to session what I would take out of the therapy room with me. I would struggle with myself to get my mind in shape. I would literally think about raising barriers to attain the frame of mind that I needed to stay safe, all the time thinking that the receptionist shouldn’t have to see what a mess I really was. I couldn’t face her, or the world, with my barriers down.

The receptionist and I had some serious conversations; reflections on ‘us’ and our thinking; reflections on the world around us; reflections on human nature and more, and we interacted on a level where I believe both of us were learning. It was nothing untoward, nothing out of the ordinary, but so insightful; we would chat about actions, reactions and even coping mechanisms. Her train of thought would actually lead me to conclusions about my own life, and my conclusions would help her rationalize her world. In hearing and thinking through some of the subjects we chatted about my mind was receptive to both her need and mine. I would rationalize situations we were both in and actually make some sense of them, albeit in the third party. Perhaps it was a sort of debrief for me, a way to get my head back into normal mode. I came to enjoy the time I spent chatting with her. She would always have a smile and good conversation, and it became routine.

There were days when she wasn’t there.  Getting back to everyday life was then too quick and I would have to think hard before leaving. I knew that I needed to get past the reliance on that conversation – it was a methodology therefore I should be able to recreate the effecct in my mind. In reality, when all was said and done, I had to face that process alone anyway. The few times that the receptionist wasn’t around, there were lessons in how to cope with the transition from therapy to real life. Each time, with or without her, it became easier to adjust, easier to cope and control the transition. It became another part of the learning experience that I chose to turn into a lesson.

Why did I harp on about that here? It’s showing a method, a way of thinking, of building coping mechanisms and trying to make sense of the real world. It was part of the process and it had enough impact behind it to deserve a mention. It’s all a part of ‘how it was done’, for me – and it was a great sanity check for my emotional state before stepping for the quite of a therapy center to the life that awaited outside.

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The Process of Adjustment

April 9, 2009 By Leave a Comment

What I have noticed going through this process is that I can’t tell myself that I am healing and growing, much as I want to. I can tell myself that everything is going to be all right, and I can tell myself that it wasn’t my fault but am I still trying to convince myself, or do I actually believe it? It can be quite disturbing trying to think yourself into change and I sometimes wonder if that focus can actually help you adapt your thought enough to see or feel any change. It’s just a thought. The reality for me is that when it becomes real you don’t need to believe it, it just ‘is’. I’m not sure how to quantify that one, just that you move on – it just is. Maybe by realizing that you are not asking the question anymore.

I believe that knowing I was healing was more of a subconscious thing,  something I felt as the therapy moved forward. Sometimes I found myself hard pressed to notice anything had changed at all. It’s hard to try to explain that point to yourself after spending so many years telling yourself how to feel and what to feel. I had to wonder if I was trying to convince myself of an attitude change, or did it actually happen? The point is though, that it’s not something that needed to be said, it is something that needed to be felt. An example is, do I really believe that it wasn’t my fault, or am I trying to convince myself of it still? Maybe one way of looking at it is the difference between ‘saying’ that it wasn’t my fault and ‘knowing’ that it wasn’t my fault. The difference in the wording in that sentence is enormous. How do I know for sure either way when my conscious mind tries to convince me otherwise? Bear in mind of course that I am supposed to be in control of my conscious mind – or am I? I find the difference is in what I feel. My perception changed like someone had switched on a light and I just knew. I know that paragraph doesn’t read well, but it is real, so I’m going to leave it be.

For me it was as subtle as a reassuring feeling of calm. I knew the fight was still on and that it was still a fierce battle, but I knew that I was healing; I knew it, I felt it and I realized it; and in that moment of ‘knowing’, the relief that I felt was incredible and almost overwhelming. I’m not sure that I can do justice to the feeling. It’s so ‘inside’ that it just ‘is’. I don’t have to contemplate it; I don’t have to think around it; I don’t even have to understand it because it just ‘is’. It’s an epiphany, like someone just opened my eyes for the first time. Part of the weight on your shoulders is released and in doing that it becomes time to move on. I know I kept repeating the points in the preceding paragraphs but I want to make sure that I get that point across. I believe it is an important one!

It was hard enough to reach any point of ‘knowing’ in my battle with the many faces that I had created to cope with my life. I spent so much time in the moment of the memories and in the learned behaviors that changes were painful, even if they were for the good.  Sometimes I would be the one standing in the way of change, almost as if I didn’t want the change to happen. I learned along the way that sometimes the familiarity that I felt in the bad habits could be enough to make me resist change since familiar meant comfort in a way. Sometimes all I wanted was comfort, and I found that comfort in the negative learned behaviors. That is a tough battle to fight. You would think that you would stand up strong and resist, but for that you need strength. I think the comfort was like an old friend, something that was familiar and always there whether you were happy or sad. We all have some resistance to change and in fighting this battle all I wanted was some comfort. Like I said earlier, that is a deceptively hard lesson to learn.

Therapists will help you through the process of change and adjustment; books will tell you that it has happened, and can happen to you; friends will tell you that they can see it but it is not real until ‘you tell ‘you’; and that is where the process of adjustment comes in for me, and that is where a lot of pain lies. To finally admit it did happen – that hurts so much. The flip side is to finally know that it wasn’t your fault. Both were profound moments, both starting points for ‘the next step’, for healing.

After realizing that there were tangible results that I may not have thought I had achieved, it actually became easier to understand them. If you have felt that feeling of ‘knowing’ once, you can surely recognize it and feel it again. I can’t tell you how it feels, it just ‘is’, but you will know when you feel it. It’s profound, it’s an ‘aha’ moment. The light bulb goes on and you just know! One big one for me is that I couldn’t hold down a relationship for longer than a couple of months. I am now in a long term relationship. Another is that you may not act out as much as you normally do, but didn’t make a conscious decision to change that. You may react in a different way to anger, or not get angry at the same triggers. There are so many things that could change that it is very easy to miss them. Odd that I said that, but it’s the truth. The point is, simple and odd as it may sound, that you may not have noticed that part of you changed until a little further down the road but when you do, it is such a calming thought. Aha!

There is so much to gain in just realizing that you have moved on, even if it’s just one step forward, but there isn’t really a way to force the issue. After all, it is subconscious right? Most of mine would come in conversations with my therapist; conversations with my friends and conversations with myself even, and in those moments of contemplation is warmth. In that warmth is a feeling of humanity – something that was alien to me up to then. Maybe saying there isn’t a way to force the issue isn’t quite right. There are ways to move forward, therapy is one of them and it could be seen as forcing the issue. I guess the reality is that without action, there is not much hope of change.

Sometimes you don’t realize change at all, it is others that tell you, and even then it can be indirect but no matter how small, you will realize at some point. Noticing it within yourself comes with practice, as does learning not to fight the changes. With each realization may come a time of learning. Learning how to be this ‘new’ person; learning how to deal with these new thoughts; learning how to cope with what can sometimes feel as new and intense emotions; learning how to release the triggers of the past and hear the words for what they are, just words. Here’s a ‘for instance’. My partner sometimes phrases such as ‘buy it for me daddy’, or ‘please daddy’. He is being playful and using what would normally be a term of endearment. When I first heard him say those words it hurt me, it scared me and it sent me back to my childhood almost instantly. I know he wasn’t intentionally referencing my past but it still hurt me. The term had a trigger attached to it, and so it would if you have been through what we have been through. I told him how it made me feel and said he was sorry but he made a good point. His point was that they are just words. I chose to make them triggers and you know what, he is absolutely right. As I healed more and more I realized more that triggers can be released. I made an effort to remove the trigger and detach any bad meaning from the phrase. I made that effort because my partner should not have to think about the words he uses before he speaks to me; I made that effort because in allowing it to hurt me I was empowering them and empowering the past; I made that effort because I realized that it didn’t really matter anymore. The only reason it had life was because I gave it life. With time it worked. He says those words now and it makes me laugh. His child like quality in that moment is cute and lovable and I chose to attach that emotion to the words instead.

In being verbose with descriptions my hope is to give you an avenue of thought that might not be so scary. That thought is that we have more control over changing the ‘processes’ that cause us harm. Triggers were big for me. They were verbal, situational, sexual and they were all around me. In taking away the sting of the trigger, even if it’s just realizing that it is just a trigger, I took away some of the pain associated with it and opened what I called a new process of adjustment. Triggers and coping mechanisms were all big words that I didn’t understand and it took a while for me to understand what they were, and what they meant. Sometimes coping mechanisms can be reused, or reprogrammed so to speak. Sometimes triggers will remain but knowing what they are allows you to reduce the effect. Maybe they will never totally disappear, but they will certainly have less meaning. If we choose to attach pain to them do we empower them? Just a thought.

We are all so different in so many ways that what works for one may not work for another. As mentioned many times before, the professionals that deal with us in therapy don’t know what we have been through, but they do have many avenues of help to give. Those professionals that concentrate on the area of victims of sexual abuse know more about ‘us’ than we give them credit for. In my mind I didn’t think anyone would understand all the different parts of ‘me’ that made up my daily existence. The reality is that they do; the reality is that they actually understand; the reality is that you can’t shock them. We are the only ones that can heal us but we cannot do it alone. It takes a huge leap of faith to trust a stranger but, you know what, it is worth the effort many times over.

I don’t know any other way of extolling the thought process. I wish I could show you – in a way, I am I guess. No situation is the same. No abuse is exactly the same but there are patterns in the victims, in us that professionals can help with. I thought I was beyond help. Even in my mature adult life I thought I would not be believed. I even tried to deny that it happened and to forget, intentionally. As my life situation changed I found I not only couldn’t run anymore, but didn’t want to. I was tired of my situation and I was tired of being sad and lonely. I was tired of denying who I was, in fact I wanted to know who I was. They say the first step on the road to recovery is accepting you have a problem – they didn’t say how hard that would be.

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Sexual Addiction

April 14, 2009 By Leave a Comment

This is one of the hardest things for me to write about, let alone admit. The shame attached to this was so painful that I couldn’t even mention it to my therapist. Even now I struggle with the truth of it. ‘It’ being the situation as much as acting out.

It’s hard to grasp or understand why anyone would willingly put themselves in situations that were dangerous, physically or mentally. When you are in those situations it is even harder to grasp the lack of control; or for my part, the lack of caring. When I was in the frame of mind of ‘acting out’ all I cared about was acting out. Nothing else mattered and nothing else would satiate the need, even though I didn’t really understand what the need was. In a strange sort of way the process of acting out was like a friend, familiar and somewhat comforting and always there. Hours would pass and I would be unaware of the world around me. My focus was what I was doing and nothing else. The hunt for sex was all consuming; the act of having sex at night in a public place was exhilarating and a powerful aphrodisiac. Just the thought of it would get me extremely aroused. It would give me strength and satisfaction, but it was short lived and I know it was dangerous in many ways.

Revealing these things to my therapist would wrench at my heart. I knew what I was doing was wrong but the need was so deep that I would become another person. I became a part of a subculture of similar minded men. It wasn’t me, or that is what I felt because rational thought didn’t seem to occur when I was in that frame of mind. The more I ‘acted out’, the more disturbed I became. The more disturbed I became, the more I ‘acted out’, an endless loop it would appear. I wasn’t full of remorse afteward though. I would feel empty, tired and even used. Even though I had put myself in those situations, I still felt used.

I knew the only way I could keep myself safe was to preoccupy myself with something else. Something that would consume me, that would require a huge commitment from me, and that would tax me physically and mentally. Having trained for martial arts prior to moving to my current location I decided to commit myself back into that training. I knew the commitment level required – I knew the regimen I was getting into and I hoped above hope that training again would keep me safe. For five years I taught and trained every night, not getting home until 8:30 at the earliest. I would even teach and train on Saturday mornings to try to work off some energy. I became committed again to martial arts and gained another black belt in a different style.

For the most part that worked. I was too tired after teaching and training to even contemplate acting out – plus I hadn’t had dinner yet so I was hungry. The combination kept me at bay for the most part. The inclination was still there, but was under some basic control. The issues came about at weekends since there was no martial arts commitment. Saturday evenings were ‘play time’, and any hope of resisting the urge would disappear with the first thought of acting out. Those evenings would be the pinnacle of my week and I would plan where I was going to go and what I was going to get up to. Again, for the most part, it was at night. There was something about the night that made it ok, made it easier.

During the first few months of therapy it seemed to get worse, and I was becoming distraught as to why it wasn’t getting easier. The more I acted out the more chance there was of either getting caught, or catching an STD. I started to open up a little to my therapist about it. The only way I could communicate it to her was to write a letter, and give that to her after a therapy session. I couldn’t tell her to her face, and I coulnd’t be in the room when she read it. In some small way, this helped. At least I could tell her, one way or another.

So, the question is was it sexual addiction, or acting out? Or is one a component of the other? I don’t really know the answer. I’m still highly sexually active but now I have a partner, that need gets satiated. I still sometimes feel the urge to act out, but I don’t act on it. I sometimes visit the adult bookstores I used to go to, but now if the urge to share myself is there I take care of the need in a closed booth. Will the urge ever go away? I don’t really know, but I do know that I have more control over it now. The need to be someone else isn’t there anymore. I don’t have to hide from myself anymore, and that’s comfortable. I don’t teach martial arts anymore either. I’ve been in a commited relationship for four years and that is all I need. We are as in love (and as child like) with each other now, as we were at the beginning. We still hold hands and we make time to be ourselves. I’m still addicted to sex, but with one man only.

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