Surviving Abuse - The Effects & Recovery

[BrokenOkie]

(((Marc)))   To have survived and, to the extent possible, overcome the numerous obstacles & abuses inflicted upon you and become the wonderful person you are is testament of your inner strength and good heart.   BBM may have triggered something in you, but the inner strength and resolve have been there all along.  Hugs, friend, lots of 'em.

[ChrisW]

Marc, your post is so courageous. I can't imagine a better place for you to find the love and healing you need and deserve than among the wonderful people (i don't mean me, because I am one of the lucky ones from a kind and loving home) that you have already found here. A safe place. Big hugs and love. Chris.

[gnash]

marc, you are so right about the psychological abuse.. geez. as if the physical wasn't enough. it's strange how many similar experiences are out there, involving pets, mothers who feel helpless, and favoritism among siblings. my father was also very negative, no doubt battling demons of his own. (that is why i feel so many closeted men are battling that "internalized homophobia" that affect them and their loved ones. what's really sick are the closeted men who go out of their way to belittle and antagonize gays even tho they are actually gay themselves! insanity.)

my father got me a drum set when i was a child, and at first it was novel and he encouraged me to play. he said i would be "the next buddy rich" (wasn't he the drummer?) and i LOVED that thing. sparkly blue and chrome, a small sized set with about 5 different parts in the kit. well, one day i was practicing and was probaby driving him crazy, for he came down, threw me to the ground and proceeded to stomp the drum kit to bits with his feet. i was terrified, i was about 4 years old. later, when we got a piano and my sister got piano lessons, i would play and one day he came in behind me and i didn't see him there and he slammed the piano lid on my fingers, nothing broken but i wouldn't even write for a few days... i was about 9 or 10.

he also flushed my hamster down the toilet.... i didn't know about that till later, at the time i thought it had escaped. later when i was an adult, he laughed about it as he told me how he flushed it without me knowing it. what's more is that others present got a big kick out of that and laughed along with him.

and i was terrified of him in other ways, the sick threats he thought were funny. he made me watch him when he shot a dog, it was a neighbors dog standing on the top of a tall brick wall, it wasn't doing anything but standing there, not barking or anything, but he got a big kick out of hitting it with a pellet gun so it fell off the wall, and when i complained about it he got all angry... needless to say, i was about 6 or 7 when i realized i did not love my dad.

you also mentioned illnesses manifested by stress, like the skin condition...   i am pretty certain that the bloody hands i experienced during HS, after my sister left, when the abuse was at its peak, was a direct result of my fear and anger toward my dad. i just felt so trapped.

the magnitude of the abuse does not matter. it seems the most horrific event can be blocked, a sort of survival mechanism that children generate??  but the smaller gestures, a look of disgust or a few hurtful words, those seem to hurt the most. my dad must have known i was gay from an early age, my affinity for dolls and drawing and "girly things" must have irritated the hell out of him. i'm sorry that i didn't please my dad growing up (i hated sports) but at the same time, i feel like saying "fuck him" for the rest of my life.. i really don't care what he thinks or thought of me, because he was wrong, i was just being myself.

[ImEnnisShesJack]

HEIDI.....I love you Heidi. Why is it that the nicest people are the ones the freaks find, the ones they do their best to wreck...

You won. He failed.

Bless you Jack!

I have taken major steps to recovery.  And it is people like you (and the others here) that have helped.

((((((jack)))))

[Brokeback_1]

This is an excerpt from a note written to a friend of mine on the board. I cleaned it up for grammar,as  my pm's are not known for correct placement of the comma <g>; I did work on it a bit so others might find it understandable, but it's basically what I sent in the email. I'm putting it on the thread  because some of us need to know WE WON>>>THEY LOST.

People who have been through what we have been through are survivors. We have steel. Too often, we just do not know it.

Years later I actually met one of the guys who had anally molested me when I was a kid. I'd seen one or two of them around  when I was a teenager andhad  run in the opposite direction. I was --I know, as you will find out, I'm wierd roflmao-- MYSELF when we met. Nothing more and nothing less. 

It was at a cast  party for an off off broadway show that I simply don't remember. Well, there I was with 3 of my  older gay friends. They  had dragged me there, men who had really really helped me.  Two told me to mingle and ran off god knew where while one stuck with me to discuss my inadequecies. As we were talking,  I felt my body go fucking COLD as I looked at a guy who was in his 50's. Didn't know why for a split second. And then I knew. Immediately knew. Mr Almost Nine. I didn't know what to do so i decided to say hello

 At the time I was about 35-36 and rather goodlookin if I say so myself.  I whispered to my friend, who was in his 70's, that the arrogant looking man with the wedding ring standing  by the bar was one of the men who had fucked me as a kid. He was stunned/angry--he had bent over backwards helping me heal emotionally-- and said 'Are you SURE?' and i said 'yep'.  I was quiet for a second. Then, as  I started towards him, my friend blanched and started looking for a big younger gay male friend who he knew was there. A cop. In case i needed backup.... I kid you not lolololol, to this day I still crack up that he went straight  for the ' Queer NYPD '  roflmao!!!

So I walked over and said 'Hello, how are you, it's been a long TIME!' and he said something, didnt recognise me. I was a nervous wreck inside; part of me was so scared thet I could have loosened my bowels on the floor, but I must tell you that his not knowing me  centered me. I simply wasn't scared anymore, but became clinically detached. The idea  that he could have done what he had done and thought so little of it and me that he didn't know WHO I WAS awed me. If I had done something like that I would have remembered every single thing, every detail, every act. I would have recognised them a hundred years later. But this guy??  He didn't know who i was. It began to anger me, but i still felt...detached..

 So i said is this your wife? and he said i don't remember you and I said ' Ah but i remember YOU. You are so and so from near -- Avenue. You used to hang with this one and that one.'   I saw him start to get nervous, could tell he knew SOMETHING.  His wife said something like why yes, he did. What happened to those guys? I said her husband would know and told him my name while looking into his eyes. THAT was not not easy for me but i managed to do it. He went fucking WHITE. I pleasantly asked if he still kept up  that big hobby of his which he had so generously shared with me when i was a boy. He mumbled  no and told the wife he felt like going home. Now...she was clueless. I told her it was lovely to meet her. Then I put my hand out and said--I remember word for word-- 'Now that we have met again after all these years, you know I will keep in close touch. Don't you. I will not lose track of you again. It's interesting to see what you have become, you will hear from me!' His wife smiled and went for her coat, while he ignored my hand and  gave me a quiet  and snarled 'What do you want from me.'  I smiled back--it was like looking at this I don't know what--and said the following:

 "I  want you to remember who I am. I want you to remember what you did. And  I want you to remember that  I am a man. What are you?"

Then I said 'It's interesting to see you after all these years. I will keep in touch'  And he fucking ran away. Just bolted.

My friend was having a fucking coronary. The gay cop--as we found later--was in a back room getting head from a gay cop groupie, and he didn't show for another half hour. To his eternal credit he was enraged when my friend told him and wanted police info. However they busted his balls about it for years. He was off duty that night anyway lol.

This friend of mine was the then-oldest  surviving member of a group of gay guys who had made me their project years before. What he did then was one of the reasons WHY I loved those fucks so much. As Mr. Almost Nine got to the door, my friend  said 'Excuse me' to him  and pointed at me with his cane. Then he said  'He has panache--- but I dont.'  And proceeded to spit on the floor next to his shoe and QUITE  loudly say. 'Don't want my spit on you, get the fuck out.'  roflmao

I dont think I had panache, I was just curious as to how he would behave. I'm wierd that way. And I knew that everything was perfect:  who I was with, how I felt. I instinctively knew that he was there for a reason. On the way that evening, I had had a 'feeling' that something was up, something namelessly important, a feeling also that it was important for me to hold onto who I was that night.  I didn't have a clue why, but had learned through experience to follow  those warnings and not ignore them. So even though I hadn't a clue, there was something before even walking through the door.

I never saw him, met him, heard of him again. There was no reason to.  I had forgiven those people prior to this for what they had done to me, but that night I forgave them for being pigs. That was enough.

**edit--reading this as a post, i wish i had looked at my watch and told him it was almost 9 lolol, that would have been great!!! hiindsight, always hindsight!!**

[BrokenOkie]

<stands up and cheers for (((Jack)))>

Did you have panache?  YES! (and that's a gross understatement)
 
Self control?  Immeasurable

And big brass steel ones, too.

[BrokenOkie]

...... i really don't care what he thinks or thought of me, because he was wrong, i was just being myself.

(((Jimmy)))  It's his loss not knowing the incredible, giving & loving son he has.

[mcnell1120]

Jack, I loved your story man...you're a trip...so proud of you for looking at him in the eye,that spineless piece of shit.

"You've got balls the size of apples" 

Love ya,

Nellie 

[conny]

wow jack proud of you!!!!

[Osprey]

Jack, Knash, Marc, and others,

Sweet Jesus Sweet Jesus.  When I read you stories here I just go cold inside.  I feel this anger and this cold empty fury at the people who have done these things.  I have come to the conclusion that war is nothing compared to the battles you all have fought.  War is by and large pretty straight forward, us versus them and we know why and the rules are set in so many ways.  But this, this hideous damage done in so many cases by those whom God blessed and counted on to create good, balanced human beings, with the right to hope, the right to dream, the right to live without fear, the right to love.  To take that trust and turn it against the most innocent of all is a crime so insidious, so horrifying that I can barely comprehend it.  I find my self fantasizing about being alone in a room with these pitiful excuses for human beings for just ten minutes. Just them, me and a 50,000 volt Taser.  I am not sure that I would be able to stop until they were writhing on the floor in an agony so terrible that they begged for death.  God forgive me but I would love it.

[fritzkep]

It's an understandable reaction, Osprey. Yet I know that you realize that inflicting abuse on abusers just continues the pattern, and the main act of heroism on the part of those who have posted here is that they have managed to break the pattern. Forgiveness or indifference toward the abuser may or may not occur, but for the abused one to state, consciously or not, that he/she will not inflict what he/she has suffered onto others, particularly onto dependents, is paramount, primary, and heroic.

[CellarDweller115]

I am truly amazed and touched by the amount of sharing that everyone is willing to do here.

It shows not only the comfort level we have with each other, but the amount of growing we've done in recent times.

[Osprey]

Fritz,

Of course I realize that but you know what?  There are times when I read these stories that I just want to be a vengeful, nasty, little prick.

[Amiennis]

Fritz,

Of course I realize that but you know what?  There are times when I read these stories that I just want to be a vengeful, nasty, little prick.

... and I thank you for it!
Marc

[Amiennis]

marc, you are so right about the psychological abuse..

I actually think the psychological abuse is the worst - however horrible the other "things" are.

geez. as if the physical wasn't enough. it's strange how many similar experiences are out there, involving pets, mothers who feel helpless, and favoritism among siblings. my father was also very negative, no doubt battling demons of his own. (that is why i feel so many closeted men are battling that "internalized homophobia" that affect them and their loved ones. what's really sick are the closeted men who go out of their way to belittle and antagonize gays even tho they are actually gay themselves! insanity.)

my father got me a drum set when i was a child, and at first it was novel and he encouraged me to play. he said i would be "the next buddy rich" (wasn't he the drummer?) and i LOVED that thing. sparkly blue and chrome, a small sized set with about 5 different parts in the kit. well, one day i was practicing and was probaby driving him crazy, for he came down, threw me to the ground and proceeded to stomp the drum kit to bits with his feet. i was terrified, i was about 4 years old. later, when we got a piano and my sister got piano lessons, i would play and one day he came in behind me and i didn't see him there and he slammed the piano lid on my fingers, nothing broken but i wouldn't even write for a few days... i was about 9 or 10.

he also flushed my hamster down the toilet.... i didn't know about that till later, at the time i thought it had escaped. later when i was an adult, he laughed about it as he told me how he flushed it without me knowing it. what's more is that others present got a big kick out of that and laughed along with him.

F***ing bastards.

and i was terrified of him in other ways, the sick threats he thought were funny. he made me watch him when he shot a dog, it was a neighbors dog standing on the top of a tall brick wall, it wasn't doing anything but standing there, not barking or anything, but he got a big kick out of hitting it with a pellet gun so it fell off the wall, and when i complained about it he got all angry... needless to say, i was about 6 or 7 when i realized i did not love my dad.

you also mentioned illnesses manifested by stress, like the skin condition...   i am pretty certain that the bloody hands i experienced during HS, after my sister left, when the abuse was at its peak, was a direct result of my fear and anger toward my dad. i just felt so trapped.

Oh yes, I'm positive, somehow the body needs an outlet for all the accumulated stress.

the magnitude of the abuse does not matter. it seems the most horrific event can be blocked, a sort of survival mechanism that children generate??  but the smaller gestures, a look of disgust or a few hurtful words, those seem to hurt the most. my dad must have known i was gay from an early age, my affinity for dolls and drawing and "girly things" must have irritated the hell out of him. i'm sorry that i didn't please my dad growing up (i hated sports) but at the same time, i feel like saying "fuck him" for the rest of my life.. i really don't care what he thinks or thought of me, because he was wrong, i was just being myself.

And good for you! You are a HUMAN being, to say the least - he obviously is not.
Let him ..., and try to get on with your life - and I KNOW how hard that is.
We are not alone... any more.

Marc