Confused *spoilers child abuse mentioned*

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cumulus.james

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I am very confused about things that went on in my childhood and how they seem to have affected me all my life.

I am 34 and had been identifying as Gay in recent years. I first happened across the practice known as cottaging when I was 13, they used to make holes in the walls of public toilets and display themselves masterbating and I guess I was curious about this. I was playing tuent from school at the time. I used to cover or block them with toilet paper, if they looked back at me I would leave. Sometimes they would put thier hands under the partition and gesture. At first I would kick thier hands away and leave and think they were dirty (and that I was dirty). But I kept going back, started displaying myself back and eventually accepting notes. It started with me kneeling down and being fondled and masterbated and fingers inserted into me but sometime after my 14th birthday I started doing other stuff. Then I started doing it for money and I was a rent boy on and off for 10 years after that. The first time anal sex was performed on me was very voilent, extremely painful and made me bleed a lot and feel sore after. I cried myslef to sleep that night, I put the radio on so no one would hear me. But still I went back. I don't understand that.

I started to act out, teachers noticed a change in me, there were constant confrontations and rows (sometimes voilent) with my parents and I began to witdraw from my school friends. I dropped out of school. I started binge drinking and staying up all night, then I descoverd a gay 'dating' phone line and I would sneak out to meet men. Social service were called in and threatened to take me into care, but dad chucked me out on a couple of occations. I could not tell anyone what I was doing, I was terrified of being found out as being gay.

Since then I have not really had friends very often, and when I have had them I mess it up. I have never had a long term partner and only dated 4 guys for short periods each of them dumped me. I have been self loathing and had no confidence all my life. I struggled to keep jobs and tended to lose them very quickly. During my late teens and early 20's I would go on 'sex binges' to london, placing myself in dangerous situations and often going with several men at once. When I was 21/22 I started to self harm and had a psychotic episode and was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder and was suffering depersonalization. I started to really abuse alcahol on a daily basis. I was gradually diagnosed with social phobia, general axiety, obsessive compulsive thoughts and hyperchodriasis (health anxiety). I am now an alcaholic and loner.

I don't know what to think because I still have regular sexual fantasies about those fisrt things. They trouble me. I don't understand why I fetishise such grusome and damiging experiances. Being gay I can't seperate them out from my sexuality.

I find myself dirty and disgusting and I don't know how to get any help with that. You hear all this stuff about child abuse on TV and that and I don't fit into any of it. The literature says it's never the childs fault and I feel like the only one where it was my fault.
 
You are in no way whatsoever 'dirty and disgusting' at all. Sexual curiosity is an entirely normal part of childhood and adolescence and the men who used you when you started cottaging are the ones who should be ashamed of themselves as you were a child and they should have felt some sort of duty of care towards you and should have told you to go away and come back when you were older and had the maturity to make an informed decision about what you were doing. Instead it seems that they saw you as fresh meat and exploited you. Don't feel ashamed either about going back-your sexuality was developping then and it was normal for you to have sexual feelings even though fulfilling them was sometimes very painful and violent. I don't know if you felt cared for and loved by your parents before this, but if not maybe you were looking for any sort of 'love' you could get. Lots of people have the sorts of sexual fantaisies that they wouldnt tell others about-you should be inside my head at times!!
 
Hey Tina63 thanks for the reply,

I only just started to deal with this stuff. I read about the efects of child abuse and it described all of my life. I never felt loved by my parants, I dropped out of school and had no peers either. I became just this thing for men to use sexually. I feel I was complicit in that. I hear a feminist thing saying about men seeing women as an empty vessel to f***, now I feel like an empy vessel. Crule thing is I kept some stuff from my school days, maths and science work and that. I was a pretty normal student and wanted to be a GP. It bugs me that I ended up a 'rentboy'. I did have one good job but then I started to get mentally ill and self harming and turned to alcahol. So I guess I lost 20 years of my life. The most important years.
 
True, but 20 years isn't all of your life. You still have time to enjoy it.

As to your original post, while I've never had sex before, I'm sorry to hear all that happened. By no means are you a disgusting person. As for an "empty vessel," you sound like a pretty cool and nice guy.

Now since I don't understand much about this sort of thing, I'm afraid I have no advice, but I hope you find the solution to your problems. :)
 
Mr Seal The Albatros said:
True, but 20 years isn't all of your life. You still have time to enjoy it.

As to your original post, while I've never had sex before, I'm sorry to hear all that happened. By no means are you a disgusting person. As for an "empty vessel," you sound like a pretty cool and nice guy.

Now since I don't understand much about this sort of thing, I'm afraid I have no advice, but I hope you find the solution to your problems. :)

Thanks
 
Well, this may sounds really harsh and all, but here I go.

I think you should embrace it all. And that mostly because you got to realize and act up on your deepest fantasies. And that is something rest of us dont. Of course its said that some fantasies are better left as fantasies, but it seems you are beyond that point.
In a way, you have been lucky. Of course, this is a terrible thing to say, and of course, what you have experienced and are experiencing is nothing to do with luck or happiness.

But, as I said,maybe its better to embrace it. You did things you...and lets be honest...wanted to do. It was hard, harsh, to have lived through all of that, but if you get a proper grasp of it, you might become stronger knowing who you are, where you began, and what you did.
If it is your fault as you asked...well, not to be hurtful again...but you went there yourself, right? Every time, again and again.
I cant shake of the feeling as if you are embarrassed for what you want, and because of that you are putting yourself down.

And regardless. It may not be easy to start anew, but its possible. You may embrace what happened to you, gain strength from it, and start anew. New life, new desires, new partners that will respect you, and with who you may be yourself. You seem like only pretending to be someone...But definitely not you.


And I want to apologize, I do realize that what I have wrote may be really hurtful. But I did not write it with that intent, the opposite of it really.
So, I want to wish you the best. I know it must be hard for you, and really confusing, but I hope that you´ll get to find your little place of happiness.
Take care mr. James
 
Mr.YellowCat said:
Well, this may sounds really harsh and all, but here I go.

I think you should embrace it all. And that mostly because you got to realize and act up on your deepest fantasies. And that is something rest of us dont. Of course its said that some fantasies are better left as fantasies, but it seems you are beyond that point.
In a way, you have been lucky. Of course, this is a terrible thing to say, and of course, what you have experienced and are experiencing is nothing to do with luck or happiness.

But, as I said,maybe its better to embrace it. You did things you...and lets be honest...wanted to do. It was hard, harsh, to have lived through all of that, but if you get a proper grasp of it, you might become stronger knowing who you are, where you began, and what you did.
If it is your fault as you asked...well, not to be hurtful again...but you went there yourself, right? Every time, again and again.
I cant shake of the feeling as if you are embarrassed for what you want, and because of that you are putting yourself down.

And regardless. It may not be easy to start anew, but its possible. You may embrace what happened to you, gain strength from it, and start anew. New life, new desires, new partners that will respect you, and with who you may be yourself. You seem like only pretending to be someone...But definitely not you.


And I want to apologize, I do realize that what I have wrote may be really hurtful. But I did not write it with that intent, the opposite of it really.
So, I want to wish you the best. I know it must be hard for you, and really confusing, but I hope that you´ll get to find your little place of happiness.
Take care mr. James

Thanks for the reply but I think you misunderstand some things. I was a 13 year old boy in the 90's where there was no information on gay stuff. I did not know about cottaging - I was just happily going about my day and stumbled across it. I did not know anything about gay sex, that is I did not know about these things untill I found myself doing them. Many of the memorys I have from those days are horriffic. And a great deal of damage was done - I lost my education, friends and started binge drinking!

You think it is OK for grown men to offer money to venerable young boys for sex?
 
I am sorry that you were abused. It seems like your normal teenage curiosity was perverted for the pleasure of other men at the expense of your own pleasure. You were/are alternately repulsed and attracted by what happened to you. I suspect that you will need to talk to someone who specializes in sexual abuse so that they can sift through your experiences to understand why you behave the way you do now, and to pinpoint the exact plan for your recovery.

I agree with Tiina63. You should not be ashamed of your natural sexuality, or of going back. What happened to you, though, was wrong. You experienced things that can damage ones' notion of a normal, loving sex-life, and I think you are experiencing a conflict that probably needs resolving. You may need to find a way to separate those abusive acts in your memory from your normal sexual feelings, because it seems that you cannot think of one (the loving feelings) without thinking of the other (the painful abuse.)
 
Cumulus.james, I'm sorry for what you've been through.. it's really sad for me to read through all that. And here I am worrying about such trivial matters in my life.

Anyway, I really have to say I agree with what Case said. I wish there was someone professional you could talk to for help, if you'd even be comfortable with that. Talking to someone might help you figure out what's been going on or identify what the missing pieces are to make sense of why things happened the way they did.

I'm sorry I can't be of any more help here but I really do send you my best wishes and I hope that you'll be able to feel more comfortable with how you are and do better in life. Good luck.
 
ladyforsaken said:
Cumulus.james, I'm sorry for what you've been through.. it's really sad for me to read through all that. And here I am worrying about such trivial matters in my life.

Anyway, I really have to say I agree with what Case said. I wish there was someone professional you could talk to for help, if you'd even be comfortable with that. Talking to someone might help you figure out what's been going on or identify what the missing pieces are to make sense of why things happened the way they did.

I'm sorry I can't be of any more help here but I really do send you my best wishes and I hope that you'll be able to feel more comfortable with how you are and do better in life. Good luck.

Thanks for the reply. I have found an organization for adults abused in childhood. Trouble is I still don't accept it as being abused. I can think of it as corruption of a minor, but in those days it was not so rare for young gay boys to wind up going with men who did not remotely have thier interests at heart. It would never have occurred to me that I was being used. And when they had sex with me and just left or turned me away (the times I did not do it for money) I just felt like there was something wrong with me. Good opportunities I had in my life I seemed to destroy. When I was first in major mental illness and had a proper job in my early 20's I can see now that a lot of people tried to be there for me. I felt unable to take up that help.

So I felt worthless and became a loner. Now I hope one day I won't feel so worthless and will be able to have (non sexual) relationships with other humans. For years now I just live behind this screen. I want to stop drinking. I had enrolled on an online university course but I stuffed up the exams because of my drinking and depression. I have to take responsibility for that.

I feel I want to do something to help people like me because there is nowhere really to go to say 'I just can't manage life - help me' (male depression is both underreported and undertreated and the end result is genereally a stint in prison). But I am in no position to do that.
 
cumulus.james said:
You think it is OK for grown men to offer money to venerable young boys for sex?

I was not addressing those men in my post, but you only. But as you ask, of course its not okay.

What I was saying was based on the encounter of someone who has gone through kinda similar experiences.
In the 80 and 90, young male prostitution in my country really started to grow ( - this documentary is about it), and I have met one guy who was in the middle of it.
Started prostituting himself at 14-15, and later added drugs to the equation. This kept on for years.

He lived kinda okay life now. He has a partner, he is doing art, commented tours around the city. And the thing was, as we spoke, he told me that he enjoyed what he was doing. He actually had lot of same thought as you do, but he said, that at the end, he still did what he wanted to do, and even gained money.

But I´m far away from the problem, and talking to one guy doesnt make me anyhow qualified to give you any advice.
So I should apologize, my advice was too hasty and uneducated, as well as simply stupid. I´m sorry for being like that, I didnt think it through.

But I do wish you to get better honestly. I hope for you to find a way out of it, and to be happy with yourself.
I´m sorry for insensitive things I have wrote, please dont mind them. And as others said, seeing some professional may be helpful.
So, please take care, and be well. I wish you the best.
 
I am aware of that film, I think I came across it when I was 17 or something. What it did was normalize what was happening to me. I did not understand the things I was doing. And i never knew they would lead to this. When I was 15 I told the social worker i was confused and depressed. But i did not know why. I remember teachers noticing the change in me and trying to get me to talk about it, but the real crulety is that those times were extremely homopphobic and there was a hyper-masculine 'boys dont cry' culture round me. I did these things with men and I did not understand what I was doing.

I spent 10 years as a rent boy then the next 10 as a mentally ill alcaholic. Now I am a 34 yr old loser. Still mentally ill, still an alcaholic and completely alone. I have no one, not one person to talk to. I did not choose this life for myslef. How does a 13 yr old boy choose to do oral sex on men for the price of a pack of fags? There was a grooming process. There was no information and no one to talk to. My family life was abusive and voilent too, so when I droped out of school, doing sex for money was all I had. And it has destroyed me. I hurt all day, every day.
 
This is a belated contribution. And maybe I don't have much of use to say. I do want to empathise with you, though. What you have been through is dreadful. For someone to have their childhood stolen like that is one of the worst things that can happen, and I am not surprised that the wounds are deep, and you still suffer. My experience is nothing like yours, but I do know what it is to turn to alcohol to try to solve life's problems. I also know that being told to 'put it all behind you and move on' and suchlike expressions is hopeless, when that is what you want to do more than anything, but just can't. I guess, as someone said above, the main positive thing is that you are still young enough to rebuild your life and move forward, however tough that may be. The fact that you have the courage to post here means that you have the courage to transform your life.

Best of luck!
 
Ioann said:
This is a belated contribution. And maybe I don't have much of use to say. I do want to empathise with you, though. What you have been through is dreadful. For someone to have their childhood stolen like that is one of the worst things that can happen, and I am not surprised that the wounds are deep, and you still suffer. My experience is nothing like yours, but I do know what it is to turn to alcohol to try to solve life's problems. I also know that being told to 'put it all behind you and move on' and suchlike expressions is hopeless, when that is what you want to do more than anything, but just can't. I guess, as someone said above, the main positive thing is that you are still young enough to rebuild your life and move forward, however tough that may be. The fact that you have the courage to post here means that you have the courage to transform your life.

Best of luck!

Hi thanks for the message. I'm not sure I posted this out of courage, trust me I am a very weak and pathetic man. But I have obsessive compulsive thoughts and it's gotten out of hand. I often go to bed crying, soetimes wake up and burst into tears and I spend all day every day thinking about everything over and over and over. Drives me nuts. I have been going to a support service for alcahol and drugs, so hopefully that will help and I can stop drinking. But I don't know what to do about missing my own childhood, and all my teenage memories being about nasty sex, and the 20 years of lonleiness and isolation that followed. Can't move on thats the problem.

I have over 20 books I want to read, but I cant even do that I just lay or sit on my bed all day praying for the time to pass when it will be time to start drinking. And I can only even come on an anonnymous forum like this when I am drunk. I have a cross-trainer that takes up half my bedroom but I do not go on it. There are groups at the drugs and alcahol place and a local group for bipolar people but I don't go to them. I had started a degree with the open university but I have stopped doing that now. I have not seen my sister or neice for over a month. I don't like myslef, I don't belive it is possible for anyone else to like me and I don't feel connected to the world outside.

But most of all. I don't feel like a man.

Does not help that talking therapies are **** near impossible to get.

It's like the verve famously said - "the drugs don't work". And that includes alcahol and I know it, but I still can't seem to stop it.
 
Stopping drinking would certainly be a good start I guess. problem is, when you don't have alcohol to blot stuff out, you have to face it. That can be hard, I know. People always try to push people with drink problems to AA, but AA does not work for everyone. Apart from anything else, in my experience they are not so interested in the underlying problem. Lets face it, for most of us who drink alcoholically, drinking isn't the real problem. It is a symptom of the real problem. And that underlying problem is what has to be sorted. Also AA grew out of a religious cult in the 1930s, and many people find the God part of it off putting. SMART Recovery is a good secular alternative, if you have a group near you.

You really don't have to 'feel like a man'. Like you, I self identify as gay. It took me a long time to recognise that I don't need to conform to society's idea of what a 'man' should be. I don't. Put if this way, most people realise I'm gay pretty much as soon as they meet me! I cared for a long time. Now I don't anymore.

Small steps forward are better than no steps at all, and at least posting here, drunk or not, you are expressing yourself.
 
Ioann said:
Stopping drinking would certainly be a good start I guess. problem is, when you don't have alcohol to blot stuff out, you have to face it. That can be hard, I know. People always try to push people with drink problems to AA, but AA does not work for everyone. Apart from anything else, in my experience they are not so interested in the underlying problem. Lets face it, for most of us who drink alcoholically, drinking isn't the real problem. It is a symptom of the real problem. And that underlying problem is what has to be sorted. Also AA grew out of a religious cult in the 1930s, and many people find the God part of it off putting. SMART Recovery is a good secular alternative, if you have a group near you.

You really don't have to 'feel like a man'. Like you, I self identify as gay. It took me a long time to recognise that I don't need to conform to society's idea of what a 'man' should be. I don't. Put if this way, most people realise I'm gay pretty much as soon as they meet me! I cared for a long time. Now I don't anymore.

Small steps forward are better than no steps at all, and at least posting here, drunk or not, you are expressing yourself.

Hey thanks for the reply,

I was put off AA because of the religious crap. My interests revolve around science, I cant be doing with mumbo jumbo.

I am scared of masculine men, I feel intimidated by them. I allways feel like a scared little boy which when you are 34 just makes you come across as pathetic.

Its just...

I was 13 and I sucked a man off, sort of just follwing direction. I was 14 and I was voilently raped by a 38 yr old. But I kept choosing to go back. And I lost my education, I had no peers and the things that caused the problems also became the solution. My family never cared about me. Sex, no matter how unpleasent was the only thing I had. Social services got involved, they knew I was binge drinking, I told them I was confused and depressed and they knew I was using a gay phoneline to meet men for sex. But no one helped me. And my family were so homophobic that I had no one to talk to. I was doing things I did not understand, these things were causing me harm and there was no possibility of anyone to turn to.

Another thing that I can't find any help with is that I seemed to have spent the next 10 years sexually punishing myself. I sought out situations where I would be used, abused and in danger - whats that about?

I only actually dated (everything else was sex then get lost) 4 guys ever in my early to mid 20's. The last guy I dated was the only one who was interested in me, not just f****** me. I was unemployed at the time. He wanted to go to a concert. So I went with 3 guys in a day, all unprotected, made £300 then had sex with him the next day. What monster does that make me? Not only could I have got HIV I could have given it to him. This stuff became automatic.
 
You really don't sound like a monster. Nor do you sound pathetic. You sound like someone who has been through hellish situations, which would probably have finished most people off, but you have survived - battered and bruised, in fact very battered and bruised - but you have survived.

There IS a future. You can make a future. It doesn't have to be the past all over again.

I am not surprised you reacted like you did to AA. I agree with you. But there are other groups and people that can help.

Remember, one step at a time.
 
Ioann said:
You really don't sound like a monster. Nor do you sound pathetic. You sound like someone who has been through hellish situations, which would probably have finished most people off, but you have survived - battered and bruised, in fact very battered and bruised - but you have survived.

There IS a future. You can make a future. It doesn't have to be the past all over again.

I am not surprised you reacted like you did to AA. I agree with you. But there are other groups and people that can help.

Remember, one step at a time.

Thanks a lot. I am sort of try to get on with my life, but it is hard. I was doing a part time degree with the Open University untill recently, I am interested in all sorts of topics and I buy lots of books but I just seem to be punishing myself now by not even picking up and reading a book something I really enjoyt and am desperately interested in. I go along to the drugs and alcahol place and I guess thats a start. I feel I should aim to give up drinking first, then start to do some exercise then try to expose myself to social situations and eventually aim to get a job. I know I will never have a partner, but I do hope that one day I can have a friend.
 
[/quote]

Thanks a lot. I am sort of try to get on with my life, but it is hard. I was doing a part time degree with the Open University untill recently, I am interested in all sorts of topics and I buy lots of books but I just seem to be punishing myself now by not even picking up and reading a book something I really enjoyt and am desperately interested in. I go along to the drugs and alcahol place and I guess thats a start. I feel I should aim to give up drinking first, then start to do some exercise then try to expose myself to social situations and eventually aim to get a job. I know I will never have a partner, but I do hope that one day I can have a friend.
[/quote]

There, you do know what you need to do! You don't have to achieve it all in one go. I realise it is hard - I won't say I understand, because I probably cannot really understand what you have been through and are going through. I do empathise, though.

I would think you would make a good friend, and probably one who can empathise with other people and their difficulties; and that is an important aspect of friendship.

Keep going mate!
 
cumulus.james said:
Thanks a lot. I am sort of try to get on with my life, but it is hard. I was doing a part time degree with the Open University untill recently, I am interested in all sorts of topics and I buy lots of books but I just seem to be punishing myself now by not even picking up and reading a book something I really enjoyt and am desperately interested in. I go along to the drugs and alcahol place and I guess thats a start. I feel I should aim to give up drinking first, then start to do some exercise then try to expose myself to social situations and eventually aim to get a job. I know I will never have a partner, but I do hope that one day I can have a friend.

You sound like you still want to keep trying to make things better. Even better, you've come up with a plan for it. That's good. If you keep that determination, in time, you will achieve those goals. I wish you all the best. You sound like an awesome guy and your determination to fix things is quite admirable.
 

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