I am not sure why I am posting this… I am not even sure if this is a post that fits here… I just didn’t know where else to put it… and I feel like I just have to say it out loud even if no one listens.
This is a sexual abuse forum, and I don’t even know if my past qualifies.
Ugh, how do I start? I am a 54 year old male and I feel so scared of telling my story… I am so ashamed and know I am a bad person.. I don’t..
… I was adopted as a baby. My birth mother was only 15 when she got pregnant, 16 when she had me. As was done in those days she put my up for adoption. The hope was I would have a better life in a family that could care for me and love me. But the environment I grew up in was very cold, and can best be described as emotionally neglectful. The family didn’t do emotions.. didn’t do connection or support. You grow up just wanting someone to care for you and look after you… you grow just wanting someone to see you… but I never had that. My adoptive family had two children already but I was so unlike them. I always knew I was adopted and that even in my family I didn’t fit in. I was different. I didn’t look like them, think like them, act like them. I was an intelligent and articulate child but I was so very lonely and I grew up believing I was fundamentally flawed... that my loneliness and isolation was because I wasn’t good enough and it was all my fault. Did I mention it was a deeply religious family? Yeah.. that.
I wasn’t abused as a child. I can’t blame anything on that. I started puberty earlier than any of my friends. At 11 I was starting to grow pubic hair and developing in other ways. I was starting to have strong sexual feelings. I hated being different… being different didn’t feel safe to me, so I hid it. Being different made me bad… it was something to be ashamed of. But growing up in a family where sex was taboo… it was shameful… so I hid my shame and my feelings and my need to be seen… to exist.
…at 11 I would flash girls out of my bedroom window. I would open all the curtains and pretend to be changing. ###$ up right? What I pervert I was… and I did it often enough that one girl told her family and they called the police. So one day the police turn up at my house and tell my parents what I had been doing. I was so scared.. I was so ashamed… I was terrified kid who was so alone and didn’t know how to handle his emotions and feelings… my parents response? They told me I had shamed them and demanded to know why I had done it. I didn’t know.. I didn’t know what to say.. so I said I didn’t know. Did they try to help me? Did they get advice or seek help? No… that was the end of it…
It left me with the firm belief.. understanding that I was a bad person. I hated myself. As A teenager I hated myself and knew I was bad and ugly and shameful and perverted. I never had the confidence to talk to girls… no girl would ever be interested in someone like me. I had friends.. but I was so so alone.
At 19 I had a one night stand with a girl I had known at school (instigated by her). Terrible sex, over very fast, but hey I had finally had sex. And then I was alone again. That year I also went on a double date with a friend, his girlfriend and a friend of hers (who I had had a crush on at school). We ended falling in love and up going out for about 8 months. And then we broke up and my world ended…
At 20 I had nothing. I was thinking about suicide.. why not? What difference would it make? And then I met my birth mother. When I turned 20 she was legally allowed to try and make contact (requested through a government department). Turns out she had ended up marrying my birth father and I had a baby sister and young brother. So at the darkest time of my life I met my family. And for the first time in my life I knew what it was like to be around people who were like me. They looked like me, talked like me, acted like me and even thought like me.
It literally saved my life.
My adopted parents were a bit jealous I think but didn’t try to stop me having contact. So I became very close to my birth family and visited them often and became part of their family.
I was particularly close to my birth mother. We would sit and talk for hours, holding hands and just being connected. I needed that so so much. But after a few months the contact started to become sexual… her hand would rest higher on my thigh… then higher. I admit it.. it was exciting.. I would start to become aroused… then her hand ended up rest against my …. Then on it… she told me it was ok… it was natural… she asked me if I wanted it to happen… I said yes.
Was I an adult at 20? I am not making excuses but I was a scared kid who had finally found someone who cared about me. I would have done anything not to risk driving her away… so it happened.
And just like that I was in a sexual relationship with my birth mother. Part of me was excited by it at first. Apart from the forgettable one night stand I had never had sex with my one girlfriend. This was my first real sexual relationship. So my young hormones wanted it… but inside I didn’t. I used to go outside myself… disassociate I know its called now. Let it happen but I wasn’t there even though I was part of everything. I didn’t want it.. but it was what I needed to do to finally have someone care about me.
My birth mother told me she had been sexually abused as a child… she told me details about it and we even basically reenacted parts of it with me as the abuser… how messed up is that?
Our sexual relationship lasted about 7 years… over that time her marriage with my birth father ended (which I felt guilty for) and over that time I never formed any other close relationships even when I went to university. If I ever showed an interest in a girl my mother would say I was abandoning her… she made me feel guilty and responsible for our relationship.
But don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate her, and wouldn’t even acknowledge to myself any resent I felt. I loved her and she was so important to me.
The sexual side of the relationship did eventually end and she formed a relationship with someone else. Eventually I did too. But I was seriously struggling. I really didn’t like myself and believed a lot of not very good things about myself. By 30 I had reached a very black place, I was seriously depressed and was really struggling with everything I had never dealt with. I was isolating myself from the people around me and I guess I could have turned to drugs or alcohol.. but I looked at porn. All sorts.. including stuff with children. *mod edit* I can say I never hurt anyone, never touched anyone… I would never have done that… but I did what I did. It was never about any fantasies of abuse.. it was like picking at a sore that wouldn’t heal… but I did it.
And I was convicted for it. I spent 3 months in prison.
When this happened, I expected that was it. Everyone would see who I really was and would want nothing more to do with me. But they didn’t… and I couldn’t understand why. But (except for my adopted family) the people closest to me stuck with me and offered me love and support. To be honest it nearly broke me. I think I could have gone three ways. I could have hidden.. I could have faced it.. or it could have destroyed me. I knew I had to face this and get help.
So I started counselling and for the first time in my life had to deal with the lies I had always believed about myself. 20 years later I am still dealing with it. I never told my first counsellor about my mother. My counsellor now knows about it. She was the one who helped me understand it was actually abuse… and it was abuse by the one person in my life I should have been able to count on to put me first.. but that never happened.
And it still has an impact today… my marriage of 15 years has recently ended (amicably)… but in that relationship as in all my others I still can’t form intimate relationships in anything resembling a healthy way. As soon as I start to get intimate I disassociate… I am outside removed from what happening. I am attracted to women who can’t or wont show me emotion.. its messed up but we are destined to repeat our past right?
Ugh! Why have I written all this? I don’t know… .I am sorry this is so long. And as I said at the start I don’t know if anyone will ever read this.. or even what was the point of writing it.. I just had to say it… maybe it helps someone? Or maybe anyone reading this will just think I am scum…
I work so hard trying to be a good person…