Brief introduction...

This is the very abridged version of the story of my pedophilia, with many parts and variables missing. I just don't have time or energy to write it all -- I could write a whole book -- so I guess this is just the general idea. Thanks for reading.

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My sexual abuse started pre-memory (I'm guessing 1 or even less) until 10 years old. By the time I was 10 I was whacked out of my mind, literally, from the abuse. I started compulsively sexually touching my friends my age when my dad/abuser vanished. I don't mean occasionally, either, I pretty much touched every friend I had whenever I had the chance -- until half of them stopped talking to me or having anything to do with me. I was a sexually obsessive.

I finally got caught touching my cousin when I was 11 and was sent to therapy, but the therapist thought I was just being curious and didn't do anything but teach me the birds and the bees -- dumbass. However, I was so brainwashed that I didn't even know what was going on was abuse, so I don't know how the therapist could know, too.

Anyway, I was forced to move away from my family when I was 11 1/2 and my compulsion came with me. I didn't have many friends my age where I moved, and the friends I did have ended up being younger than myself because I felt worthless and not able to make friends on an equal level (still do some to this day). To feel good about myself I hung out with the younger kids in my neighborhood (I was the oldest on the block), they looked up to me a lot because I was older and I fed off of that for my self-esteem -- and my compulsion went with me.

Over my teenage years, the feelings for young kids just sort of grew and grew without my knowledge and by my senior year in high school it was sort of cemented into place. I knew it was wrong but it was also very confusing to wrap my head around. I had realized by my 11th grade year what was happening with me but it was so "out there" that 2 + 2 just didn't add up and click in my brain, and I just didn't comprehend what was happening to me.

People like me were just some news story or some character in a far off universe. I never thought that could be me.

So after high school (graduated in 1999) I had serious denial going on but I also knew more and more what I was in regards to this. It became harder and harder to deny the feelings I had and I felt like a complete monster.

I had no feelings for adults on any level, even above sexual (emotional, intellectual, etc, etc). I didn't really relate to them in any way I guess because I wasn't mentally an adult after being abused.

Believe it or not, I really wanted to be "normal." But I had NO IDEA where to find any kind of help and I didn't know how to even BECOME normal. I didn't think I could tell anyone. I thought I was the scum of the Earth.

So in 2004, I went through a very rough patch and it was one of the scariest and most terrifying times in my life, but it saved me in a way.

After that happened I started wanting to change very much -- and then half a year later my sister told me she was pregnant and I panicked. I was faced with 3 options: SERIOUSLY seek help and eventually tell my family, kill myself, or not tell my sister and very probably hurt my nephew.

This was late 2004, early 2005.

I chose to find help any way I could -- but I still had no idea how or where.

I started feeling hopeless and didn't think I could do it. I knew for sure there was no help for someone like me. I knew for sure if I sought any kind of help a lynch mob would be outside of my door the next night.

A few times I attempted suicide -- luckily they weren't successful. I never went to the hospital from it or anything, though, but all I could think about was my nephew not knowing me and my family hurting. I couldn't forget how much it would hurt them.

I was stuck and thought I couldn't do anything. I thought for sure I was doomed to hurt.

Well someone upstairs was watching out for me because right after that I found out about an honors lecture (I was in college) called "Sex Offenders: Research and Realities." I was shocked at the possibility that this lady could help me. I was desperate too and would've tried anything to find help.

So I went and after the lecture I asked if she had a card and I got it. SCARY! Later that night, for the first time in my life, I e-mailed a complete stranger of my problems. She was very sympathetic and helped me find a therapist on campus named Jan that really helped me get stuff out for the first time and really face things.

With Jan's help on April 25th, 2005, I told my sister and my other family about my pedophilia.

I felt I had no choice. I loved my nephew more than life itself (still do) and I never wanted to hurt him or anyone ever...

After telling my family and setting up good boundaries with them, I got into an offender treatment program (unofficially, since I hadn't been arrested. But my therapist did the treatment with pedophiles and he just used the model in our sessions). I've been in several support groups with men and women like me and seen the human side of those people. I was in therapy for about 5 years with Jan and another guy I loved, but he had to leave the clinic in December so I'm between therapists right now.

I've been very serious about recovery and getting better. I won't claim that I'm perfect (still have troubles in some areas).

I'm not a monster. I'm not beyond change. I'm not beyond help.

I do deserve love and friendships and forgiveness.

I'm NOT the same person I was 6 years ago.

I feel very ashamed and regretful for what I've felt in regards to my pedophilia, but I can't really change the past -- as much as I would LOVE to change it. I don't think beating myself up will change anything.I feel like the best way I can say sorry is to get better and stop the cycle.

I've found these stores are more 3D and gray than one-sided and black and white. There's no easy answers and solutions. There's no easy stories. Most of the people I've worked with started all this at a young age. I think it's a lot to expect from a 10 year old rape victim to do exactly the right thing in the beginning.

Thank you so much for taking the time to write and share this Andy. There are so many great statements in here. I imagine this post could help a lot of people - especially those who may be struggling with their own paedophilia and feel that there's nobody in the world who understands them.

What your dad did to you is appalling. If only we lived in a world were parents could be trusted not to abuse their children. I am really sorry that you experienced that abuse. It’s no wonder that were you confused and wanted to touch your friends. How could you have known any better?

What a shame the therapist who saw you when you were 11 didn't look closer to see the confused and abused boy that you were.

I'm glad you didn't kill yourself. Despite what you've lived through, you do have a lot of good in you, and it would have been tragic if your voice had been lost to the world.

I think you were brave to tell your family. I'm trying to imagine what that would be like...I think it would have been very difficult! How did they react? Do they know you were sexually abused as a child?

Can I ask how you feel about your father now? Do you recognise that you are a stronger person than him because you were brave enough to admit your paraphilia and seek help to control it? To think how much hurt could have been avoided if your father had the courage to do the same when he was young.

Incidentally, do you know of any books or movies that feature personal stories like yours? I think the world could really benefit from hearing this kind of perspective, rather than just the child molester news headlines. But I can't think of any examples that I have seen. Maybe you should write a whole book one day.

Platypus wrote:I'm glad you didn't kill yourself. Despite what you've lived through, you do have a lot of good in you, and it would have been tragic if your voice had been lost to the world.

I don't think I'm that good.

Platypus wrote:I think you were brave to tell your family. I'm trying to imagine what that would be like...I think it would have been very difficult! How did they react? Do they know you were sexually abused as a child?

It was the most difficult thing I've ever had to do in my life...but I was so scared about potentially hurting my nephew that I just did it, scared or not -- I didn't have a choice because I was scared that once he was born I couldn't tell. It's still embarrassing when my sister or mom brings it up and asks me questions if they have them...but I just try to answer them as real as I can...I don't know. The last time my sister had questions was when she had talked to her therapist (she was seeing for other reasons) about it and of course the therapist said hysterical things...and my sister was torn. I felt a lot of shame when even my sister, the girl who treated me like a son when my mom was incapable when she was 5 and I was a baby, thought (albeit briefly) those hysterical things about me. If she did, I thought, then maybe I really am worthless. Sigh. I really lost some hope at that point. I guess it's slowly coming back, though.

Platypus wrote:Can I ask how you feel about your father now? Do you recognise that you are a stronger person than him because you were brave enough to admit your paraphilia and seek help to control it? To think how much hurt could have been avoided if your father had the courage to do the same when he was young.

I try not to judge my dad based on normal people because he is not normal mentally, literally, so to hold him to the same standards is inaccurate and unfair, in my opinion. He was and is schizophrenic, alcoholic, manic depressive and just generally psychotic (diagnosed).

However, with that said, I feel he's the same now as before, only I'm bigger now so he's afraid around me (he's afraid of most people though, in his delusion).

Honestly, I don't really hate him anymore -- although I do still feel hurt and anger -- but I just pity him because:

A) I see him as horribly pathetic and broken, and I'm not sure he's going ever going to pull out of this (he's nearly 60, and ignores his diabetes). He cannot even take care of himself now (in any respect) let alone take responsibility for stuff that happened 20+ years ago. He's been electro-shocked on multiple occasions and it is no guarantee that he even knows or remembers what he did. I kind of look at it like could I hate someone who is mentally retarded? Am I the kind of person that hates someone and makes someone pay when they're down and their life is flopping on the ground like a suffocating and dying fish?

B) I guess I have a different perspective as a pedophile when it comes to my abuser. I cannot exactly judge him if I don't judge myself for my past. What's that saying, "He who is without sin, cast the first stone?" Me judging him implies I have done nothing wrong in my life, and that is not true. I may not have sexually abused my own son for 10 years (I don't have kids), but I guess I believe that I can only judge someone if all my defects of character are gone -- and they are not. I don't know if what I'm saying makes sense, though...it's hard to explain.

I know I'm stronger than him, but I have had a lot more to work with than him. He's been brain damaged his whole life, according to my aunt, and I'm sure some priest abused him, too.

I just found it helps me with my sanity if I look at it that way. I don't "forgive" him for his sake, but for my sake.

I don't believe he's a pedophile though (or any paraphilia), he was and is simply delusional, in his own world and sexually compulsive (leading me to believe at least some sexual compulsivity is genetic in nature). I guess when he was abusing me, he thought he was showing me his skewed version of love, or in his delusions thought he was being a good father by "teaching" me or something. All I know is that he's gotten in trouble (kicked out of one of his open campus psychiatric homes) for following adult women around the town it was in wanting sex.

I haven't really seen my dad in 6 months, and that was only for a few hours at a family meal. My uncles, aunt, cousins, and grandma were there (and don't know about stuff, and I don't want them to know), so a lot wasn't said to him. I was mostly worried about Brian, my partner, sending him to the bottom of a river or something....he's a bit protective, but I asked him to not say anything. But I feel physically sick around him a lot, obviously. I guess I just would rather have the relationship with the rest of my family than confront my dad, who isn't guaranteed to even know what he did in his psychosis.

I don't know if that answered your question -- it's such a big topic. Please feel free to ask more about this if you want. Generally I don't "like" him and I don't go out of my way to be in his life, but I don't hate him and I can see how he came to this and I'm just trying to move on with my life.

I have enough to worry about in my present-day life let alone stuff that happened two decades ago; and the only thing I ever got from hating my dad is an ulcer. He never paid from my anger, he never dropped to his knees in remorse because I was full of hate.

Like that old Buddhist saying goes, "holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else -- you are the one who gets burned."

Platypus wrote:Incidentally, do you know of any books or movies that feature personal stories like yours? I think the world could really benefit from hearing this kind of perspective, rather than just the child molester news headlines. But I can't think of any examples that I have seen.

I know of some resources and I will post a list of what I know in another post later today.

Thank you, it was interesting to read your feelings about your family.

I don't think you have to be without sin to judge your father. I think it's okay to judge's others mistakes or bad deeds even though we also do the wrong thing at times. Maybe I am less forgiving than you, but I would judge your dad's actions. I would not try to put myself in the same category as him. You have not done what he did. If you group yourself and him together, then does that not reinforce the idea that you are also broken or a monster?

I know little about delusions, but do you think that is sufficient reason for him to abuse you? It sounds like you suffered repeated abuse over a period of many years. Of course I don't know your father, but I find myself doubting that he wouldn't have known what he was doing and that it was wrong.

You are better than him Andy. Not because you have a lot more to work with, but because you care and want to be better and are making efforts to do so. Where were his efforts?

I like your Buddhist saying. I think you are wise and forgiving to not be angry, but I worry that you could transpose your feelings for your father on to yourself. So instead of expressing anger or blame at him, you could be feeling ashamed of yourself. You are different people. You don't need to carry his shame for him.