I Am a Monster

I am a monster and will always be one. I sexually molested my 13-year-old step daughter for a period of two years. It ended 30 years ago. I was between 31 and 33 years old. I was drinking but not every time. I can minimize it. (I touched her, never penetrated her with my finger or penis.) After spending time in jail, I apologized to her and she forgave me. Another consequence was that I lost my career as an elementary teacher and can never return. I was court-ordered to attend a two-year sexual abuser treatment program. I paid for her therapy, but she dropped out due, in part, to her taking drugs.

Going on about the details is useless. I ruined her life. She became a drug addict and worse. I also ruined my life. I became a drug addict.

I have had therapy for years since the two-year program. Everyone who knows including my current wife forgives me. But, I can and never will forgive myself. I am a monster. Child sexual abuse is the worst crime anyone can commit. I carry guilt and shame everyday. It never leaves me. A fitting end to my wasted life is that I am now on Disability and do nothing every day. I have always had Depression and have been on medication for decades. I have attempted suicide three times and would kill myself today but it would destroy my wife if I did. I celebrate the end of each day as one day closer to the end. Given my advanced age, I will die within five to ten years I hope.

The remorse never goes away and never will. I have never re-offended. I have no thoughts about or desire to sexual abuse anyone any more.

I don't know why I am writing this. I have confessed to many people in the last 30 years, but the pain will never go away.

Question. How do I stop fighting this and give up on trying to be healed? How do I just accept that I am a defective monster and will always be until that wonderful day when I will die?

You aren't a monster. You are a human being. All of us are. It's just literally the truth and can't be subjectively argued against.

I think, you need to make some peace with not being at peace, if you can. Personally, I don't think it's wrong for you to feel remorse until the end of your life. As you recognise, you did a terrible, terrible thing. One of the worst things a human can do (personally, I would put genocide above your crime, but that is perhaps the sole exception... to be honest, it's probably not even that useful to categorise these things though). The most important thing is that you never re-offend or hurt anyone else. You have not done so. That is good.

I do think you have a natural right to life, though... everyone does. You didn't choose to be born. No-one can or should lay claim to owning the air or the water or the sun or the sky. Try to take some pleasure in the simple things like drinking water or tasting the air - those things that all animals and humans have a right to. These things have been bestowed to us by nature, not man. Have you tried meditating? That might help a little bit.

Obviously, your life will never be the same as it was before you abused your step-daughter. It won't be, it hasn't been, and it can't be. You are tainted for life (for that matter, so am I - obviously, you aren't alone in this) in some regards. Some people will never forgive you. Some people will never trust you. Some people will think you deserve the worst punishments. But that is their right. It is also your right to stay alive and breathe; drink; etc. Legally, people cannot take that away from you. I also feel strongly that they do not have the moral right to, despite the severity of your crime/s.

I don't know if you read or watch films. You might take something away from China Miéville's Perdido Street Station (specifically the last chapter, but it'll probably only be meaningful if you read it all). In terms of films, The Woodsman and Sansho, the Bailiff might be useful for you. The protagonist in the latter film commits torture against an old man - arguably a lesser crime, but still a very serious one - and comes to some kind of partial redemption... I think the important thing is, that he ends up not as a 'good' or 'nice' person nor fully redeemed - the fact is that he can't undo the past - but that he has changed and has done what he can with the rest of his life.

Also, if you are Christian, you might be able to take some hope from the fact that Jesus forgives / redeems everyone. Some Christians may hate you, but the fact is that in the Bible redemption is open to everyone, the worst and the best amongst us.

Hope you can take something from all this. Thanks.

I am Larry wrote:I am a monster and will always be one. I sexually molested my 13-year-old step daughter for a period of two years. It ended 30 years ago. I was between 31 and 33 years old. I was drinking but not every time.

I agree with Sprock, you're not a monster. You're a human being who lost their way through what I assume was a traumatic period in your own life, or some toxic manifestation of past trauma. I find it difficult to accept that a genuinely happy and complete person would hurt someone else.

We all have to release our "demons" in some way. It was unfortunate that you released yours in such a harmful way.

I have had therapy for years since the two-year program. Everyone who knows including my current wife forgives me. But, I can and never will forgive myself.

Here's the thing - you're not supposed to forgive yourself. But I am reassured (and so too should you be) that you have received forgiveness from those closest to you. These are very compassionate, understanding people. Please find it within you to accept their forgiveness in the spirit of their love for you. At the end of the day, when everything is crumbling around us, love is the one thing that we have to save us from self destruction. It is a truly beautiful gift from nature... and some would argue the only thing truly worth living for.

Child sexual abuse is the worst crime anyone can commit.

I don't agree. There are also degrees of sexual abuse whether we feel comfortable dissecting up the subject or not. What you did was harmful, but I ask you to put it into perspective when, for example, you read about the next drone strike or sanctions imposed by a president or prime minister, or the beheading of a civilian by a militant fundamentalist.

At least you feel remorse. It tells me you aren't a psychopath and a lost cause, for what it's worth.

I carry guilt and shame everyday.

You carry it because you still believe you are the same person who committed the crime. Are you? Or is it like talking about a different person?

This is another thing we have been conditioned to believe from the moment we develop a sense of self - that we carry this unchanging, perpetual form and all its accumulated baggage we call "me" until death. It's nothing but an image, an illusion, and you're still attached to that illusion because it at least gives you some sense of identity.

The mind would rather carry all this baggage as "me" than accept the potential for constant rebirth in the present moment (which is seen as chaotic, unstable). But this craving for an identity based on past is the cause of immense suffering (both as giver and receiver) in this world.

You need to be more present, with both the pain and pleasure that flows through you in each moment, and not judge the stories your mind tells you about them. This is about accepting what is, that which you cannot change or control (our thoughts being one). You will eventually find a certain stillness and equilibrium from living totally in the only moment that truly exists - now.

As Sprock mentioned, meditation is one of the doorways into presence and mindfulness. Youtube has many guided meditations. I recommend those from Sam Harris, Adyashanti, Alan Watts, Mooji, Gangaji and Eckhart Tolle. There are many others.

A fitting end to my wasted life is that I am now on Disability and do nothing every day. I have always had Depression and have been on medication for decades. I have attempted suicide three times and would kill myself today but it would destroy my wife if I did. I celebrate the end of each day as one day closer to the end. Given my advanced age, I will die within five to ten years I hope.

And here is the ugliest and most irrational part of your ego that is prepared to self destruct in order to preserve its already non-existent identity.

You hope to die soon. What does your wife hope? That you finally release your remorse in the form of love for others. The love you give others tomorrow, today, now, is so much more important, so much more alive than the corpse of your past identity. This is all that matters. It's all that ever mattered!

You will die. Nature will take care of that, whether you celebrate it or not. But in this moment you have the potential to do so much good. Fill your heart with this remorse, let it burn for as long as you can take it and then go out and release it in the form of compassion, for others, for yourself and for the life that flows through you regardless of what some image of your past self says you did.

Question. How do I stop fighting this and give up on trying to be healed? How do I just accept that I am a defective monster and will always be until that wonderful day when I will die?

By stopping living in your mind.

Who/what is it that is aware of "I want to die"?

Who/what is it that is aware of suffering?

Who/what is it that watches memories and thoughts as they arise?

There is something "behind" everything that happens in consciousness. Some call it pure awareness. Others have a religiously motivated view of it. Whatever you call it, you can't think it, you can only experience it as itself. It's simply the space in which everything arises into consciousness.

When you rest back into this purer state of being, you realise that there is only this moment. There is no judgement. There is no self. Everything that is an illusion is dissolved along with the mind. You realise that it was your mind that was creating the illusions that were causing you suffering.

Many people become frustrated that they can't "hold on" to this feeling of pure presence. But that's not the point. The point is that, once you have seen the illusion for what it is, and the mind reconstructs it, you no longer feel as hopelessly attached to it. You no longer feel like you ARE it.

Life becomes "what it is", constantly passing, renewing, dying. Adyashanti talked about how everything is constantly ending, one moment at a time. Your past self image, which is the source of your suffering, has to be allowed to end each time it arises. Each ending is its own. Each time it arises again will end.

Your life (aliveness) is untouched by what you did. Focus on that which is untouched by suffering, past, anxiety, temporary happiness. That's where you'll find stillness, peace and contentment with what is.

epiphany55

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. You give me much about which to think. I have studied Buddhism and practiced Zen, but the knowingness is only in my defective mind. I will sit more.