4. Lava or Healing?

In this post I'm going to share in a little more detail about my earliest memories. They are of my mother and naked naptimes. It hurts me that that's the first thing I remember about being a boy. It hurts a lot, now that I try to let myself feel that pain. It hurts, but all I can say is that the actual pain hurts me so much less that anything I would to to avoid it. When I avoid the pain and go straight to anger, It feels like the pain just sits there in my heart like a volcano, always oozing the lava that burns up my relationships, plans, and dreams. And me.

If you're a man, it might really take some work on your part to feel actual pain. It was worth the effort to me. It doesn't sound like fun, no. Not to me either. But fun isn't really one of the options I have in front of me. Lava or healing is what it my options seem to be. I don't want the lava anymore.

This was when I was about 6. I always remember her in the same position, on her side. I would snuggle in. We played a game. She wanted me to know there wasn't anything wrong with any body part, and so we could take turns touching any part we wanted, and she would tell me their names. She was seducing me, offering herself and excitement. She was sharp, negative and nearly always critical, but I remember her being silly and laughing in bed. No one's mother should have been doing any of that. It is not ok for any adult to play naked games with a child, or take naked naps with a child.

She didn't "make" me do anything, she "let" me. She "let me do what I wanted." That's how she manipulated me into feeling about it. That got in my head and stayed in my head. She just let me do what I wanted to anyway, that's maybe what she thought, and for sure what I thought. If that reminds you of anything in your life, please know that a child cannot choose these things, or want them, or even understand them when they happen.

But it's still your mother. It's like I tried to make room in my head for the mother I loved, and then also I had to make room for this hot mess of feelings and reactions that I could not process, and which made me you alone with secrets and a head full of troubles. I think that's probably what I mean when I tell someone my head is buzzing. It's like there's a whole other psyche in my head that's made of buzzing and scars and self-hate.

If I want to talk about my own lava, I have to talk about erections. That's not dark humor, it's a hard vulnerability to share. I'm a man. I cannot think of anything that's more central to my identity that my erect penis. As important, yes. More important? No. That's candid. It's also true that as my body sends blood to my penis, shame and thoughts that I'm a monster come into my head. Images and thoughts of abuse come with them. I don't know how often an average male gets erections, but it's not a special event. If you miss one, the next will be along pretty soon. And all of them made me feel like a pervert.

Every time I got hard I had a reminder of something I could never ever ever let anyone know. It was exciting to me as a six year old when I was with her and I got an erection and she could see it. She would react in a way that motivated me to keep exposing myself to her. I had no words for any of this, just the mother that's meant to look after you, and finally she's laughing and silly, and not mean and telling me everything I do is wrong. This hurts a lot, present tense. She made me interact with her sexuality. After that, for years she was my fantasy life. No dark humor here. I’m too busy trying to keep my face from bursting into flames from the shame I'm feeling. I'm sure hoping and countng on the idea that I'm not the only one, and that men and women surivors both might find something relateable in that.

But you know what? Maybe no one in the history of the world has had exactly the feelings I did. That's ok, because I had them. I have faith there is a survivor out there who can at least relate somewhat to my experience. I think that person would tell me that it's ok. My mother decided that she could treat a six year old like a little mini-me lover. A very unthreatening and malleable lover, one she could control.

Looking at it all just hurts pretty hard. Too hard for me to joke about it and feel it at the same time. There's no way that I can process the reality of what she was doing to my psyche if I'm trying to protect myself against the pain. It feels like drinking lava to imagine myself as a little boy just desperate to keep her happy, and figuring out that she was silly and laughing when she hurt me, and so if I wanted to have an exciting feeling and a non-cruel mother, I knew how to get them. Not consciously, of course. I was six.

I was just beginning to compulsively eat. That looks like an addictive spiral to me, already there when I was six. My psyche was overwhelmed, I ate to cope, I felt bad for being chubby, and so I sought a way to feel better. Like something exciting, and with an erection and my silly fun-time mother. She was revolted by chubbiness and regarded it as a sign of low moral character. I wonder if some part of me was trying to keep her away. I have to suspect so, even though other parts of me were excited by her.

This is still all glowing lava for me, right here today. But it helps me to share, and now I'm looking at the lava, and how much I would like healing. To get there, I feel like I need the willingness to deal with the lava. It's scary. The willingness is not always that easy. Sharing with you helps. If you talk to someone you trust, you might have a similar experience.

Sometimes I just want to say screw it. I’ll throw in the towel and just forget about it. I’m not that bad, I’ll just deal with it and try harder and read more self-help books. I’ll have however many more weird flings until I’m too decrepit to attract anyone anymore, and then time for extra cats and bird feeders and neuroses and crossword puzzles and World War Two documentaries and more of what I’ve had my whole life, and my little boy will be lost forever.

But that will never stop the lava from burning me. It still works for me right now to use my little boy as motivation. He needs me to do this. I might give up if it were only me. But, you know, I’m a man, and someone I dearly love needs me. To get my little boy back I’ll drink all the lava in the world and come back for free refills.

See, I’m prone to being dramatic like that. I’m sorry if the bravado in that seems silly or off-putting. I’m a man, and I might not be the only man to motivate himself that way, and maybe it helps another man to hear it.

I think for many people something in the psyche lets us push ourselves harder and be braver and bolder for the sake of someone we love than for ourselves. For me today if I think of the little boy inside me, I can activate the part of me that lets me see I can do it.

That’s how this man writing to you is loving himself as a man. I’m also trying to get to a place where I can be some kind of mother to that little boy and give him what he really needs. I’m the best mother he’s ever going to have. It’s all inside me.

If you're an incest survivor or survivor of other child sex abuse and are willing to share your own experience with others, please contact me. I would love to share your story on the blog.

Thank you for listening. It was good to share with you, and for the rest of the day I will be thinking of our common struggles. Wherever you are in your life, if you are a survivor, you've come a long long way. It's hard to find connection in some ways, but in other ways it's right here.

I'm writing this, and you're reading it. That makes two of us. I know of one or two other people who have read this, so that makes any least three. Two people might just be some friends talking, but three people, that's a community. We're a community of incest survivors who can help support each other, just by knowing we're alive.

Send me your story, your experience, things that have helped you on your journey. There is some survivor who will resonate to your story more than mine, and that person might get some help because of your courage. Like me! I would love to hear how things have been going for you all this time. I need the help.

If you send me your story, I know my day will be better, because I’ll have met someone new to me in this community of ours. It’s as old as humanity, our community. It’s as old as those fathers, and those mothers, and us girls, and us boys.

I’m not alone. Neither are you. Or you, or you, or you, or any of us. We’re not alone.