7. Ugh

I’m an incest survivor, and this is my ‘share’ for today, as they’d say in a twelve-step meeting. Going through The Courage to Heal and my own feelings about ‘disclosing’ is hard. My parents are both alive. They’re elderly but functional. My entire relationship with them has always been disfunctional and unboundaried, but it was a three-legged stool and I knew my role.

People who know me have been telling me for years that my relationship with them wasn't ok. I heard them, but I knew better. I thought they just meant that my folks were too demanding of me, and I was kinda too accommodating. Yeah yeah, sure, but they’d both been abused and I was really the only one who understood them. Ugh.

I’ve pulled back from them, put up walls, avoided, then sometimes been really friendly and great, just like when I was ten. Back when they were happiest-ish, and I was what they wanted.

What I hadn’t, and haven’t done in years is say anything candid to them about anything. I thought that was the best I could do. Just keep myself away from them emotionally by stonewalling when I see them. It’s near-daily; they live close by. I know I need to individuate from them, and I have been doing that from the other side of the stonewall I put between us as best I can.

But I still see them. I like them. I know how to be around them. A damaged ten-year old. That’s what I become around them when I see them and they say something that hits me the wrong way. I just clam up and don’t say anything to them. Then after a while I leave.

I used to tell myself that what had happened was just that they had been too annoying for me, and what I do when they become too annoying is I clam up and go silent.

Then I realized that physically there was more to it. I feel clammy when it happens. I don’t feel like it’s a choice to talk. I feel like I can’t talk, and all I can do is just wait it out. That’s not ok at all, not for anyone. For a 48 year old man it’s pegging my shame dial to see it. It just looks like a trauma response to me now. The other day, like 72 hours ago.

I listened to a passage in a book on trauma healing via martial arts yesterday. There was a bit about ‘long term complex trauma’ meaning an abusive environment that persists over time, and how exposure to that can lead people to develop an almost separate personality for when they are in that environment. At least that’s the clear idea that leaped out at me.

Oh, **** me. That seems like what actually happens when I am around them. I’ve been putting on a whole trauma-response personality, and then trying to deal with them while I’m stuck in that. It’s just never ever going to work.

I think sometimes that I am the only person in the world they need because I am the third person that keeps their dreamworld alive. That’s what I do, I guess, when that persona comes over me. I help maintain the dreamworld, and I do it because I want to protect them, I think. They were both very damaged, legitimately. And I was well and thoroughly conditioned to tend their needs.

Yeah. I can’t see much more healing happening for me if that just continues. Not with this in my conscious awareness. Now I know it’s just a choice to voluntarily walk back into the dreamworld where that little boy doesn’t get to exist. No. I’m becoming more integrated and think of myself as a single whole person pretty often.

But now this seems like a job for grown-man me to protect the little fella. I can’t be letting that little guy get re-traumatized by making him sit there and be quiet. I’ve been singing and taking lessons for my instrument, and writing stories and feeling peaceful and like I’m getting to know the whole man that I am. I can’t carve out a piece and leave it festering. The rest of my life is so much better now.

I know it’ll be a marker of something good for my heart to be myself with them. Maybe it just continues to be like this, the process of healing. You just move toward it. Like becoming your whole self. You just take another step. I don’t change things in my life until I can see how they are really holding me back from something I want. I want to be all integrated, to become myself.

I have to see that something is in my way before I can get past it. You’re not alone. Thank you for listening. That’s my share for today.

5. Grief

Grief is scary to me. I’m afraid when I feel it. Grief may be just another word for loss. Yesterday it was too much. In the first post I said that I had grieved losing things like innocent sex. I do, for sure. And when I acknowledged that to myself it was hard, and I felt a lot of shame and embarrassment. And now I don’t, really. After I acknowledged it, somehow it became much less charged.

Man, I am hoping it works the same with this scary grief-monster that I can see is coming next. This one is named “lost time.”

I went to tractor pulls as a kid. They’d harness a heavy sled to tractors, and see which one could pull it the farthest. It feels as if I’ve had a sled like that harnessed to me for most of my life. This is another place I’m aware is victimy-sounding, but that’s how it felt. Years in therapy, and still it just seemed like everything was way way harder than it was supposed to be. It feels like some kind of healing to be at least partly free of it. But whenever I think of that, I think of years and years dragging that sled. And then come other thoughts of what might-have-been. Oh I know we all have this grief. There’s nothing special about it. There doesn’t have to be. It sucks hard enough just plain and regular.

Who in their late 40’s doesn’t think about this? Of course. But that doesn’t make my grief any easier. Or yours, survivor or not. If you’re reading this and you have some experience to share abut grief, please write in so I can share your experience here.

I don’t know why or how it works like this, but survivors of all kinds of sex abuse seem to have a similar experience. Until I acknowledged the truth to myself, I just wasn’t ever going to be trying to heal the right wound, but just treating symptoms of it. And until I started being willing to do that, the people who were trying to help me had their hands tied. Maybe they’d all been able to see that something else was wrong, but they couldn’ read my mind. Neither could I, really, I guess.

Have some peace today. You’re not alone.

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.

1. Come With Me On My Journey

I am a mother-son incest survivor. I'm in my late 40's and only now am able to say that. I know it will help me to share my experience with you. I hope it helps you too. If you’re a man or boy who has been abused, I hope you might be able to see yourself in another man’s experience. If you’re a woman, I hope something is helpful in hearing a man’s story. Abuse by women is often very different than it is when the abuser is a man. If you’re a man or boy and anything in my story reminds you of your own experience, please talk to someone. It doesn’t have to be rape to be abuse.

My journey toward healing started when I found some articles from psychology journals about mother-son incest. I read that when mothers abuse kids it often happens while they’re taking care of them. Mothers who abuse boys often use their sexuality to allure them. I remember two phrases: "unboundaried caregiving" along with "unconscious or semi-conscious seduction." That's when I finally was able to see that it wasn’t about how bad I was. “She did do something bad to me. Maybe it's not all just me, and how disgusting I am.” Then finally I started heading in the right direction, toward healing. I’ll share more later, but here’s the big picture.

My first memories are of her and our naked naptimes and a body-part-touching game. I was about six. Then as I approached puberty, whatever was broken in her seemed to activate. Then I had frequent rashes, and she used her caregiving as an opportunity. After I hit puberty, it was voyeurism and lots of incidental touching and brushing and giving me erections and making sure I kept them. This was a feature of bedtimes, when I slept naked under a sheet and lay there with my erection and her leering. All of that felt like my fault, because I was so bad, and so perverted. She taught me to tango with her. The last thing I remember her doing was putting her tongue in my mouth, when I was about fifteen. That stayed with me when I just thought I was disgusting and a sex-crazed pervert I was. I remembered that, and there was just no way to talk myself out of what it was. It was wrong. I knew that. She gave me a French kiss. My first one.

When I was a little boy I searched for incest stories at the library. Most of the ones I found were by women, and the perpetrators were all men. The abuse they described was awful, and there seem to be a lot of overt sex acts when the perpetrator is a man. It’s just different when the perpetrator is a woman. I guess Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus when they abuse kids, too. I thought since I always had an erection hadn’t been raped there wasn’t anything really wrong. Except me.

I’m a middle-aged man from cowboy country, and the way I was raised men dealt with pain like this: ignore it, deny it, laugh at it, die from it, then cry, THEN ask for help. I’m asking for help these days, and I hope you will too.

I felt alone and like a monster that had to work overtime to make itself pass as a human.

I remember reading long ago that survivors "often have confusing feelings." That’s absolutely true. But I didn't realize that “confusing feelings” included the fact that my own abuse was the most arousing thing that had ever happened to me. It's no surprise to me now that I was masturbating daily by the time I was eight or so, and that my own abuse was usually the main attraction in my head.

I sometimes wanted it, what my mother did. I often wanted it, really. That is in fact exactly the sort of thing that the writer was talking about. Except my feelings weren’t confusing. To me it was just iron-clad proof I was bad. But really, I wasn’t the one who sexualized me too soon and against my will, and what else was I supposed to masturbate to? Milfs? Oh, wait…

My sense of humor runs dark. I figure yours might too, and you wouldn’t mind. That’s why I gave the blog its name. I hope you take it how I mean it. I figure there’s enough heaviness to go around. If I’m addressing pain and looking for healing, I think it just feels like wearing a muzzle not to joke about it. To me it feels like defeat, not to joke about something. But when I notice that something funny comes to mind about abuse, if I stop and think about it there’s almost always something that hurts. Humor is a good pain-detector. I’ve learned how to handle the pain better than I used to be able to. I’ve struggled my whole life with substance abuse and bulimia, and disordered eating.

Now I know that masturbating about my abuse the way I was is very common, and some of you can directly identify. For a long time I kept that in the bank vault in my head, where I kept everything that proved I was bad. Maybe I haven't even said that to my therapist. I've said that I liked it sometimes, but never that I wanted it. I'm pretty sure you understand me, or at least can accept the fact that my psyche had that reaction, and not shame or judge me for it. I didn’t pick that reaction. Neither did you, if you have any shame like that.

I wanted to share that in the first post. They say you’re only as sick as your secrets.

Wow, did that make me feel sick the first time I heard that phrase. I’m made out of secrets. I don’t want to be, anymore. For me personally that little non-confession is really as shameful a thing as I know of in my own psyche. For someone else it might not be a big deal, but to me that was very hard to acknowledge. I'm telling you it because you might have something like that that's so shameful that you think it can't possibly be ok to feel how you're feeling. It is. Shame is like that. Different for everyone. If someone abused you, whatever feelings you have about it are ok. Please talk to someone you trust.

When I began saying out loud to a few friends that I was an incest survivor and that I need healing and help, everything started to get easier. It finally felt like I knew what the problem was. It was very hard, the first time I said that phrase out loud to another person who didn’t already know.

You know what? It felt good. It felt like the opposite of shame. It felt freeing and clean.

This was a little bit like saying hello and introducing myself. I’ll get a glass of water and share a bit more, if you don’t mind. Thank you!