After being raped as a pre-teenage boy, I obviously sensed that things were never going to be the same. I just felt different about myself. Especially as I got a little older, into my teenage years where "boy becomes man" and sex and one's sexuality becomes a huge obsession. I don't really want to get into all the specific stuff I learned in therapy about how this experience altered my emotional growth and maturity but it obviously MESSED everything up about me and my opinion of myself.
I felt DIRTY...I was now:"Less Than" anyone else. I was not openly talking about this to anyone and wouldn't for nearly 15 years but it influenced me in so many ways. The bottom line is that I blamed myself...it was all my fault, for example...my fault for being in that place at that time. And I should have resisted more...which was a totally unrealistic, bordering on an insane thought to begin with, because it was 3 grown men assaulting one 12 year old boy, who they essentially ambushed. They realistically might have killed me all the way instead of just killing my self-esteem, my self-worth and a large portion of my SOUL...No, I need to accept the fact that I got off easy-
Was I gay? I had just had sex like a gay person, albeit against my will so did this make me a homo-sexual? Did the fact that I had been raped now mean that I was GAY? Remember...these are the thoughts, questions and fears of a 12 year old boy. I had no idea what to make of this horror that was just visited up on me. Honestly I spent a great deal of then next 3 DECADES wrestling with my sexuality because this had happened. I then allowed myself to be lured into a sexual encounter with a high school girl from my church youth group because I was trying to prove I wasn't Gay. So I lost my real virginity because this had happened. And yea, I was 12 years old when I had sex for the first time and it felt awkward, dirty and just plain WRONG...and I thought that is what I deserved.
The reality in all this was that all my beliefs about relationships, sex and the like were distorted and incorrect. I never did have any clue what a healthy relationship was supposed to be like. For years I believed with all my heart that I was NOT to enjoy sex...that my soul purpose for participating in it was to atone for what I DID when I GOT RAPED!! I felt terribly guilty if I felt any pleasure what so ever in the act of having sex. It was a punishment...not something I should try and to enjoy.
For years the mere image of myself in the mirror or in a family photograph was REPULSIVE to me...this was truly the beginning of the HATE. The same HATE that drove me to the brink of eternity in my desire to take my own life. The memory fueled the anger, the rage and began building that HATE...and it never ever let up. I went through a period of time in my sophomore year at college where i was so angry at myself that i would drink, alone in my apartment then slice myself up with a Marine K-Bar knife. I have the scars to this day all over both arms and hands. It was like I needed to see myself bleed...
Even an ocean of alcohol and an arsenal of drugs couldn't even begin to numb the pain that began that fateful day.
But please, don't get me wrong and I will post more on this aspect of it in another post: There were positive things that eventually developed from this experience. For one, i am a much more sensitive, caring and understanding person because this happened to me. Even though I hated myself and those men that did this to me...I was much more tolerant and accepting of other people who might be perceived as "different" and this included Gays. I defended those who were different or weak, a habit that still continues to this day. I am the self appointed ANGEL of Lost Causes and LOSERS...
Eventually through therapy in the late 1980's, I was able to sort through a few basic things and healed a bit. But I still had not really begun to heal and I was still drink heavenly. No healing, at least the start of TRUE healing for me was still nearly 20 years into the future.
With all this heart-ache and all this pain, I still had no idea that the real HELL of my life hadn't really even begun yet. But it was coming....like a blacked out Freight-Train hurtling through a pitch black tunnel toward me that mother f**ker was a-coming all right. And the true question was whether I would survive what happened NEXT!
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