Now that I accept myself as being gay and now that I know I was abused in my mid teens (I used to consider what occurred to me in my mid teens as "thats just the way it was".) I wonder, is my sometimes combative nature linked to, mentally I'm still in my mid teens and still fighting with my mom? (few) True / False
Anger is derived from multiple places. And rather than focusing on the anger, consider focusing on fully embracing whom you are. Accepting yourself as gay is just the first step in becoming the person your supposed to be. Working through your childhood trauma also helps you personally develop. As you continue to define yourself, you may find your anger will continue to diminish. And if your fighting with your mom, so what? Everyone does!
Good points OnTheHighway. I was just reflecting, what makes me so angry at times? This last couple weeks a lady lied to me. So in private, when alone, I keep fighting with her. I'm asking myself why? Thus the post.
Imagine that you are in a swimming pool, and you have a beach ball in your hands. You're holding tight to that ball, and you're pushing the beach ball down into the water, trying to fully submerge the ball. It's resisting against you, of course, but you continue to apply more and more pressure to get the ball fully under the water. Eventually, as you know, the ball will slip out of your grasp and shoot up into the air in direct proportion to the amount of pressure you were applying to submerge it. Anger is like that. Bursts of anger over seemingly trivial things is a great example of this process, where the object of your real anger isn't the thing you lash out against. It's just where the pressure is able to go at the moment, so it releases there. But the source of the anger is actually elsewhere. I don't know if the real source of your anger is your mom, or your past abuse, or any other issue that you buried in the past. This forum isn't the best at determining those specific things because 1- we are not trained and licensed therapists, and 2- we don't really know you or have the ability to discuss all these matters in an effective way. If you really want to deal with these types of anger issues, I would suggest a therapist who is trained in anger management, PTSD, and childhood abuse. Take care. ride:
True I am not an angry person (anymore) but I recently started therapy with the intent of learning how to improve my memory and attention because I suspect I have ADHD (this is affecting me to the point of forgetting when the last time I talked to any of my loved ones was, at times being incapable of completing simple tasks like making breakfast bc I will forget what I'm doing halfway through and start something else, etc.) However when I began speaking with my therapist, she started asking me questions like "do you find yourself feeling hypervigilant, like you need to check and make sure you are safe?" "yes" "Do you still have dreams about times (specifically for me, but insert any bad experience here) when you lived with your dad?" "yes" "Do you have trouble with consistent sleep?" "no" "What about trouble with consistent eating habits?" "yes" "Do you feel frequently angry" "no" "Do you find yourself avoiding reminders of/ or talking about times when you lived with your dad?" "yes" All of what she was describing were red flags for the lasting emotional impact that living in an abusive household has on a person. I, too, knew that what I had experienced was abuse. I don't blame myself, I know that I am safer now and capable of being a new person with a good future, but just like everyone else, I approach my current problems and successes from what I have learned in life; except unlike other people, I learned a whole load of bullshit from my family! So she suggested that I may or may not have c-PTSD. If you still feel angry and you just can't let it go, it may be because that is just how you learned to operate because you were in an awful situation that demanded anger. You should look up some c-PTSD resources (try searching DSM 5 c-PTSD to find some more scientific results.) I may be jumping to conclusions but you should consider opening up about what happened to you to someone. Good diagram for your reference: my own little coping hell
Wow, really good replies. Lots to think about. And here I thought this was going to be a useless post. When I first came to ECs I thought, hey it's just a sexuality thing. Period. But as I found and iterated with other ECs members, primarily through PM (private messaging) and learned what others went through in their childhood and teen years, I concluded that I was abused in my mid teens. Abuse - this is a whole new revaluation. Its basically thinking about something in a whole new way. It's VERY INTERESTING to reflect on my 14-16 years of age, the primary time of major abuse for at the time I just thought hey this is life and this is how is it supposed to be and this is who I am supposed to be. I'm in my mid teens, why would I know what abuse is? No one to talk to, no info on it, no one looking out for me. This is why the movie Moonlight resonated with me. Getting back on track, not only did I not know about sexuality, I did not know about abuse. Now the frosting on the cake. I'm really beginning to put all the pieces together. I'm normally not an angry person - 95% not angry. But certain things set me off. And when I'm set off I cannot let it go. For instance, the spark that stated anger inside me, this lady lied to me. You want a fight, I'll give you a fight. This fight mentality occupies all my time. (just plain stupid, I know) What I asked myself was, I'm I really still fighting with my mom? I bet the answer is yes. About the suggestion to open up to someone. I have. I've brought people to tears with stories of what happened to me, 14-16 years of age. Example: Like being sent to a special school, after a "simple sexual" thing with a really cute guy, (he too was 14) and made to stand naked and whipped with towels - towels leave little to no trace (clever). It gets worse, believe me. How would I know this is called abuse and how would I know it's effects? My teen brain thinking was, I did something wrong with the other guy, I'm being punished. Teen brain thinking, plain and simple. See how all this explodes? One big picture is emerging. Sexuality, abuse, anger. (few)
It's one thing to accept you were abused, it's another to recognize the emotional scars it causes, then yet another to heal the wounds. Much anger is dissapaited as those wounds are healed. You express much about recognizing the abuse; but I am curious, where are you on your journey to healing those wounds?
My take on the very good and reflective questions. (Aboard the star ship Enterprise: damage report Mr. Scott. here it is captain. the main engine.......) a) Only the last 6 months do I recognize that what I went through, 14-16 years of age, was abuse. b) Only the last 3 to 4 weeks have I come to think there are emotional scars. I'm beginning to think, "there must be scars." c) Beginning to think about a plan to heal the scars. Do not know what the plan is. This whole thing about me is like digging a hole in lose sand. As I dig, more sand comes in on the side. Even this post has gotten me thinking. What is normal? I'm beginning to think, I've never lived a normal life. A life where I find a person to bond with and love.
Male sexual abuse is far more common than we realized. According to current stats, about 1 in 5 men (depending on whose studies you're reading) were abused as children. So the problem is pretty pervasive. I do think your current emotional responses are likely tied to the abuse, though less about being locked into the teen aged behavior patterns and more likely associated with the feelings coming up as a result of recent awareness of the impact of the abuse. The challenge is, treating it properly is a subspecialty; treating male survivors is very different from treating female survivors. Additionally, there appear to be differences in treating gay male survivors from straight male survivors. But not a lot of research has been done on this. It is also common (but by no means universal) that children who have been sexually abused, even by non-family members, are more likely to have other issues going on in the home (neglect, abuse, single parent household, other issues that cause stress). As a result, these factors combined to cause a complex web of issues for the abuse survivor. So "normal" for the survivor often isn't "normal" compared to other families. That said, it is quite possible, with work, to overcome these things and get to a place of healing. Good therapy is key, and that means finding a therapist who has extensive experience and specialty training in working with male abuse survivors. A real willingness to explore yourself and go into what contributed to who you are is also necessary. This stuff isn't easy or comfortable to talk about, but doing so has a dramatic effect in helping you to let go of the feelings. One place to start: I strongly recommend Mic Hunter's wonderful book "Abused Boys". Though it's a pretty old book, it's one of the best I've found in helping survivors understand their experiences. Mike Lew's "Victims No More" is also good. There are some self-help discussion communities for abuse survivors, both real-world and online. The challenge with these is that many men seem to get stuck in their identity as an abuse survivor, and spending time in those communities can, for some, cause them to stay immersed in their injuries instead of meaningfully working through the issues and coming to a place of understanding and letting go of the issues.
Wow, Chip, great contribution, thanks. A lot to reflect on. So I'm tooling along, becoming more comfortable with being gay, feel I'm moving out of "confused" and "pain" and "anger" phase of discovering who I am. I'm gay, no doubt about it. I'm thinking time to put together a go forward plan - dating! Yes! So one day, reading Will Fellows book, Farm Boys. Lots of highlighter, penciled remarks in margins. Some laughter, a few OMGs, tears, shaking, I come to the account of one gay man, Heinz Koenig. When 16, Heinz, who is gay, was taken out the barn. His hands tied to a beam over his head. His shirt was torn off him and his pants were pulled down. He was then whipped by his dad with a belt. Heinz was left tied in a vertical position all night. I wont spoil what happened next. My penciled in notes stated, ~"this is clearly abuse." Reflecting, because it's physical it's easy to see and identify. I went on to say I was 80% mentally and 20% physically abused - shot from the hip percentages. No one sees mental abuse. There's no whip wounds on flesh. But mental abuse is there and it's very real and it's very powerful. Compounding my 80% mental & 20% physical abuse is said abuse was masked with love. My mom, the primary abuser, loved me very much. But me, trying to change who I was/am, a gay teen, to meet her expectations, is/was just plan wrong. In her defense, her intentions where based upon the enviroment in this country, USA, and the general feeling of what happens to gay men in general. She never laid a hand on me. But it was 1.5 years of mental abuse - what did you do with that other boy (we were both 14), your lying to me, I don't believe you, you know we had such high expectations for you, on and on and on and on and on. Then she threw up her arms in frustration and sent me to a "special school" where more mental and then physical abuse occurred. (Swallowing hard, tears, do you know what happens to an undersized, effeminate (gay) kid (teen) in an all boys boarding school? (I'm beginning to shake, I cant go there.)) This is abuse. (captain, the warp engines are about to explode, she cant take it any longer. Scottie just a little longer, control brainwashed, control) By 16/17 I was very much like the character Chiron in the movie Moonlight, WITHDRAWN & NO LOVE. This "abuse" situation is just "something" I had not planned for. I am spent from dealing with this sexuality situation. Now this. Do I send a bill for therapy to the Baptist Church down the street? And as OnTheHighway suggests, the "dots" will start to connect. I'm beginning to see "things" more clearly. Uggg
So often separate incidences of emotional abuse and physical abuse are interrelated. Emotional abuse can cause self esteem and confidence issues. This can lead to a situation where a person with lowered confidence finds themselves in compromising positions that may lead to more emotional abuse as well as physical abuse. Accepting that your gay is a great way to build your confidence and self esteem. You made yourself vulnerable in doing so. In turn, as you gain comfort with yourself as a gay man, you rebuild your confidence and self esteem. The more vulnerable I became and the more risks I took after fully embracing my sexuality, the more confidence and self esteem I found within myself. Even when some of the risks did not turn out as planned, I brushed off the dirt, got back up and continued forward. As I rebuilt my self esteem, I gained the strength to reflect on my prior experiences of abuse (whether both emotional and physical), and come to terms with the events that occurred. With the strength I built, I found closure with one person, by proactively finding him and confronting him; I found personal closure from another through discussions with others whom had crossed similar paths; and today I am proactively working to improve the final piece of the puzzle by rebuilding the relationship with my mother. Its all an ongoing journey......
