My Life story

What use is a Blog on CSA if you cant get help on how to recover if you have been affected by Childhood Sexual Abuse.
So here is My life as I remember it.  I cant of course give to much detail as, well you know the story by-line, names and places have been changed to protect the innocent.

It began.
Well I cant remember how young I was, or who started  it, but what I can tell you is that I was abused by Men and woman, from young to the age of 19.
WOW people exclaim 19, yeah, isn't it crazy that you can be abused when you are almost a man?  Well yeah it is possible when you realize how intensely Perpetrators get into your head and control your life.
I was an equal opportunity victim, male and female alike had there way with me.
Strange that you can be raped by a woman? well yes you can, men can be raped.

I run away with myself, let me slow down.

I'll start at the end and go back, I think that this will be easier to understand.
Until recently I was a rage filled alcoholic, that was addicted to Porn, Online dating, Exercise, Work, Procrastination, Face-book, Rage violence and many other things including food.
I had low self esteem, no self confidence, and I lied all the time. I lied to customers and my family.  I also had no friends.  Funny thing was that all the people thought that I was a great guy, life and soul of the party. But hey that was after a few drinks.

Life was confusing and one of the main themes that ran through my head all the time was, THERE MUST BE MORE TO LIFE THAN THIS. And why the hell am I so different to everyone else.  I could never figure this out.  I was doing all the things that others did, but could not get ahead.  My business was just ticking over, My family was falling apart, mainly because of the alcohol, and life just generally sucked.  I felt useless, unloved, even though I had a loving wife.  I was depressed, and had wisely sold my firearm as I had put the barrel into my mouth a couple of times and contemplated pulling the trigger. It was a flashback I got a few weeks ago talking to a survivor friend of mine.
Life was something that I was not to happy living, but I knew that I wanted to survive.

One fine day, I really made an ass of myself, in a drink induced coma, and for some reason decide to give up drinking.  It was, I must tell you, one of the most difficult things that I have ever done in my life. It was I swear easier to stop smoking. Well I managed, one day at a time as they say in the classics.

Odd thing is that my life did not improve, only thing that did was my cycling times, I did my best ever time on the Argus (A 105km race in South Africa) I didn't quite get the sub 3 hour race I had hoped for, but I got  a 3, 01, damn missed it by 2 minutes.
Well beside this mile stone, I was still a miserable unhappy Git, well sober Git.
It was to be another 4 years before I finally found the answer.

Fast forward a few years (I won't bore you with the details) and I finally came to a point where my wife of 18 years decided that it was over because she had had enough of living with this man that did nothing for her (including loving her) We went into therapy after she once again caught me doing the Porn thing, and I had promised her it was over.
But try as I might I just couldn't shake the need to go online and look at those artificial nasty woman.  Odd, when I thought about it I had a beautiful wife in the bedroom down the passage but I would rather do the porn.
You know how it is with addictions, no matter what you do you cant shake the need to do it, as hard as you try, it just slowly draws you back, like a chocolate in the fridge, it just calls your name quietly persistently, relentlessly.
Well, we are in therapy, and I let slip that I did it because I was abused as a child. Jaws drop, people stare at me blankly,  well truth is that I had run out of excuses.  I had been caught doing wrong so many times, and had lied so many times, no one believed me, and here again they thought I was just trying to cover my ass.

Well I eventually got tossed out the house, and after a few weeks managed to con my way back.  Things changed for a few weeks but then it was back to square one. I was addicted to something or another and ignoring my family.
One fine day, I amazingly get home early from work and we are sitting in the lounge in front of that box that removes all creativity from your life (TV) and My wife is  screening the channels when she says
"here watch this" ......and switched on the Oprah show.
It was the programme about the 200 men.
I sat there my jaw dropped and I was catching flies.  It was as though these men were me, they had the same problems that I had, they thought the same things that I did, they said things I did. These men were............. ME.
How on earth could that be.
I had lived 47 years with this "secret".   For 47 years I had thought that I was a pervert, gay, bi, a paedophile, unloved, weird.  There were these contradictions in my mind, I knew that I loved woman but did not enjoy sex like the 'regular guys' I was this weird thing that confused myself.

Well I watched the 200 men and that day on May the 7th 2011, was my rebirth.
From May I went through the most intense mental anguish, I suffered flashbacks night mares,  depression and immense emotional pain.
Hell I was a mess.  I had prior to his tried it all, Church, Pub, Booze, Therapy. Man I went through the mills.
But right at the end of it was a site called Male Survivors, that saved my life
How is the world supposed to deal with this if we are constantly told to, Suck it up,.... Forget about it,.... Oh just deal with it, .......Do you have to make such a thing about this, .......Why don't you just leave it.  These are all the things men are told to do when they talk about their sexual abuse.  My Personal favourite is THIS DOESN'T HAPPEN TO BOYS, yeah sure.

There are so Many myths about Childhood sexual abuse, and I feel that is the one thing that we need to work on in educating the public.  If we demystify Sexual abuse, then we can start to educate parents about this.
Most of the time it is a person that the family knows, this is another myth, that we are abused by Strangers, this give the kids a vision of some perv in a trench coat, pockets laden with sweets, waiting outside the school. WRONG. Its the Guy that comes into your home and, is the nice guy that everyone likes, he is the uncle that visits a lot and spends a lot of time with the kids in isolation.  It is the older boy that spends a lot of time with your younger son,  Ask yourself why a 15 year old wants to be around a 11 year old.  Its weird man.

Its not the abuse that I want to focus on here, but rather the effects of the abuse that are important.
I spent a lot of my life denying that I was abused till I actually started to believe it myself. Ain't life strange.

TO BE CONTINUED...........................

This is one hard way to get things done but I will come back and continue writing my story as I get the time and the memories. 
I am so happy to be a part of this new movement to help male survivors.  Men world wide are getting the courage to write their stories, step out of the shadows and help other men that have endured the same pain in their lives.
It might take a long time, but we are a lot further down the raod now than we were 10 years ago.