Child Abuse Story From Anonymous Male

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Child Abuse Story From Anonymous Male

by Anonymous Male
(Location Undisclosed)

Effect of Abuse on Relationships:
I'm a male, now in my mid 40s. Throughout my childhood I thought I was happy. My mother cared for me, providing me with love and everything I could want. As my father was not around (I never found out what happened to him) this meant she had to work and would often leave me with a neighbour's daughter (in her late teens). I didn't think anything of this as she treated me like the little brother she never had. The only thing that stands out from my childhood was that I was a loner, having very few friends. As a teenager, I didn't have any serious relationships, and those I did have never got physical - I wasn't interested.

Roll forward to university. Here I had a few relationships, but these were never successful, with me either ending them when they started to get physical or being such a failure that the girl ended it. At one point I even wondered if I was gay and tried relationships with men, but those were even worse.

A couple of years ago, I met a lady who I was keen on dating. She appeared interested in me, so we started going out. Well eventually, the inevitable happened, we went to bed. That's when my whole world fell apart. As she started to explore my body I started to panic and had visions of a young child (me) being abused by a teenage girl (the neighbour). Fortunately for me, she realised something was wrong and we gave up for the night.

For the next few nights I had a constant stream of horrific nightmares of me being abused by the neighbour and her boyfriend. A few weeks later I was assaulted and r*ped by 2 men. After that, I could contain it no more, and one evening when my friend came around I just broke down and told her everything about my nightmares (but not the recent incident). Unfortunately, despite her initial attempts to support me, it got too much for her and she left me, telling me I needed help. That was when I decided to get help.

Since then, I've had counselling and uncovered the fact that while I thought my childhood was happy and normal, it was anything but that - I was abused from age 4 or 5 to 15 by a variety of people. I've come to realise that the abuse I suffered caused me to have a distrust of women - hence my relationships not working. I now feel able to cope with my past, but am still unable to conquer my fear of relationships, which really upsets me when I see colleagues and other happy families around me.

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Child Abuse Story From Anonymous Male

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Apr 29, 2009

Part 1: Issues of trust...
by: Darlene Barriere - Webmaster

Given what you lived through as a child, your distrust of females is certainly understandable. What can make an intimate relationship even more difficult for you now is the fact that your first memory of childhood sexual assault came about during intimacy. Our bodies and minds don't easily set aside such situations; and as such, we will often pull back in order to avoid the pain or a re-living of the episode. You've had counselling for the abuse, which has helped you to understand and deal with what happened to you. Now the process of re-building—or in your particular case, perhaps just building—trust in women begins; but only if that's what you really and truly want.

Yes, trust is earned, but if one paints every member of the opposite sex with a broad stroke and deems them all untrustworthy, it is likely that is what one will continue to see. There is a saying I will share with you: What we fear the most we create. If you believe all women are untrustworthy, chances are you'll only find women who are untrustworthy. If you believe all women will in some way hurt you, chances are you will find only women who will hurt you. Issues like this have a great deal to do with self-esteem. It can be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you don't believe you're worthy of a trustworthy, caring and loving woman, you will choose someone who doesn't have those qualities. On the same side of that coin, when a trustworthy, caring and loving woman does come along, a man lacking in self-esteem will drive her away with his actions and inactions. He may not even realize he is doing this. The same goes for women-men and same-gender relationships.

See Part 2: Issues of trust continued... below.

Darlene Barriere
Webmaster: www.child-abuse-effects.com
Violence & Abuse Prevention Educator
Author: On My Own Terms, A Memoir

Apr 29, 2009

Part 2: Issues of trust continued...
by: Darlene Barriere - Webmaster

You already know that trustworthy, loving and caring women exist, because you had the opportunity to be with one such woman. She was intuitive. She responded appropriately when she saw that you were in some type of distress: she did not pursue further relations that night. She was considerate of your feelings and emotions. She did not pressure you. And while she did not stay in a relationship with you, she was honest about why, and she gave you sound advice. Those are not the traits of an untrustworthy woman; those are traits of a woman who knew she was in over her head and stayed true to herself. Yes, that hurt you, as you would have preferred she stick around and provide unending support. But in truth, had she not left, you may not have sough out the help you so desperately needed. Everything happens for a reason, even if for the life of us, we can't establish what that reason might be.

There is always risk associated with trusting someone. After all, people don't always do what we want them to do or what we expect them to do. There are never any guarantees that we won't be hurt along the way, even when we are in loving and trusting relationships. Stuff happens. It's how we deal with that "stuff" that's important.

I've learned that lack of trust in others is really a lack of trust in our own ability to deal with the situation if it ever arises. I've learned to trust myself to do what needs to be done if someone ever does hurt me, without looking for them to hurt me. I've learned that no matter how emotional I might get, I have the strength to carry on if such a day arises. You may require more counselling in order to help you with these trust issues, Anonymous Male. I can only offer you words of encouragement and some of the lessons I've learned along the way. I hope they help.

Thank you for sharing your story with my visitors and me.

Darlene Barriere
Webmaster: www.child-abuse-effects.com
Violence & Abuse Prevention Educator
Author: On My Own Terms, A Memoir

Apr 29, 2009

Moving on in trust from the NOW time of your life will take time.
by: Maurice

You'll be fine, now that you have begun to share your childhood experiences and your life experiences in relatonships that did not work out. As in all situations it was not your fault. Your mother sadly trusted this neiobours child Teenager to care for you while she worked. The further one gose back Getting a child minder was taken for granted by people like your mother and Parents. Neighbours trusted each other and there fore having one baby-sit was an automatic trust in this Teenager. Who now to your detriment abused you at a whim even with her boyfriend. You certainly were not to blame or at fault in any way. Your mother meant well at the time. Sadly your Mother never asked you how you liked the Child minder, if she had then you would have been able to tell her the things she was doing to you over a period of years. Sadly now you accept you were abused during those years of your life. That is half the battle NOW anonymous you have accepted.It is agreat relieve as I can emphatise with you there as I only accepted that I was abused many years later too. Since I've done it my life has moved on and I with a little help from my friends know the real me is a beautiful man. Fully positive that I am a very capable of trusting myself and others as I live my life to the full each day I wake up. Anonymous Think Positive, Act Positive and Be Positive in all you do to live your life to the full. Let go of those sad and tragig memories not of your doing and the Nightmares will decrease in time. Darlene has spoken great words of love and affirmation to you in her comments. If you begin to believe in yourself and trust yourself then as Darlene says there are many/many trusting/caring/loving women out there waiting to be trusted by you. As that very caring sensitive woman put you back believeing in yourself and accepting the awfulness of the abuse that teenager did to you. Live well, laugh alot, love much Anonymous

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Child Abuse Story From Anonymous Male

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Child Abuse Story From Anonymous Male