"Oh yeah, P.R.S. visited last night and insisted on hanging out with me all night again. He is a rather annoying chap but after all is said and done he is still a friend."
I think I would rather have him as an enemy if the truth be told. And speaking of truth telling I guess now is as good a time as any for me to come clean.
Many of you know my story but for those of you that don't, here goes.
In many of my previous blogs I have mentioned my insane childhood without giving details. At the time I wrote those entries I felt it wasn't really necessary to divulge more other than saying it was indeed insane . Now I feel it is the right time.
My childhood I suppose was like most when looking from the outside in. We were the typical "traditional" family unit, the one that many in politics like to refer to so readily. My father worked while my mother took care of the house. Originally there were three of us kids. My sister, who died of Leukemia at age 5, my brother who is 4 years older, and me. We went to a fundamentalist Baptist church, one that adhered to the literal interpretation of the Bible, twice on Sundays and once on Wednesday evenings. Sound familiar? We could have been the poster family for the Traditional Values Coalition. That was the view from the outside. My experience from the inside was markedly different.
At the age of 8 I started being sexually abused. I still do not know who it was that initiated this and at this stage of my recovery it isn't really important. After while, someone or someone(s) started to facilitate my being "farmed out" to others for their pleasure. This took a decidedly serious turn when that "pleasure" became, I guess, insane. At some point in my 9th year I began to be forced to submit to being exploited sexually for the purpose on being filmed. In my 10th year or so that exploitation slowly changed into me being sexually tortured as they were filming and as things stand now I feel that eventually I was also forced to submit to playing some type of role in snuff films. By my 12th year I was no longer "in demand" or even desirable for them as I had reached puberty.
For many years after that I very effectively suppressed my experiences and by extensive huge swaths of my childhood. Like many too, I did not "wake up" to the fact I had been abused until I was 47 years old. That happened in the fall of 2004. I guess I was a text book case of how that all unfolded as well. My life and my long term relationship at the time had slowly begun to unravel some years before, not to say that the relationship was healthy before that. It wasn't. My partner at the time had been a meth addict for years and an addict of many drugs before that. I also had my addictions too. And plenty of them. Anyways to make a very long story more concise, it was the Spring of 2004 that I started feeling and articulating the need for finding a safe place in which I could exist. By the summer I had unwound my 25 year relationship with my partner and ended it. He left and within a month my abuse memories started to surface. Luckily I had already been with my therapist for a number of years so we were quickly able to handle the change in direction. However, in hindsight, it did take a number of years for me to find my feet in the ensuing chaos of it all.
I do feel much better these days and more functional too most of the time. However, I do still have those days when my life seems just as chaotic as it did in the early stages of my recovery. So I guess that begs the question to be asked; would I change anything if I had a choice? I have actually asked myself that question many times especially when I am in what I call "my personal hell." The answer in the end is always the same. No, I wouldn't change a thing.
Am I glad that I ended what was in reality an insane long term relationship? Yes. Am I glad that I woke up to my experiences? Definitely Yes. My life has become so much more sane now. This is not to say that it's all kittens chasing butterflies in the meadow. It isn't. Sometimes and maybe even most times it is messy and very very painful as anyone who reads my blogs can attest.
I have to say too that the gifts of my recovery have been many. I would have probably never started writing if I had not gotten into recovery. And writing has brought so much joy into my life!! I would not have gotten the gift of hope that one day I would be OK, that one day in the not too distant future I will actually have a life that is no longer affectively or realistically influenced by the fact of my childhood experiences. More inportantly, that on the way to that day, I would have learnt that living in the present is what life is actually suppose to be all about.
And finally, I would have never gotten the gift of hope that I could have a sane and healthy loving relationship with someone without losing myself in the process. Something I am now attempting to build with Dino.
I guess the bottom line to all of this is that by being in recovery I have finally gotten my life back. And at the end of the day that is all I really want.
Well not really. I also want a country house with 2 acres of land so I can have a proper garden; and money, don't forget about money. Not a lot of it. I don't want to be greedy. Just enough of it so I no longer have to worry.
Oh, yeah, while I'm at it. I want hair. Not Hair Club for Men hair either. I want my old hair back. Well not really. What I want is the wavy thick dark hair I had for about the first 3 minutes after I was born. OK, while I'm in dream mood. Goddess, could you get rid of all the hair that incessantly grows in places that it never use to. Cool!!!
Thanks Big G!!
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