EP,
For many years, I wrote on malesurvivor.org's discussion boards, a site for males having experienced sexual abuse as either children or adults. I don't go there often now since a lot of men there are in their first awakenings of things still affecting them, and I tend to feel very powerless thinking of that place. There's a lot of pain there, and people's reaction to this would be similar to yours. That won't help the real issue. The real issue lies within me, in the buried and unhealed memories with my brother. He hurt me the first time, and UMS allowed my eyes to be open to see a similarity in my coworker's intent which scared the shit out of me. Since then, 2 days ago, I've not had such fears around him.
UMS (E3 actually) is doing its job. Thank God. I've lived with this fear of remembering for years, and about every hideout, mental or physical escape, and avoidance tactic came from this. Me trying to control and direct it while trying to heal, as I did in years past, was all fear leading me.
But it's also brought on some points of strength too. I was thinking of these while writing you here, as they don't rescue me from pain I feel, but they do give me some hope, joy, and peace. I'll hold onto those instead of digging, digging, and digging to only find pain. Heck, I even wondered if I had multiple personalities while communing with these other survivors since my closest contact on the site actually did have this. I'm finding we all have some shades of dissociation under stress, but multiple personalities go much, much deeper. Fear is what keeps them alive, so maybe Shannon is moving towards healthy integrations of old hurt parts of ourselves. That's one of my main reason for being on UMS, and it's definitely having an effect on me.
Thanks anyway for the suggestion, EP. I took time to reflect here. Been writing over 30 minutes now.
For many years, I wrote on malesurvivor.org's discussion boards, a site for males having experienced sexual abuse as either children or adults. I don't go there often now since a lot of men there are in their first awakenings of things still affecting them, and I tend to feel very powerless thinking of that place. There's a lot of pain there, and people's reaction to this would be similar to yours. That won't help the real issue. The real issue lies within me, in the buried and unhealed memories with my brother. He hurt me the first time, and UMS allowed my eyes to be open to see a similarity in my coworker's intent which scared the shit out of me. Since then, 2 days ago, I've not had such fears around him.
UMS (E3 actually) is doing its job. Thank God. I've lived with this fear of remembering for years, and about every hideout, mental or physical escape, and avoidance tactic came from this. Me trying to control and direct it while trying to heal, as I did in years past, was all fear leading me.
But it's also brought on some points of strength too. I was thinking of these while writing you here, as they don't rescue me from pain I feel, but they do give me some hope, joy, and peace. I'll hold onto those instead of digging, digging, and digging to only find pain. Heck, I even wondered if I had multiple personalities while communing with these other survivors since my closest contact on the site actually did have this. I'm finding we all have some shades of dissociation under stress, but multiple personalities go much, much deeper. Fear is what keeps them alive, so maybe Shannon is moving towards healthy integrations of old hurt parts of ourselves. That's one of my main reason for being on UMS, and it's definitely having an effect on me.
Thanks anyway for the suggestion, EP. I took time to reflect here. Been writing over 30 minutes now.
I want to be FREE!
