*sob* Why people do such cruel things to children, I have no clue.

I am glad that the boy sought out help from CYS and I hope he is protected now.

Ugh!

the mother needs to be put away for a while!

Andrew and others,



I think it's a natural tendency to look at the cases of other guys to draw comparisons, and in some ways that can be useful. It's in this way that we discover, for example, that we are not alone and that others have had similar problems. We can learn from the experiences of others and it's empowering to find that our comments can be helpful to others. Comparison is a way of discovering similarities and differences and it opens a lot of useful doors for us.

Where we have to draw the line, however, is on matters of value and judgment. We have to remember that our own abuse experience is of special importance to us specifically because it's ours. This case of abuse is the one that has hurt us. This is the one from which we need to recover. That makes it crucial to us, and this importance isn't touched by whatever others may have endured or suffered. This is where we really do need to avoid comparisons - when it comes to denying ourselves the right to our feelings, and even to our recovery, just because there is someone else whom we can see as having suffered more. How do you put a numerical value on someone's suffering after all?

Much love,
Larry

Andrew,

I talked to my T about this once, since I felt like I was just being a whiner for what happened to me compared to what happened to some others. I mean, it wasn't like I went through a horrific near death experience that we read about in the papers. So I was thinking "What do I have to whine about? I'm still alive."

But my T used a comparison to a burn victim for me. If a person gets horrible burns on both arms, then that hurts a lot. But if another person gets horrible burns on only one arm, that still hurts a lot, too. Yes, it's not as severe as having more burns over other parts of your body, but it's still a severe injury. It's the same with sexual abuse. While all our cases vary in degrees of severity, they all hurt. Our hurt is our pain, and we should not discount it.

Wes, and everyone,



Actually, we have more than one teenager/young man here on the site who is struggling with exactly this problem. Every time we post and show our outrage at this terrible crime and our compassion for its victims it's like reaching out to those guys with a big safe hug. Imagine how that feels. Some of them don't know what a safe hug is.

Much love,
Larry