You know I am just going to forget that about everything that has ever happened to me. All the abuse just ...poof! gone. Then I can just start fresh and clean once again. I can just think freely good thoughts instead of ones that haunt me all the time. Instead of acting...ooooh! Instead of ACTING like things are alright I will just BE alright! I will FORCE myself to be alright. I will be interesting to people. I will beable to hold a conversation while visiting others at their homes or in church or in a store instead of just being shy. OH! and I will ask the waiter or waitress for ANYTHING I need or my wife needs instead of backing off! And I will force myself to be comfortable around other men. I mean geez we all put our pants on the same way don't we? One pant leg at a time!! (new thought: maybe it is just ME who does it that way!?) I will force myself to be a new person. I mean all my abusers were able to force me then why can't I do it? FORCE myself to be alright!

Terry

Terry,
Everything that you mentioned I have, seems like it has always been that way! I do notice that it is getting better with time and some PTSD training. The training is a privete hospital where they have 3 week classes on how to deal with PTSD...Elizabeth Vermilyua put together the educational treatment plan and wrote a self help book on the plan...Growing Beyond Survival...check out the book or the hospital...hospital is more fun!!!!! They teach you all kinds of things like: getting the flashbacks to stop, stop panic attacts, dissocation, imagery, etc....and the stuff really works!!!! 16 months ago....I couldn't even eat in a restaurant with out panic attacts...now I can go in using imagery and even send things back!!! You can learn how to forget it for most of the time using control techniques but you got to be trained to use them! I read the book and it would be some help but now 3 weeks of 8 hours a day training works a little better!!!! If you are tired of being too freaked out...try a good hospital, with a good PTSD program...you can't help learning something good...they run groups of 12 through at a time...so you get to talk to other survivors during brakes and learn their tricks...which were amazing combined with the teachers...go for it!!!!!

Eddie

Sounds like a place to start, make yourself alright. In part because you are alright, it just does't feel that way because of what happened to you when you were younger. I feel similar to you. I want to erase the whole thing. I am not what they did to me.
I am worthy of Love and so are you.
I wish you and your families and all the families a Merry Christmas.

WE DID NOTHING WRONG! WE WERE JUST KIDS!

God Bless You Redsongbird -

GetEddie - good call on the Growing Beyond Survival! I went to yahoo and found a site w more information on that. I wish you good health, man.
http://www.sidran.org/catalog/vegb.html

michaeljoseph - you are absolutely correct. We WERE just kids ... i am learning and crying more and more as i get acquainted w "Little John" and i am starting to unconditionaly appreciate him - He's tougher than I ever gave him credit for. He just gets scared.

MERRY CHRISTMAS
John

Thanks for the idea of that book. I will see if I can find it. And yes we all were just kids and none of it was our fault.

I just am having a hard time understanding myself right now. I decided to "be alright" and what happens? I ended up going to xxx bookstore and masturbate in front of some guy! (there was no contact) Then at the gym the other day I jack off in the shower (alone) and today I have a panic attack and can't even go in. Maybe it is better to not think I am alright. I don't want to do anymore acting out. I haven't been doing this at all now for about 3-4 years but this recent sexual assualt and then moving back to my hometown and spurred it on. (sigh)

I can't believe I even wrote what I did on here but if not here then probably not anywhere!

Terry

none of us are perfict, keep going forward,
dont look back I know it is hard, do it for yourself, acting out never made me feel good.
I pray you do not need to act out, and if the need arises you get away from it. It is not worth the pain.

Thanks Michael for the kind words in your post. I will remember it that acting out is NOT worth the pain it causes - that is for sure.


Terry

Terry,
I agree with Michael Joseph with not acking it out with other men...didn't you already have someone help you do that in Baltimore? I have done the acking out thing with other men and it really F__ked me up...BIG TIME...it took months and months and 3 weeks in a hospital to get over it!!! Once you start...it's very hard to stop!!!!! You are married, doing that is the quickest way not to be married anymore!
Terry, it's normal to want to do this but doing it with other men when you aren't gay is real bad for you! I have a small army of M.D.'s, P.H.D.'s, Pdocs, theraptists, etc. on the outside and the same in a good hospital that I can see or talk to on the phone or by E-mail...when ever I need to! They are the pros when it comes to this stuff and all I know about this comes right from them.
Terry they all say the same thing...all of them...100%...how can you go wrong here? So, I will tell you about one...the smartest...a 26 yo lady from the USSR...M.D...who has taken over the hospital from Elizabeth Vermilyua when she moved on to sign books and lecture. I have never met anyone like her...like she can read minds...I tested her many times and she would always pass the test...saying: Ed, Ed, you know that you are not...how you say it...telling it like it is...we don't have the time to play!!!!!!! The most important thing that she said and I asked her at 3 different times to make sure I got it right was: For most men acking it out is a very important part of recovery...your mind must do this to gain control...but unless you are gay..should not be done with or around other men! She also said if you are gay, you will know it and not be wondering about it?, whatever! But, she did tell me ways to ack it out with out men! Do it home in your mind while masterbating or while having sex with your wife or have your wife help you ack it out!!! She did say that after a while, you may grow past the need to ack it out and gain full recovery! You should let your wife know what is happening with you and get her help, if she really loves you...she will help!!!! But, she has got to know!!!!!!!!

Eddie