I've just read your post again Cement, and it gets better with reading.

Where else can survivors vent their anger, fear, thoughts and emotions in safety, we've raged at our families and friends for far too long.
So we come here and sit typing away, thinking about what we say and really mean.
Sometimes the anger flares and is thrown back, but you're right - can we be expected to be any safer than the world at large ?

What we can expect here, I hope, is an understanding of why we write - what we write might not be so important.

But 'why' certainly is. We write to sort out in our own minds what we feel. The detail is secondary.

It's a reflection on good therapy, where we are helped to feel the emotions of our situation and our past. This is the same, we need to experience the emotions to be able to sort out the turmoil in our minds, and here we do it by writing about our anger, our shame, our sorrow - and our victories and success.

The best writing here is emotional, I read it and cry helplessly. But I stop, think about it and go away uplifted.
Why ? I believe it's because I realise that the author of that emotional piece has just got his head around whatever was troubling him and has also gone away uplifted.

And to write in a climate of always wondering what others are going to think is not going to be as effective.

Cement, you said "Silence is my enemy" it's mine to, and it was winning it's battle for over thirty years. Not any more it aint !

As some famous Frenchman once said -
"I disagree with what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."
Voltaire.

Lloydy

Thank you so much, Lloydy. Thank you JM, Rax, Sleepy, Wuame, SoCalJohn, MattAndrew and especially Bob.

WOW,...I think I might just continue to post.

Cement,

Your voice is heard. Whoa nelly, who let your horse out of the coral? Go for it, man. Me? Still sitting on the fence in fear of the horses. Got a light, Mac?

I think your post should be cross-posted to the Poetry Topic.

Jer

Clement,
I tried posting to your survivor story but for some reason I was blocked from doing so. I want you to know that your last paragraph concerning your desire for your sister could have been written by me. It's only now I realize how sickening it should be to have that desire. In fact, nearly your whole story is similar to mine. I remember the day I felt like that used condom. I looked up to her, geeze she was my big sister, but I couldn't understand why she would throw me to the curb all of a sudden. As I look back I never got over that. But I withdrew into my own confused world. I never acted out. I'm only now realizing the true effects of what happened to me those many years ago. Take care my friend.
mike

Cement, you are a modern day poet. Your posting addressed so many of my own thoughts and feelings, and did it in an almost lyrical form. Yes, I sensed a call to arms, but only in the most pure and altruistic sense. You are truly uplifting. Thank you.

Cement talks about still wanting the (sick) "love" of his sister. It introduces me to the still nascent thought that I'm drawn through preoccuption and fantasy to the closeness I felt to my oldest brother who sexually abused me. It ended when I was eight and he was fifteen. Cement struck a chord with me on this one.

It all ended because I was so upset by what we were doing. I cried and cried because I knew that what we were doing was bad and I was afraid that I would go to hell. (I was Catholic and was just making my first communion). He assured me that if anyone was going to go to hell it would be him. I wasn't really relieved. Even though I knew that it all was wrong...now I realize I felt an emptiness. I wasn't being abused anymore, but no positive attention now replaced the exploitive attention I was getting. I was terribly lonely all my growing-up years. A huge sad void existed in me.

I went away to college and confided my childhood abuse for the first time to someone...to a Catholic priest. Guess what? He did the same thing to me.

I am able to descirbe the macro of what happpened to me. I am ill-equipped to describe the micro of the effects that the abuse has had on me. A lot I can't see. Cement challenges me to look more closely.

I can't see. I want to see. I need a light.

When I approach these things I feel like a little boy again with a little boy's vocabulary, but I'm cut off from little boy feelings. My eyes stare and they're searching inside my head for something I can't find. I don't think my soul was murdered, but my mind, will, and emotions are certainly deeply wounded. Where are my wounds so that I can get the healing they need? That's what I'm searching for. I'm not looking for the salve, I'm still looking for the damn sores and bleeding wounds!

I read MS posts everyday. I haven't posted much recently. I dissociate myself from much of the pain I see here. I hover over your stories like many of us hover over the flashbacks and memories of what's happening to "that little boy there" performing fellatio on his brother or being sodomized by the neighbor.

This is where I am now.

I want to be a little boy. I didn't get to be a little boy. I'm forty-six years old. The little boy is looking for his voice. He doesn't know what to say. He's dumb-founded by what he has to tell. Who will believe him? How can he describe what he shouldn't know?

This is all I know to say.

Thank you for being here.

G.

JamesMichael,

It’s amazing how we can express ourselves when we feel safe.

This is what so many of us need to deal with. We didn’t know how to deal with the emotions as a child. I guess if we could go back to being that child we think that we could change the situation. That we cannot do. We can never go back to being that child. We can imagine it, relive it, experience the terror, the pain, the anger, open the wounds and let ‘em bleed, but we will never be that child again.

We separate the adult from the child to relate to what is going on, but that is a figurative idea. We are one with the little child, we are the little child and the man. What we can do is deal with the child’s emotions as an adult. As children, we simply did not have the ability to deal with all that happened. A little boy’s vocabulary is insufficient to deal with what happened. You cannot explain it as a child.

So take the little boy by the hand, go back and connect feelings to the events. Let that little boy grow up. You can’t be an adolescent and an old fart.

Devon

Cement,

I read your survivor story. Many of us have gone through that "gut wrenching" feeling when we get close to "feeling", or close to a breakthrough. It's a positive experience. I found that out when I was dealing with my own abuse. When I could write down or tell someone about a particular event, I went through the whole range of emotions. I felt fear, anger, pleasure & pain, and disgust, and then I broke down and cried. Once I associated the feelings with the event I could move on. I never could bring up all of those emotions and cry about an event a second time.

I'm glad you found a place where you feel safe to deal with your abuse.

Devon

This shared experience, whether hopeful or helpless, is our legacy to every child who may need it.

I have posted on the poetry forum. I hope you will check it out and I hope it will reach you.

Man, MJ that is really profound, beautiful & true.
That one's suitable for framing, and meditating on. I'm gonna copy it over to Word. Thanks!

Wuame