I am a little intimidated by this site right now, but I bet I won't be by the end of this post.

I don't trust people. I have rages that are terrifying. I identify myself as a victim much of the time, even as I realize I am not. I sought this place out as a safe haven, but I never expected it to be any safer than the world at large.

I do not want rules, here, of all places, that I can't even understand; rules that could never stop a person if they are evil enough to prey on those here.

I just want to write. I want to express some truths for those here, if I can. I want to read others' true feelings and experiences so that I may resonate with them.

I want to scream in this wonderfully anonymous place, and I want to know that I am not screaming alone. Yet I am safe.

I need never say more than I want to. I need not censor myself. I need to purge when I need to purge, and I need to sing when I can find my voice.

I have heard the beautiful singing of other voices here, and I have found great courage in the pain.

This is a journey I didn't choose to embark upon, but I choose to question it. Will you join me?

Then - raise your voices in song, or scream in agony. Shout at the universe for justice or pray to God for mercy. Celebrate or moan or pound your fist or mumble incoherenty, but do not be stifled.

I share a lost innocence with you. Yes, you. Silence is my enemy. It is hard enough to spill my guts - I will not meet some ideal of style or content or language or who knows what. Where will I have I gotten myself?

I am just going to pretend everyone wants to hear what I have to say, and how I say it, if that is ok with you, universe. I suggest everyone else do the same.

And let the darkness fear our light.

Peace

I want to hear what you have to say. Please check your private messages. Thanks.
mike

Cement, I hope everyone reads your post here! In fact I've shared that with my fellow modertors already. This is so well-put, such an expression of what I suspect we all feel, at least to some degree. And to whatever degree we may feel it, very thot-provoking.

As someone else said, the nature of this entire site is somewhat triggering. We should be able to share & express ourselves freely, as we can perhaps no where else in the world except in our loneliness. I want to know someone is hearing me, whether I even expect a response or not (I guess that's why I talk so much! :rolleyes: :p )

Yet, while I agree with you this site can never be 100% safe & we can't expect it to be, many survivors myself included are going to feel more free to share more openly if we know the chances of being in some way abused, put down, flamed, or whatever are being minimized by some guidelines & moderating & safety checks.

That's where separate forums specifically for different things we may want to share & vent about have their value. The value of their being relatively secure I think we've seen in recent incidents no one wants to go into anymore.

I guess I'm saying openness, freedom, still requires limits, boundaries, guidelines, whatever.
It's like in the 60's here in the U.S. at least there was this craze in the public elementary schools for taking down the fences around the playgrounds. The thot was that the fences were inhibiting the children's freedoms, and that if they were taken down the children would feel & play more freely. But in school after school they found that in some cases kids would nervously skitter around in a small area near the center of the playground, others just huddled there not sure what to do. Experiment failed, fad over, fences back up, happier more playful kids.

This is different & we're not kids (at least not chronologically; many of us are emotionally & sexually). But even adults need boundaries. Especially survivors, whose trusts have been so shattered & boundaries so battered.

Yet we need to trust, we need to start to learn to trust. If we can't do it here, then where? So we need to be able to open up. Part of me says, tear down all the damned fences. No boundaries, the sky's the limit. But we need sufficient boundaries to keep our freedoms intact & active.

What boundaries are sufficient? Well that's what we're struggling with here. My thots on that for what they're worth, are that I want to be assured of some protection against perps who may prowl our site seeking something besides help, as I seek help & seek to help. I want to know that I, all of us, can open up without being shot down.

Basic boundaries here for me are:

1) In the words of the twelve step programs, "principles not personalities." Keep names & name-calling out of it. Agree or disagree, stick to principles. Our persons have all been abused enuf.

2) This is a site for support in recovery. Period. If a message, won't help support you and others in recovery, don't post it. If a reply won't help support you, the one you reply to, and others, don't post it. Unless you can post it where it will fit, in a different forum.

3) Silence can be golden for us, deafening for those apparently not interested in support in recovery. Case in point: the recent lack of response to the recent posts of "contender" & "keeptrucking" about "factsperson".

I'm not saying be quiet, don't disagree, don't open up. I'm talking about the simple boundaries of mutual support & sharing. Disagree yes, disagreeable no. Constructive criticism yes, corrosive crudeness no. Stand up for principles yes, stomp on people no.

Beyond that I think we should be able to be pretty wide open. But different ones of us on this support in recovery site are here wanting to or able to share about or hear about or deal with only certain things at a given point.

There again is the value of separate forums for different topics, for sharing, venting, whatever.

I guess I see this site like a big house, all survivors welcome, the main male survivors public forum (this one) kinda being the entranceway & lobby (as its called on some sites I've noticed), where people are getting to know each other, not sure where to go what to do, cautious, searching, trying to be open.

Other forums are other rooms for particular interests & emphases. The members forums are rooms allowing for more intimacy with the assurance of more tho not perfect safety, again with different interests & emphases.

I value this. There are some things I simply am not ready to risk sharing on a public forum available to basically anyone & everyone, until they cause trouble and/or are found out. Some struggles I share only in Members, At Risk Survivors. My real name I share only in the members area. I like being able to do that.

Discussion is going on even now about having more forums, more rooms, that will be limited to & understood to be for certain specific areas of recovery & thus enter at your own risk. The possibility of some of these being public forums, possibly with some safety measures added, is being discussed. Nothing definite at this point. But its a thot.

Cement, maybe it now sounds like I'm not agreeing with what you're saying. Believe me at the core I do, and I think its beautiful. I don't think the things I've shared & the possibilities being considered necessarily contradict what you've said & what you desire. Ideally, I think they could reather enable & enhance it.

I'll put it this way: even in my own house, while I feel free to say/do anything somewhere sometime someway, I don't say/do it anywhere anytime anyway. What I say/do, when & how I say/do it, depends on who else is in the house. What room we are in. What the time & circumstances are. Very open, still different rooms for different things.

Man this has gotten long (like that's a first! :rolleyes: ). But this is what I do; I think out my thots as I write, and try not to write (or even think) what could be hurtful. Seeing nothing like that here I'll post as is.

Gang, as always, take what you want & leave the rest. These are the ramblings of someone trying to sort out mixed feelings about this whole thing. And I hope I'm doing just what Cement is talking about.

Wuame

Mike, Matt--well-put brothers. This is what its all about!

Wuame

Hi,

You write so well, with so much passion!

I agree, this site has gotten a bit bad with all the bickering and flaming. I hope it stops soon.
But there are still a lot of good people here, and its a great place.

take care,
rax

Cement, I envy you ability to write and to say a lot in such a thoughtful way.

I will meditate on your post.

Bob

Thanks for the thoughts.

Communication is an odd thing. I wanted to write an uplifting post, to bring voices together, and to celebrate our shared world in some meaningful way. I re-read my own post and saw some of the (unintended) fear I expressed.

I also realized, in reading the reponses, that there are different ways a post like that can be interpreted. An (unintended) sense of rebellion could be interpreted. A calling to arms could be sensed.

I have always tried so hard to stay firmly in the populist middle that I have been a watered-down version of me. That includes wanting everyone to feel positively about me and about what I write here.

SO, as difficult as it is for me to say it here goes - enough of the pedantic, unreflective lexicon of survivorship. Let 'er rip.

Peace.

Cement
and uplifting it was, and boy do we need it ?

So keep writing - let's get back to supporting each other and exploring our problems.

It's what we do best

Lloydy

Cement is an honest man. He's been so in many posts.

Some of my thoughts:

Fire is best kept in a fireplace, otherwise it can burn the entire house down. This is a safe (fire)place to express rage, as well as a full range of emotions.

The Slavs have a tradition called a Varta. It's a huge coming together of the community for a bonfire. Everyone here can heap their logs of hurt and pain onto the communal MS bonfire. It's one fire, controlled, so that it doesn't hurt the surrounding community. Moderators and others are here to see that no one gets burnt.

Don't play with your fire or anyone else's. (Strong emotions should be expressed, but also respected). Dance in the light of it. Celebrate in the warmth of it.

What we contribute to the Varta burns as incense.
It all rises and we rise with it.

I feel peace here with you around the fire.

I have posted a part of 'my' story at the 'survivor's stories' forum

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

"You can't be an adolescent and an old fart."

Aw shucks, Devon!..... :p

Wuame

JM:

I hurt for the abuse, betrayal & agony you've been put thru.

Like you I'm 46 and I want to be a little boy. Little Waume is finally getting his voice & I'm speaking up for him & we're starting to help each other play & then grow up together. Still workin on it, but we're at least trying.

You can do it too JM. Here at the MS bonfire. Let Little JM out into the light with you. When & as you're both ready. He'll be loved & accepted just as you are.

Wuame

Lloydy:

Well put as usual brother!

I love the quote from Voltaire. What a motto or mantra or whatever for this site, for us!

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

You are so right! I hope we can trust people's motives & believe the best about each one until we have a very convincing reason to do otherwise.
And I could count on one hand the number of those I've seen here, and have fingers left over!

I hope we can be sensitive toward others, and not too sensitive with our own feelings.

When someone posts about their abuse & pain, its about their recovery. Its about all of us being supportive, even if we disagree.

Thanks Lloydy

Wuame

Cement:

Man I hope you'll keep posting! After all, look what you've started here! :p

Your post is a model of sincere human openness & sharing of feelings at its best, and the responses continue that trend thruout this great thread! I am grateful to you, my friend!

Wuame