As I type this post, I am looking at my picture when I was 16. The picture was taken the day before I left my mom and step-dad's house. It is interesting as I type this, that the place I left was someone else's home. I did not feel I had a home.

I was pretty messed up before reaching my teenage years. When, I got into my teenage years, my parents divorced. I moved 6 times during my last years of H.S. My mom and dad would both remarry. My step-mom was a gem but, my step-dad was manic at least to a teenager. The last time I would move before graduating H.S., was to move to a different state where my former aunt lived. I moved to get away from my abusive mom and step-dad.

I did graduate from H.S. thanks to my aunt who insisted I finish school. She had no idea of the hell, I had been growing up in. As soon as, I finished H.S., I went to work. After work, I would cruise for sex. After a short time working I decided to go to college. Again, I found myself cruising for sex.

It has been 3 decades since then, when I am finally not cruising for sex anymore. I can't stand the thought of getting next to another for any kind of intimacy.

As I listen to songs of the 70's (the era I grew up in), I hear about chasing dreams and being carefree. As I reflect on my teenage years (and before - I was being abused as young as 2), I was chasing a dream and that dream was sex, sex, sex. The more abusive the sex the better.

Twenty, thirty, forty or more years ago there was NO talk of men being abused even as children. There was talk about what to do for an occupation as men were seen as the bread winners of the family. I am wondering what men today in this culture would say about life. Do we as men get to chase a dream? If so, what dream are we chasing?

What dream are you chasing? I once chased a dream of endless abusive sex.

Hi Avery,

I was blessed (cursed?) with finding that I could withdraw into fantasy by shooting film/video. After watching Star Wars, Raiders of the Lost Ark, and ET, and seeing the impact it had on me (and on others), I "acted out" by buying a super 8 camera when I was 8, and started living out my fantasy, creatively.

Little did I know that this would turn into a career that would sustain me, challenge me to grow, and connect me to the world at times. I freelance as a filmmaker, work as a technician in the film arts, and sometimes teach.

It has given me so much, this choice to pursue this dream of filmmaking. Initially it was an escape, and a few times, I came to conclude that it was a false hope, a false dream. But after coming to grips with abuse and CSA, I now see that this dream of mine kept me alive, and gave me hope where nothing else did.

A gift that 8 year old child gave to me, to make that decision.

D