I joined male Survivor a long time ago. I've been more active and less active depending on time available. But I feel really lonely in that my CSA seems to be different than others. I KNOW that everyone experiences it different and I KNOW that people are out there to help me. I just feel alone and different. Like I don't connect with people here. I've never really felt connected to others, despite things that I see in my life. Almost like I'm looking through a sheet of glass. Like I'm looking at someone else or saying "wow. what a nice life I have. Too bad I'm me." I don't know.
Thanks for letting me ramble.

Mike

Keep rambling Mike!

Hey Mike,

I often get that feeling of being disconnected. Or being underwater. It sucks. I've worked hard to find ways to feel connected. They exist. But it takes work on my part to start to feel connected.

You've been here since 07, I see, with a 40 post count.

The best suggestion I can make to overcome that "through the looking glass" feeling is to read more and post more and get more engaged.

I know that when I start to feel that way, I can start writing and sharing. I overcome that feeling pretty quickly now. It's my go-to position whenever I start to get that feeling again - I open up and start sharing.

Hope to see you around here more often than not!

D

Hey Mike,

When I returned from my first deployment, back in 2006, I returned to a family that had learned to function without me; where my baby would scream when his mother would leave a room, where my wife had a wonderful routine with our baby, which had worked for them over the year.

The point is that I felt exactly as you did....looking through a glass wall and wanting to join in so bad. Then one day, I decided to break that glass, injected myself into everything my wife and son did. Feedings, diaper changes, bathing, etc...and it worked!

If you want to stop looking through the glass, you have to make a concerted effort to join in. As Magellan said, you have to get involved; play an active role with other members on here.

As a new member, please don't think I know what exactly needs to be done, but thought it was worth responding. I have been on the other side of the glass, different situation, but same glass wall and wanting to join in.

The thing we share most in common here is how utterly different we all are. There is room in this tent for everyone. Keep sharing.

Thanks for the replies. It has taken me this long to put what I feel into words. I realize that life is real. This concept has been overwhelming me and still does. It's 2012. For me. I'm 48. It's also 2012 for everyone on this board, my favorite musicians, and even Charlie Sheen. Everyone in my high school class is also 48/49. I know this seems to overstate the obvious, but I've spent most of my life trying my damnedest to *not* be part of my life. To be as disconnected as possible. I guess I couldnt face my life's reality.

Oddly enough Mike, I know just what you mean. I've always felt apart from any crowd I'm in. If I'm at a lecture, function, heck even at the Mike loo workshop I went to a couple of years ago, when someone says "And everyone here" something inside me always assumes they really mean "everyone accept Luke" even when (as was the case with Mike Loo), they're saying something good about everyone.

I feel just the same when I walk down the street, as though I'm totally, and entirely cut off from everyone else.

My abuse story, also being pretty atypical as far as most people on this site go didn't help either, indeed the very first topic I wrote on this site was "I don't think I should be here"

However, what I've realized is that people are always at their best as individuals, not as groups. Perhaps I shal never be part of a crowd, indeed my recent experiences with the olympic torch probably suggest not, and there is even part of me that does not want to be.

yet, what I have realized is that there are people, people on this site, and my friends, who are truly good, decent and compassionate human beings, and that is what matters. However the only way to start this feeling is to begin thinking about others, and myself. To start considdering what others think, feel and experience.

I know it's 2012 in Egypt for lots of people, but that generally doesn't matter too much to me. What is important though is that I know a chap in Egypt, a very learned and decent man called nazzier, and it's 2012 for him, and that is the important thing, not being part of some amorphus crowd, being as Pink floyde said "just another brick in the wall" but being someone who connects with individual other people.

This feeling is extremely difficult to establish, especially sinse there's always the background feeling for me that I'm imposing on someone, that people wouldn't want to know me, that I'm being unreasonable. however, it is not impossible, and this site, where people are at a good enough physical distance so as not to be problematic, and where everyone is open to feeling empathy and sharing emotions anyway, is a great place to start.

I really hope some of this makes a vague sort of sense.