I read this and I choked up b/c I feel the same way Magellan...I am 35 and my whole dream in life is what everyone else seems to take for granted...a wife, some kids, a little house, a little job....I feel like what most people have would make me so happy and I'll never have it...I'm too damaged to be loved and to love anyone. My fears and confusions overwhelm me.

I don't have answers. You're right, none of us may ever get what we want in life. The only choice we have is how to face the pain...do we try every moment, every day, to embrace whatever good we can or do we let the pain eat our time....either way life is going to pass for all of us, it is going to end.

I hear you Magellan...I am genuinely sorry that you struggle, of course...

It is hard...

I've been celibate for about 7 months now and I am reveling in the clarity that comes with self discovery with sexual sobriety, but I will probably share some of your challenges with social awkwardness when it comes time for me to start dating again.

My prayers are with you and I hope that you are blessed with happiness and fulfillment in all of your endeavors...

In Los Angeles there is actually a massive 12 step community of straights, gays, SLAA, DA, NA, AA, tons of people and whatnot...I know plenty of people who date in the fellowship but I have been encouraged to not date in the rooms, something about "not shitting where you eat"...haha...so yeah.

I've always been a bit of the misfit as well...I have ended up with very broken relationships as a result of my lack of boundaries. Now that I'm actively working a program in SLAA we will see what the future brings to my love life...

Joe

Attention all social misfits: This is your king speaking, now hear this:

Social interaction is the number one hardest thing for me, too. You want to discuss what it might feel like to have an adult cock shoved in your mouth as a six-year-old? Sure I can field that one. You want to make small talk after our awkward handshake and introduction...? Uh, no can do. I gotta go stand in the corner facing the wall for a while. Fake charisma -that's a good line that I'm stealing for my nefarious purposes. But charisma is like an aura that is expressed. You cannot fake it. Charisma is that positive vibe, that personality you emit. I think yours is under-developed charisma not fake. The feeling is perhaps foreign, like the left shoe on the right foot. Once you break the charisma out a few times, you'll get more comfortable with the idea of appropriate social interactions. It's not SO outlandish. Our obstacle is we've got it all backwards.

Any successful infiltration into the world of the normals starts from working from the outside in. Those of us in 12 steps or recovery or what have you are used to working the other way around. We root out our deepest darkest inside turmoil and work outward. That's why we can talk to each other so freely. I just mentioned a cock in my mouth in the last paragraph and no one even blinked. Try dropping that at a normal social event and watch the room empty out. No, it's not superficial for people to run screaming from me (I did like to say awful things as a sport and watch tables clear)

What the norms understand -what we've experienced 1st hand- is that the world can be a terrible, horrible no good very bad place. The social venue is the place to celebrate the wonderful, beautiful, very nice things. Problem is WE don't get there much and because we're so used to terrible horrible it's difficult to switch gears.

We can do that by working from the outside inward, keeping it light. What diversions do you like that may appeal to another? Art, music, dance, bowling? Current events? Historic events? Fantasy events? Everyone likes all that fantasy fiction now, makes me want to absolutely puke. What ever happen to Rumble Fish? But when you develop a breadth of knowledge on some of these subjects you can steer the conversation to the talking points you like and effortlessly carry on a conversation that will not leave people running away as fast as they can.

It's a total catch-22. We want to be whole people with our own identities, not defined by the abusive acts we've endured. But the second we try to interact all we can think about is how different and incompatible we are because of the abusive acts we've endured. So you got to keep it light and airy like the meringue on a lemon pie. That sourness and that crust is down there. But the world of social interaction demands a soft touch.

-SG

Yum! Lemon meringue pie!











Thanks Scotty. I really enjoyed reading that. Some great pointers.

Hell, dunno where to start. Can't address the romance thing. I won't try.

One thing I do notice is your willingness to spill your guts here. You're probably helping people you don't even know you're helping. (Am I being too patronizing yet?)

Another thing I immediately noticed was, "Who would want to date THAT?" imo, you're not a "that"...so {{{{{Magellan}}}} knock off that sh*t. I can deal with depression, lousy self-image, etc., but not self-objectification. If any consolation, that's the same thing adolescent girls do! Logic dictates I'd then say, "You go girl!" but I'd probably be bitch-slapped by the whole [gay] forum.

(Been oh-so-gradually pulling myself out of a funk in the past couple of weeks feeling both overwhelmed and ignored...but you know that. And a little humor has helped me get outta myself).

More seriously, how's the T? Meds? Food? Weather? Yes, the weather...summer heat/humidity keeps me mostly indoors with the damn windows closed and it drives me and my mood nuts. Had a good boomer this afternoon, temp dropped to 73 and I threw open the windows despite the rain. Maybe it was a "West Side Story" thing.

Jus' askin' fr experience with supposedly insignificant things that can throw me for a loop. Ever use the HALT (hungry, angry, lonely, tired)? One of my fave mtg subjects.

I'm 35, and the few chances I've had in life to experience romantic love have turned inside-out on me and ended up as deeply painful experiences that only started getting better after I would bottom out at suicide ideation.

I would get enraged when some well-meaning normal would tell me, "better to have loved and lost than to have never loved before." That's bullshit.

All I can say, Magellan, is that you are not alone. I live in a psychic nightmare, too. And at 35, I would rather not love again than risk the pain of someone I thought I loved pulling away from me.

Have you looked into getting your eyes fixed? I think I read somewhere that doctors can fix crossed eyes with botox injections now.

It might not help you find love, but it might help improve your feelings of self-worth. All we have is ourselves. Got to treat yourself right, if you can.

Thanks for all the replies, guys.

It's been a few days since I posted this, and while I'm feeling better, I'm still down.

Questions of "What is love? Will I ever be loved?" haunt my day to day experience right now.

I've started doing a gratitude journal to try an retrain my brain to find things to be grateful for, instead of holding onto the things it doesn't have.

I'M TERRIFIED OF DYING AND NEVER KNOWING LOVE!! What, then, will have my life been worth if that comes to pass?

D

Hi Magellan,

From your posts, you wrote you've been in 12-step recovery for 7 years. And you've learned how to interact socially in that "narrow" (as you put it) focus. The rest of the time, you feel like you've got the social skills of an 8 year old. Maybe in that arena the "8-year-old" skills have progressed 7 to at least like the 15-year old skill set.

You also mentioned working on CSA recovery for 1.5 years. For me, that would have been back in early '96 and I didn't have a relationship last for longer than 1 1/2 years until nearly 10 years later after that. So, some of this stuff takes more time for some of us than for others.

But, what I want to focus on is that 8-year-old idea of where you're at outside of recovery.

What I found early on in the 12-step recovery was "a day at a time" means I only progress a day at a time from where I'm at. I couldn't jump from 8-year-old social functioning to 40 in 1.5 years if that's where I indeed had been stuck. But, I could progress to at least the 9.5 year old level.

You ask to not give you all the platitudes. That's good, because I don't have any for you. Trying to mature beyond a kid's socialization when you're outwardly an adult and have other disabilities is hard work and not much fun. If the CSA was what was keeping you stuck, and an 8-year-old like social skill maturity set is what you've been working from, then from a current 9.5 (after 1.5 years recovery) what that level is likely to be in another 1.5 year's time is like an 11 year old. But, ten years from that, the maturity can be more like a 21 year old. (And honestly, how much real maturity with social skills do you see people develop healthily beyond that in the world in your experience?)

Now, getting to at least a 21 year old's maturity level isn't a guarantee of a relationship, but it is a much more likely possibility than if one stays stuck in wounded child mode forever.

Anyway, that's the framework I can offer based on what I experienced with my recovery and progress. It took time to get where I'm at now. Next week I reach three years in my current relationship and it is better than the prior one that didn't finish a fourth year.

But between summers of '94 & '03, I didn't have a romantic relationship that lasted two years by that point. But, I did mature the 9 years forward during that time for the parts of me that had been stuck in wounded child mode's social maturity status as a result of CSA and its aftereffects.

Hope that's free enough of platitudes for you. I apologize if it comes off as a bit harsh, but that's my experience. And not that it matters for the specific subject, but I'm gay as well, by the way.

I also apologize for the excess in time sequence exposition, but I wasn't sure how to write it succinctly, otherwise.

Hi Lancer,

Thanks for your reply. Today I suddenly became overwhelmingly tired, I think I might be coming down with something?

I used to be on anti anxiety / depression meds, but after doing a lot of work on understainding my physiology, I was able to resolve life long depression. I live in CA, so weather is not the issue . I eat healthy, and I get plenty of sunlight and walk at least an hour a day. Therapist is actually away on assignment (he works with the military). Won't see him again until late September

My crossed eyes have had 3 surgeries to get them mostly corrected. And they're mostly corrected. Actually, I started wearing special glasses last year which seems to have made the intermitten crossing over go away - but I still have double vision and I don't have depth perception, and I grew up under the ridicule and puzzled looks of other people's faces looking at my eyes looking in 2 directions. Growing up with that stigma was another huge burden that I've had to carry, and because I still have double vision, I'm still taxed by it.

I'm pretty good at taking care of HA and T, but I have no idea how to get rid of the L yet. Without intimacy, there is loneliness.

Thanks again for your replies everyone. I'm feeling emotionally better, but physically wiped out. Like a truck hit me. Very strange.

D

Hi kcinohio,

Thank you VERY much for your thoughtful reply. You make some seriously great points which have me thinking differently about what I'm experiencing. You upheld and affirmed my perception and experience while challening me to see it in a different way. Both you and ScottyG did, in fact.

Thank you so very much. I really do need to lighten up on myself and stop ridiculing myself for not having the social skills I should have. I am learning, and I am growing, and I can't deny that. Perhaps with time (AND PATIENCE) I will have the social skills I desire to have. To be able to relate with others how I *desire* to.

Thanks again.

D