Sorry I misunderstood, Jeff - I wasn't suggesting that your younger self was to blame nor do I even come close to thinking that - I thought you were just talking about your frustration at not finding a connection to that child. The confusion is all mine - sorry. Didn't mean to stir that up but I somehow did - no surprise with me lately. Don't take what I say too seriously until I find my mind and manners again.

Jeff,

Forgive me if I'm speaking out of turn - we've never spoken before and this is rather an odd "hello".

But all throughout this thread you've been talking about your "responsibility," that it wasn't some younger alternate but still you as you are today. The emotional continuity, makes sense.

Feeling "responsible", though? Because you "didn't say no"?

Jeff, you were tortured. Really literally dictionary-picture-level tortured. You mentioned several such grisly incidents and it only takes one to "count." That's the sort of thing that destroys the ability to resist - leaving only a life or death choice, which is no choice at all. I'd humbly suggest that be a frame around feelings of responsibility / not leaving.

POSSIBLE TRIGGERS - VIOLENCE / DEATH
In Auschwitz and its related death camps, some men of a certain age and size would be recruited for "pusher duty." Pulled out of the line to the gas chamber and told to wait by a metal cart. Soon the bodies of their entire families, all their relatives, children, all of their neighbors and friends, every other person from their hometown, would be brought to them and they would have to push the bodies on the cart into the oven intakes. Or be shot then and there and the next guy of the right size would push. But as a rule, no shootings were necessary. People in that situation did what they had to do for the sake of their own pulse - all they had left, the one thing they could cling to and so cling they did as everything else literally went up in smoke. This process is followed in nothing-to-imagine detail in the film "The Grey Zone," which makes Schindlers List look like Strawberry Shortcake.

What is responsibility when you are tortured? When you will plainly be killed, when you have met your willing murderer and his capable murder weapon?

If someone's just gonna gas and cremate an entire village, there's gotta be a cart pusher. If someone's just gotta film pedo porn, there's gotta be a kid. And if they say no they will be shot and replaced by someone who didn't.

You were right to value your life, Jeff. At any age. And though we dont know each other, I've read your posts, read of your family, and the preposterous odds against you getting this far in life. And I'm glad you're alive. And I'd high-five / man-hug the person *responsible* for that.

Matt

Jeff

Finally caught up with your post-

THANK YOU for putting all this out there.

I especially liked the responses of MarkK and whome.

You wrote: "I basically don't know if that inner child is just my past or he is someone else. Coming to terms with him? I feel bad that I never had a real childhood. I could have had it but I turned the wrong corner. I'm ashamed at what I did and that's why I've been hiding all these years. I don't know how to escape from it."

You are not hiding these days.

You are willing to be open And honest about your life.

And lots of questions and issues come up after years of hiding and running.

I totally get that.

Who is my inner child? He's the confused, scared part of me that didn't get safety, nurturing, or the freedom to be a boy all those years ago.

As I learn to drain the swamp of shame about what choices I madein my Life, something happens. It is more clear to me the damage and abuse that others inflicted upon me and i can throw that back where it came from. And as I see this more clearly, I am better able to choose to reject the ideas, fear, self hatred, violence, the confused and damaged sexuality and broken intimacy - the entires legacy- and begin to reclaim my life.

The hardest thjngs on this recovery journey for my adult self are:

1)Having fun
2) being compassionate with myself. (Literally " co-suffering with")
3) sticking up for myself.

Climb a little higher today.

Jamie

Hi Jeff,

I think SoccerStar has a great post above. You should not feel guilty for being a survivor. But "survival guilt" is a term for a reason: many survivors suffer from it.

So don't feel bad about feeling guilty. The fact that we can feel anything is a miracle, even if what we feel is illogical or irrational.

Cant

We are so similar. I'm absolutely no better than any other hustler, Jeff. And in fact I was stupider (is that a word?). I proffered myself to someone for a price as surely as you did. The currency of our trade was different, but we knew the value of our wares and what they could bring us. We knew the value of our bodies and the weaknesses of those who desired them, and manipulated that to our ends (figuratively speaking). I may have peddled my butt to the guy next door for the price of my baby sister (and interjected myself for some other girls as well), but I was 13. What the fuck did I know? If he offered ice cream, I probably would have done it for that, too. When he whined and pleaded, I'd be comliant just so he'd stop being so pitiful. How cheap is THAT? No wonder I have no business sense. I was probably a cheaper slut than I would care to pretend otherwise. As one guy put it in the ASA forum - it wasn't violent rape where I had no choice, but instead was "getting felt up for a Popsicle" in it's fundamental essence. That implies complicity, and I guess we own that.

But I don't mean to hijack this and I only mention my experience to illustrate a point. It comes back to you. I'm no expert. But I can relate. And - like you should be consider doing - I've forgiven myself because, hey, I was just a fucking kid. I didn't know the value of ANYTHING. I didn't know the worth of what I was trading myself for (not much, since he got to her a lot anyways as she told me almost a year ago). And I didn't know the value of what I was selling, either. My sexual identity was worth a lot more than I could possibly have imagined at 13. It's like selling a stamp collection for ten bucks - thinking that was huge - then finding out it was worth ten thousand. Sometimes life just isn't long enough to recoup that kind of loss. It was enough to enter my adulthood just carrying the lament. So I have tried to leave the guilt at the door.