I thought this would be a good thread to resurrect.

My "pen name" Jay ( disregard the 75) comes from a nickname my stepfather used to call me. "Jay bird" as he refered to me, was a name he called me as a kid. He said my demeanor reminded him of a blue jay, very aggressive and jealous. lol. As a teenager running the streets when asked my name I always said it was Jay. Today I look back and see that I was neither aggressive or a jealous person, but it stuck.

-Jay-

When I started recovery in 2004, the first thing I said to my first T was, "I wasn't abused but I have symptoms of someone that was." It took me a long time to come to terms with the possibility that I *was* abused but don't remember it.

I then narrowed down the time frame of when it must have happened (5 to 7 y/o), and then determined a suspect, but still no memory.

When I became aware of MS in 2004/2005, and I was reading the survivor stories and introductions, I felt inadequate to be here because I felt like less of a survivor because I lacked a story to go along with my pain. Then I read a post where someone said that there was "no hierarchy of abuse," that one person's abuse wasn't "worse" than another's. Something in that clicked for me, and I took my lack of memory as my badge of honor.

So when I registered, I chose as my screen name, cant_remember. And now that's who I am here.

Cant

I first registered with my first name. Things were difficult for me at the time and I didn't care about anonymity. But when I tried to post I couldn't because I felt too exposed. So I had to come up with something and it took a while. I was I wanted nothing negative sounding. I wanted something easy to search for with Google. (that's another story) So I came up with Candu because I can do this. (recovery) It took a month before I was able to get the name changed.

I love it....welcome to MS Josh.

Josh & all -

i too am a traveler. i second what you said about the sense of adventure and the excitement of discovery and learning.

i've lived at over 30 addresses in 7 states, 6 countries and 4 continents. i have visited over 30 countries and have a hard time staying too long in one place. don't really have a home town - and don't like revisiting some of the places i've lived - for obvious reasons. i guess i've been searching for something - and also trying to escape something. at this point in life - i know that much of my journey has been internal as well as external. still some distance to go - but i'm getting closer.

Lee

Mine is supposed to represent optimism. Hope and that is good. When I came here, I didn't have much hope.

Soccer was one of the few sports I was ever good at, the only one I was recognized for being good at, and it was during a soccer game that I not just defended myself but actually beat up and scared off one of the school bullies who had been tormenting me for years - and got away with it because it was "cloaked" by the game.

When I first signed up here I was plunging through a breakdown, flashing back in horror, alien and different and desperate, on the verge of doing something very bad and very final.

I tried to think of the most powerful and victorious moment from my youth. I needed to find something from my past that wasn't the memory of me being attacked - something that had a young me fighting back, being strong, winning. This was it.

Matt

Whome

I came up with the name when i joined the site having just watched the Oprah show, wow it feel like an age ago.
Well WhoMe is the fact that I had denied that I had been abused even to myself for so long, and when I asked myself if I had been abused, I would say to myself Who Me?

How things have changed in what is actually such a short time.

Martin

It's my initials. I couldn't think of something catchy.

HD is a nickname that my friends call me.