Timothy,

What you are doing to yourself is both dangerous and harmful to you, I am not saying that is news to you, but it’s worth underlining anyway. I have self-harmed in the past when I was angry and hurting. I was also strongly Catholic and had read many lives of the saints as a teen, I was hoping to turn myself into someone good and pure after the abuse and violence I had internalised. Some of my self-harm I justified as “mortification of the flesh” as practised by some of those saints. To be honest it had nothing to do with spirituality it was masochistic self-harm based on self-hate and violence. It was quite addictive with the adrenaline rush and the short break from the psychological pain was a relief. If some of your thinking about this behaviour is about penance you need to speak to a spiritual director/confessor. From most of what I know of corporal penance in the history of the church, any serious injury to the body or endangering health has never been regarded as spiritually virtuous.

I am really sorry that you feel so bad about yourself right now that you are hurting yourself in this terrible way. I am glad that you can at least speak about it here, what you did isn’t about being dumb, it wont take away the gay feelings even if it distracts you for a while, what ever the reasons for doing this it is really very concerning. I hope you consider finding a therapist.

I agree with Larry that you did not cause a married man to be attracted to you. His behaviour is totally his responsibility.

Wishing you peace,
Peter.

Timothy,

Here is something to think about bro:

If a bank is robbed, who is to blame and who should be hated? The robbers or the bank?

Much love,
Larry

Dear Roadrunner & Rustam,

Thank you for your posts. Makes me feel better. Thanks for not being judgemental.

Even nowadays I get frightened when an older man touches me by accident. I'm afraid that the sensation of the touch will cause him to get arouse and then lead him to "explore" that feeling further and then end up molesting and abusing me.

After all, my sergeant first started touching me and carassing my arms before he ventured further and started touching my private parts. He said that before he met me he had never done anything like that with a guy before. So that makes me feel very guilty and blame-worthy because there must have been something about me that twisted and perverted him to cause him to do what he did to me.

There is one other thing that bothers me a little. It is a sensitive issue but because it happened to me I hope it can be answered.

I am what people would call "fair-skinned". My sergeant had what people would call "black-skin". Do fair-skinned guys tend to get abused by their darker-skinned peers because they are perceived to be weaker and more feminine?

Timothy

Sorry, Timothy, I know that you are still in a very hurting place. But, as many of our brothers have already said, "you did nothing wrong."
The self blame (we've all been there) that says things like "there must have been something about me that twisted and perverted him" has it all backwards and upside down. There was something about him that was twisted and perverted in the first place and you did nothing to cause it.
Hoping that you can begin to love and forgive yourself (there's nothing really to forgive), please don't beat up on yourself (psychologically and physically) any more.
Much love, etc.,

Timothy,

That is a normal feeling for abuse survivors and it isn't a gay thing at all. As a boy, touching was followed by abuse for you, so you are still making that connection. The feeling that you "caused" the abuse is also a feeling, a wrong one, from childhood. That's why you think that if you brush against an older man that will "cause" you to be abused.

You have several replies on this above, so I won't add much, except to say that abuse is never the victim's fault.

No, so far as I know there's no racial basis for abuse. But there's another problem here. You are blaming yourself again for what someone else did. This is something you have to beware of.

Much love,
Larry