(Deep breath)

OK this is my 1st posting here again in about 10 months or so (maybe longer). The last time I was here I wrote about struggling w wondering about my sexual orientation and felt like I was blasted. So in typical fight or flight fashion. I Left.

I am just coming back bc I want some Christian support from some Christian men. I have another website that I post to for abuse survivors but mostly only women post there. I feel safer w women but lately feel like God is telling me its time to learn to connect in healthy relationships w men and w myself as man.

I want a pretty wife who will appreciate and be invested in me and who likes sex. I want to tuck (step)kids into bed someday. I want to have a family and be a family-man-of-God.

Gay porn is getting in the way. I have come to peace w the fact that I am NOT GAY. No matter what the current theological or political debate on the matter, I know that I do not have Love attractions to men. I know that when I get depressed (and the weather has been grey and rainy for the last week and 1/2) that I tend to seek comfort and validation through fantasies w men and doing things which as a child brought approval from the evil priest who abused me.

Bc my abuser was a priest I have wrestled w the basics of God's Love and Acceptance of me my whole life. I have never been able to really, really get it that God desires good things for me. I have instead tried to find validation through work (but I was recently laid off), by being "Mr Nice" to everyone - hoping they will compliment me in return and by dreaming of dating girlfriends. Even though I know in my head that I have been taught that only God can make me feel "good enough". Even though I know in my head that only God can be my life-long Love.

I have a Lot of guilt about my "experimentation" w the gay lifestyle so don't bother yelling at me. I already disgust myself.

So that's it. I will check back later. I am hoping to find some comments that say 'hang in there' or some understanding about how painful it is to have desires which you have to be honest and admit that you sometimes want, but which are keeping you from God.

sonlite

Hello sonlite,

Too bad that you were harmed from things said to you. I hope no one intended that. But that was your experience and I feel badly about that.

Struggling with sexuality after being violated seems common to both male and female survivors. I read of women who could no longer have sex, with a husband they adored, after the rape. I know that I was personnaly so harmed in the depth of my soul, that the issue of sexuality will be settled for me, only after I die.

Post after post here is about survivors going through a second hell as they struggle in many ways with this issue. I wonder if any survivor has actually worked through it and feels he has a healthy and well integrated sexuality.

Fantasies are just fantasies. Apparently common for all of us for a long time. They can really bug us and make us feel somehow "destroyed" I really believe the only way I know of is to acknowledge they are there and don't worry. If the fantaises become so strong and so often that a person is afraid of acting on them, then he may want to discuss them with someone he can trust.
And maybe not. We are all different.

It is no help to say to you, "just go on with your life and don't let them bother you." They do bother you, or they have. Probably because of all the lies we told ourselves and that others have told us.

You have great dreams and desires. I have felt the lonliness and incompleteness of knowing that such was not for me. It always thrills me to hear a child call for Mommy or Daddy. When guys do great jobs with their kids it makes me respect them and envy them.

I think that is all about being a man, wanting to be generative, wanting love, even passionate love, and companionship we can trust. Good and healthy longings I think.

sonlite, I hope that you find lots of understanding and enjoy a true feeling of belonging here. Thanks for reminding me that I need always to be careful that I do no harm in what I write. Surely all of us aim at that.

Bob

Sonlite,

I wasn't around here ten months ago, so I don't recognize you from then. I can tell you that I did some of those same things. Just back in 2001, while I was working ~50 hours a week 50 miles from home, a team leader told me that I was "the most humble person he knew." I was quiet, reclusive perhaps, but not really humble. There's a difference between being disgusted with myself and having humility. It's the difference between humilation and humility, I think. I wasn't "Mr. Nice Guy." I was "Mr. Keep Quiet about my shameful secret and keep working and rushing around to avoid feeling anything." (Yeah, that's a ridiculously long name. They called me "Joe" for short.)

I had been that way for years, really since I got away from my self abusive drug habits. I think meeting my future wife had literally saved my life. I would have trashed the job I had and probably ended up getting killed in an accident or something if I kept going the way I had been. But I "straightened up" when I met her. Yeah, I found new ways to numb, first on computers on my time, then getting paid to program. You can bury a lot of feelings with a good compiler.

By the time I was doing this, I was married. Girlfriends were out of the question. I started dating when some people fixed me up on a date, when I was 23. I had two more girlfriends in the next 6 years, with relationships that lasted as long as 3 months. Good thing I could smoke, and drink, and drug.

I have that kind of disgust about the way I treated myself, the way I abused myself long after I got away from the perp. It occured to me this morning that I acted that way because I didn't care. Well, I did care, but I wanted to convince myself that I didn't, that I wasn't worth caring about.

BTW, there's nothing wrong with the gay lifestyle. If you're not hurting anyone, including yourself, you're not doing anything wrong, in my view. If you were trying to hurt yourself somehow, then it's good you ended that.

OK, there are a lot of "hang in there" threads on the board. You caught me in an "up" moment (I'm not here in the "down" moments, though I probably should be.) so I'll take a stab at it.

I still find myself wishing for old numbing behaviors. I still slip into some of them. I hate that, and I still haven't stopped. I have never been a perp, but I do still hurt myself. I guess what keeps me going in the "up" moments is the idea that I can try again. Yogi Berra said, "It ain't over till it's over," and I believe that. Somehow, someday, things will be better. I don't know when, or in what way, but I do believe it will come if I keep at it.

In the "down" times, well, I try to get numb. Somehow when the feelings "click off" I'm safer from myself. I will learn to do better, though.

And God kept me alive, through the perp's abuse and the years of my self inflicted abuse. He has some reason for that. No matter what I tried to keep myself away from Him, He kept me alive for something. And I got another chance.

OK, I'm way out there in ramble mode now. Hope it helped somehow.

Joe

Sonlite:

Sorry you got yelled at before. Ten months ago was a bit before my time too. But I'm glad you came back. It sounds to me like you've come to the right decisions for you for the right reasons for you & that's what's important. And I support & encourage you in that. WTG!

Victor

Thanks for the replies so far ... I DO feel more supported here this time around.

Well, another gray, rainy dreary day is over. just got back from a singles Bible study from my church. And they don't know my story but I was a little opinionated about having, Needing the freewill choice to opt out and Not commit to anything w their group. If they knew even 1/2 of my story, it would overwhelm most of them. So I don't share. I just lose a grip of my "everything's all together" persona sometimes when I'm triggered by feeling trapped around God-talk.

I don't know what else to write.

sonlite.

sonlite,

I'm not going to say anything about being gay ro straight or bi.

I'm not going to say anything about fantasies or wrongdoings or christianity or anything.

I'm just gonna offer you a hug!

{{{{{{{((((((sonlite)))))))}}}}}}}}

Hang in there!

Hi Sonlite

Yeah, I hear you a whole on a whole lot of that.

I did most of my "real work" on mostly women's sites, or mixed way towards women

Even got kicked off one. Same one, twice in fact . . . not my proudest moments.

The first guys' site I saw was the old ARUK site. And there the guys would ((hug)) each other. While I could tolerate (and even comfort and enjoy) that on a women?s site, when I saw that my first thought was if one of these guys ((hug)) me, I will !!!PUNCH!!! him. But I was serious at the time.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

As far as the wanna wife goes . . .

In retrospect, I can advise patience, but I sure follow where you are at . . .

I nagged, nagged, nagged, nagged, nagged . . . .

God, I want a wife . . . probably 20 times a day, probably for well over maybe two years.

It took a little while because, well the truth was I was not ready, yet.

(but poor God having to listen to me bitch)

And then the one He sent! I would so have not had the sense to pick her. She was abused, too, and had a dark humor about all this, so sometimes we just laugh about it all. She has a BA is Christian Education, but claims to be an atheist (too much time around any church could do that ).

When we met on-line, she had only dated girls for a couple of years, and was pretty serious that way. It was kind of strange, she had actually founded the Gay-Lesbian Association at her school. But I always figured that lesbians were sensible women, so we got along great.

Neither of us had any intent on getting involved, she was like a little buddy and I was coaching her on picking good guys because she was thinking that she might like to try a guy, again

I had no idea that I would be coaching myself into being a good husband for her, and we had no idea that we would wind up together. Now we have been together three years, and have a baby girl that we just love and adore.

And where we started . . . I had a military buzz cut and tucked-in starched white business shirts (only) and her standard style was pink dyed punk cut hair and cut-off camo pants, with an entire collection of T-shirts guaranteed to offend in all 50 states.

Now we both come a long way towards each other, and are pretty happy.
But before any of that could work, I was getting un-jerked as part of group work, etc.,

So of course God delivers happy endings. It is His hallmark, His signature.

But the point to know is that God delivers, and does so in His own time. And He is not going slow because He is a jerk or jackass (that is my usual projection on Him, as I am usually re-creating God in my own image)

Chances are if you and/or I could go faster, He would go faster.

Sorry to mix Eastern stuff in, but you have probably heard some variation . . . .

The ox is slow but the earth is patient.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

About the gay porn part . . . . . . .

On our business email account, we probably dump about 50 spam messages a day. I had never even thought about opening any of them, but a couple of months ago someone was discussing all the stuff that is in spam. So I started wondering what the spammers think sell. Marketing amuses me, so I occasionally now open some before dumping them.

It is usually just mild porn, occasionally something even funny, but a couple of days ago a tranny one came up totally looking like a pretty hot chick, with even a couple little female type rose tattoos, and wearing a shirt/dress with his/her legs up with no underwear, hanging out, while s/he is just choking down a big one.

It totally caught my eye and obsession. I even frame-caught the image and blew it up just so I could see the detail. But that was a very, very weird thing. I could not believe I was doing that. I had thought I had no particular interest in porn or anything like that. But all I could think was I want that thing [total de-personalization on my part] to be sucking me. Just a total fixation.

I have followed conversations around here, and even been supportive to guys who talk about working on porn addiction, but it seemed somewhere not-real. I guess I tend to be harsher in real-life, and met people in real-life who have told me that they have porn addiction problems . . . . and I always think about the real-life ones . . . (suddenly embarrassed, now) yeah, I may be fued, but you are Really FUED. And btw, I do not want to shake hands with a freak like you who was probably just wacking off with that hand.

So of course, in my arrogance, I would have to find myself right there. Boy, it so true about Jesus' warning to not judge, because you will be judging yourself.

But it is not the end of the world, I have made it through the rest of this mess, so I'll get through that, and hopefully come out even a little bit less arrogant. Heather is out of town for a week, but we talk a couple of times a day. So I was telling her about that Tranny-porn. She is sooo cool. She is in Grad School for Social Work and just did a project on tranny stuff. So she kind of laughed and just sounded amused and said she wished I had saved the picture so she could see it, too.

- - - - - - - - - -

As far as the being ashamed of gay stuff . . .

ummm, been there, done that, too. . . . .

Of course I wound up ashamed and self-condemning, too. I do not know if it will help, but I am putting an old post about putting myself on trial for that in the un-moderated forum (it is even further out than this post )


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

About the priest, religion and stuff, I can not speak to very well. My stuff was family, and so was most of the people I knew before this site. The closest to religion, other than SRA, was my old penpal . . . her dad made a point of raping her in a church (and about anywhere else he could think of) just so she would KNOW that God could not help her. But everyones path is their own. Yours, too.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

But about the rest, Sonlite, there are probably more bumps before you clear the valley, but hey, if it were not a challenge, the trip to happy valley might not be worth it.

Other than that, try to be kind yourself and patient with both you and God.

He is probably fixing you as fast as you will let Him.

See you,

Sunshine

Well Sunshine,

You sure are a 'wordy' one :p

But after reading this post and the other, it looks like you are doing pretty good in your recovery!

We all stumble Sonlite but the path is before us and it is our own. You have some choice in the direction. Relax and just keep walking.

P.S. Hug and run to mrsunshineguy! :p

Me Again -

I am a mess.

Its after 12 noon local time, and I am not even up and dressed yet. I just got out of the shower after spending 1.5-2 hrs looking at gay porn and mstrbtng. I feel awful. I feel numb and at the same time I feel terrified that I am losing control over this sickening behavior. When I look at that stuff its like I am in a trance. I don't feel connected to my body and I lose all track of time, hot/cold/hunger/pain its very wierd. I know that I am using it as some sort of drug to numb myself from a whole collection of shameful and sad feelings. I DON'T want a boyfriend! I really WANT God in my life, but I can't fight the drive to disconnect from God and real life when I get depressed ...

It is scary just how vulnerable my moods and actions are to changes in the weather. But it is ANOTHER gray and overcast, cloudy/rainy day. We had some sunshine yesterday and I felt better and was out and about and made some job search moves. Yes, I am on an antidepressant (Zoloft). I can't afford a therapist right now bc I am unemployed.

I just don't trust God enough yet. I just don't love myself enough yet. Why WOULD I trust God or love myself? I was abused by a priest, in a church! In my head I know that God has never really let me down. I know it makes Him mad that I don't trust him. Emotionally, I can't let go.

I have been doing some reading on the Myers-Briggs personality type stuff as I prepare for my job search and have learned that I am an INTP which means Introverted/iNtuitive/Thinking/Perceiving and which means among other things, that I tend to live inside my head too much and spend too much time getting stuck on trying to understand things instead of just accepting them and moving on.

I also have been reading the Prayer of Jabez but I don't feel like I deserve or am mature enough to handle God's blessings. Abuse has robbed me of confidence my whole life.

So thats where I am for the moment. Sorry.

Thanks for listening anybody,
sonlite

p.s. Please don't ((hug)) me. That triggers me.