Hi everyone, I'm new here and just wish to say hello and tell my story. I've just discovered this web page and felt really thrilled with stories and confessions that I’ve found here. I don’t know if my experience should be called abuse but nevertheless when you’ll read it you’ll see that bottom line is more or less same like other MS member’s experiences. I’ll try to explain my life as short as possible, but as some details need to be explained there would be a lot of long sentences. Additionally I’m using this opportunity to finally express myself and heal some deep scars so there would be a lot of words, I’ve been waiting for this almost 30 years. I’m not native English speaker and I’m writing parallel to my thinking which I presume would be a little bit different from native speaker’s perspective (also my apology if there would be to many mistakes in my writing).
Please consider that there are a lot of triggers in this text above and be free to leave it if those would be disturbing. I’m very new here and would not like that my thoughts and words hurt anyone of you; my only intention is to leave some burden I was carrying for long time by writing here so be aware that I’ll talk very openly and straight to head; I’m just looking for healing and wish all best to all of you who have courage to survive every day....

Where should I start?
Presently I’m 35 years old south European men who looks satisfied with his life; at outside - I’m happy and very positive person; I’ve finished colleague, found good job and placed myself in big city far away from home. But certainly there is other part which is full of pain, very dark, very empty and full of loneliness. I was grown in family with three children: two years older sister, my identical twin brother and me. Our parents really loved us and we always had all support needed; that was something that we always could count on. My childhood was partly happy, and I say partly because on surface everything was fine (almost perfect), we (me and my brother) were full of life, always playing around, and our parents were supportive and full of affection; but other part of story goes that as long as I can remember I’ve been involved in some “nasty” games with my older male friends that put some shadows on all those memories.
I think that everything started when I was 5 or 6 years old if not even earlier. I can’t recall how all started but have some flashbacks of being touched and being laid on by one particular boy, I can’t recall how old was he, but I presume 5 or 6 years older than me (not quite sure but maybe this practice included additionally 1 or 2 more “friends” too). Some later memories included my brother also... We all used to regularly play in field at some distance from our home (at least 15 min walking) and can’t figure out how was possible that we were alone at our age playing with older kids outside of our home. We were really smart, intelligent children who new every corner around couple of miles from our home.
Some answers could be that our mom was very sick after our birthday; she was later used to be occasionally hospitalized and she past away when we were 14; because of that and because our father’s trying to finish his colleague parallel with his work we were sometimes left alone to play around during our early childhood. Our house was not so big and usually I’ve used to share bed with my twin brother; something that was in some way our terrible fate, at least I felt it like that which later would be shown...I don’t know how we started but with all those touching things with older friends-boys; I and my brother started also touching private parts of each other. We did this particularly when we were put alone in bed (I presume that we’ve started all this with those older boys). Although I was very young I knew that those activities should not be preferred and usually felt shamed because of it. Somehow we’ve developed this as habit which’s started to come around from time to time. Fortunately we’ve moved from that neighborhood into other part of city (I was 8 or 9) and we lost contacts with all those older boys. In mean time I’ve started new friendships and later even have tried to repeat some “activities” (I was initiator) separately with 2 more boys (I was 10 or 11 years old). Happily all has finished with masturbation in front of each other couple of times and nothing more. “Relationship” with my brother (bed activities) was evolving all this time separately and in different speed. We’ve actually lived cycling like this way: we were exploring our self each alone, tried to share experience directly among booth of us and afterwards we have tried to go some new things/experience together.
I was trying to explain to myself that we were in some way curious, that this is something that I would do regularly with myself alone anyway and if I did something like that with my twin brother that was completely same as if I was doing to myself – we have completely had blurred our boundaries at that time. In those days this was my mantra and I was always thinking like we are the same person and that I’m doing something to almost myself alone. Additionally this mantra included words: this is something between me and him (my brother), we’ve somehow decided to explore all this which is bad but we were aware of that and we will be responsible for outcome what ever would be that. Because of huge shame that I’ve felt from time to time I’ve decided to take care no one else would be included and be suffering expect myself and my brother from all this activities; so I’ve used to stop playing around with my friends if I’ve felt that we are going into “wrong” way. I must emphasize that me and my twin brother were rarely speaking about all this; we’ve used to understand each other without many words, we should look at each other and quickly understood what we had on mind, we were almost all time together and we’ve just knew if something is happening...
Above all my brother has had more issues with all this stuff; precisely he has had more shameful and guilty feelings but also he was more closed person and more prone to negative thinking. At the other side I’ve questioned myself all time about all this stuff and was never completely satisfied with answers/explanations why we used to do this. However all my questions have never stopped me to go further with my twin brother.
At the same time whit our maturing we’ve started to have longer and longer pauses between our mutual “forbidden” activities but at the other side those activities were more and more serious and at the end completely out of our control. This life style was continuous repeating for couple of years (7-8 years at least till we were 12 years old). At this stage we’ve finished whit some knowledge about gay sex based on our life, a lot of unspoken words and full of bad feelings.
At the end of our prime school and at the beginning of high school (we were 14 years old) we became completely aware of wrong nature of our relationship. Because of that we started to exercise all this less and less and with longer pauses, but at the end we couldn’t control it always. We even tried not to be left alone if we had felt temped. Unfortunately there were situations that we couldn’t avoid. Like we were visiting some relatives (which we use to do a lot during end of our high school and beginning of college) and again we were in positions that we had to share same bed. Usually we went to bed as far away as possible from each other and occasionally we would later be wakening in positions almost having sex – sometimes even having it. Mornings after those nights were something terrible for me, but my brother sometimes used to act like nothing happened (this is something that bothers me a lot lately and I’ll talk this out with him in some future).
At college we have separated our ways and each found new friends (but we shared room at the dorm and also some friends); very slowly till the end of college we have completely lost all those negative habits. We even succeeded in practice to safely share same bed and sleep together. We completely regain trust in each other, and our relationship was again very simple and very usual thing. But I didn’t succeed to find answers on all my questions: why we’ve started all that, why we’ve acted in that way, how everything started and particularly what was nature and psychological explanation of this experience.
At the same time I’ve felt in love with one girl but never could let her to become really close to me. I’ve felt like I was really very bed person who has not control of his life, have very dirty past and should not involve more persons into all this mess.
I was aware that my problems didn’t finished completely. From time to time I’ve started to dream about gay sex and regularly masturbate on those thoughts. I didn’t talk about this to my brother and felt that this is my scar from our experience. After I’ve graduated we completely separated and finished in even different countries. By pure coincidence in late 2002 one of my friends from work who didn’t know that I have had twin brother had saw him in his city in one bar and actually has approached him by mistake and thinking that was me. But my bro was uncomfortable and avoid talking to friend. When I asked him about this he avoided telling me more; I immediately knew that something was wrong. Later he wrote me an e-mail and explained that he has come that he was gay. That was a gay bar and he was having his first date with another gay. What upset me from his e-mail was not his confession but his huge fragility. He felt very lonely, depressed and almost suicidal when he found that he is gay. In couple months later we managed to see each other; and when I saw him I knew that he was in even worse state. I felt terrible and didn’t know how to cope with it. My brother was particularly filing responsible for me and he was taking all blame for our experience. He was thinking that I’m also gay and that was all his guilt. I’ve managed to stay calm, I tried to explain him that I was aware of everything almost since beginning and that I’m not sure if I’m gay. We came talking that he needs starting therapy as soon as possible. Other problem was that he is not talkative about his inner feelings. Our father was also seen that brother is in trouble and started to worry and ask questions, but my brother just couldn’t speak about his issues. Therapy really helped my bro and he was recovering at very fast pace albeit he couldn’t talk about it. My father further was pressing me and sister and finally I told him about part of this story. I’ve escaped details about me and my brother but confessed that we were in some way abused etc. Ma father is also very shy and hard to talk and I wasn’t sure did he understood what I’ve told him.
Finally at the present, my brother is openly gay and he is living with his partner happily. My family doesn’t have any issues with this. Brother has had some very bad memories related to one of first boys who molested us, couple years ago we met on street, and just passed by. I couldn’t figure it if that man was recalling anything, at the same time my brother was almost vomit beside me. I couldn’t remember anything apart some dirty stories this boy was talked to us.
I’m very close to brother and also sister (I love them very much). Unfortunately I don’t see them to often, because we are living in different countries. I’m still trying to understand how is possible that carrying parents didn’t pick sad faces of their children and never saw anything wrong happening. We actually sometimes were almost willing to be caught just to be feeling better...
I’ve stayed in touch with childhood friend that I’ve mentioned earlier (whit whom I masturbated long time ago), he is straight and almost not remembering anything; not very often but couple times in 5 years we see each other, have a drink and talk about past.
I would like to find one more friend who was couple years younger than me; just to be sure that he never had problems because of my wrong behavior. I would like say some words to him and eventually make apology. He moved to North Europe long time ago and I just couldn’t track him.
In some way I’ve stayed still with huge burden on my back. I’m still not able to start normal relationship with girls, I just couldn’t pretend that I might be perfect person (that is what my friends thinking of me) and that I don’t have problems. Relationship with men is unthinkable for me although I have sometimes desire for it; this is issue that brought me here in first place and that I need to work further.
I manage to survive somehow and was finally able to explain what happened to me. I became very sensitive and carrying person, this is something which was part of my experience. I’m very protective on abused people and also very protective to children. I’m aware of all dangerous things happening all time around and would like that people are more caring for each other and having more empathy.
Certainly I’ll talk about this story with my brother in some future (not sure when), I’ll try to get into every detail if he would be ready for digging it up. Otherwise I’ll try to talk out specifically related to our experience and just let it out, I’m sure he need this as much as I do.
In future I would like to start family but not sure would this be possible, I’m still very hard to talk about my inner world and to share it although I’ve talked today about my story with one girl friend for first time in my life.
Thanks for understanding and patience for reading one more survivor story!