Confused *spoilers child abuse mentioned*

[Ioann]

Hi cumulus. Hope you are ok-ish today.

SMART Recovery is quite new in the UK. They do not have meetings everywhere. They were founded by people who disliked the religion aspect of 12 step programmes. They are science based, taking their cue from Albert Ellis's rational Emotional Behaviour Therapy (REBT). There is plenty of stuff on the internet.

Hi, I'm just looking at thier site now. Part of me is reluctant to help myself though. Like I don't deserve it.

Don't be daft man. Of course you do.

 

[SophiaGrace]

Part of me is reluctant to help myself though. Like I don't deserve it.

14 year old you deserves it...

 

[Case]

Part of me is reluctant to help myself though. Like I don't deserve it.

If you want to be well, then you deserve it. There are ways to achieve that. If you don't want happiness, then no one can help you.

The options are there for you. All you have to do is muster the strength to choose a path and stick with it. Your happiness is the most important part of this path, and the people here only want the best for you. I hope you can find the path that will lead you to a better inner outlook.

 

[cumulus.james]

Part of me is reluctant to help myself though. Like I don't deserve it.

14 year old you deserves it...

Something I think no one understands is what it is like to have no self worth. Nothing. Zero. I am reasonably intellegent, I know what I SHOULD do to get my life better, but I cant do it. As I sit here typing I feel a lot of shame and guilt. You lovely kind people are responding to me, I am causing you to waste your time by responding to my whinings. I am subjecting others to my problems. I feel narcissistic and self obsessed. And a failure of a man for making these posts.

And that is how I feel when I go to the drugs and alcahol centre.

With all my problems, even thought they have the same origin, the help is fragmented.

I am meant to go to someone for my mental health, someone else for alcahol addiction, someone else for child abuse, someone else for social problems, someone else for sexuality issues, someone else for sex/porn addiction, someone else for employment problems, here for my feelings of lonliness.

And because they all originate from the same events I would have to keep telling a story that is almost unbearable over and over. I am only involved with 2 agencys and this forum at the moment. But it exhausts me. when i come back from the drug and alcahol service, or make a post on here, or call the helpline I feel like all the lifeforce has been drained from me by some manevolant life-energy stealing vampire rapist.

Or maybey, I have had so litle human contact this past decade that even posting on a forum is completely emotionally draining.

I lay in bed all day. Our walfare system facilitates that. Without it, someone like me would just die. I am alive, but I am dead.

Sorry to be like an anxty teenager, but there was a depeche mode lyric I found when I was a teenager that has stayed with me:

I need to be cleansed
It's time to make amends
For all of the fun
The damage is done
And I feel diseased
I'm down on my knees
And I need forgiveness
Someone to bear witness
To the goodness within
Beneath the sin
Although I may flirt
With all kinds of dirt
To the point of disease
Now I want release
From all this decay
Take it away
And somewhere
There's someone who cares
With a heart of gold
To have and to hold

 

[Ioann]

It is hard to know quite what to say.

It is true that none of us quite understand.

I will just speak for myself. I think others who respond on this thread probably feel much the same though.

You are not wasting my time. My heart really does bleed for you, and I wish I could do something more positive. If 'listening' here can help at all, then at least know that I am listening. I just wish I could give you a big hug, but you can't have virtual hugs!

I see what you are saying about how all your problems stem from the same thing, and the multi-agency thing doesn't help. Its like how people always want to concentrate on my drinking. 'You just need to stop drinking' they say. And if I say my problem isn't really drink, its that I feel lonely and misunderstood, then that proves i'm 'in denial'.

Can you make a plan? It needn't be a big one. Just plan that tomorrow you will do one positive thing, and then make another plan for the next day.

 

[SophiaGrace]

James, I'm really proud of you for finding the courage and strength to get help. I know it's draining, but I'm really glad you are.

 

[cumulus.james]

James, I'm really proud of you for finding the courage and strength to get help. I know it's draining, but I'm really glad you are.

I aint got no courage or strength. Just shame and desperation. Sucking mens dicks in public toilets for the price of a pack of ciggarettes at 14. No one forced me. I'm just wrong.

 

[Ioann]

You are not 'just wrong'. You are not responsible for the past, but you must take responsibility for the present and the future. Other people can help you, buy ultimately it is down to you. As SophiaGrace said, it is draining. It is difficult. But it will be worth it.

 

[Mr Seal The Albatros]

Yes. You can do this. And if you still don't think you have courage or strength, it's not too late to get courage or strength. You're still moving forward. That shows a lot of strength in itself. You've also shared your story. That's something I never had the courage to do. The past is the past, but the present and future are up to you. You are not wrong. You can do this.

 

[SophiaGrace]

James, I'm really proud of you for finding the courage and strength to get help. I know it's draining, but I'm really glad you are.

I aint got no courage or strength. Just shame and desperation. .

1) You are getting help from several specialists
2) You're still posting here

You may not want to admit it but you have strength and courage.

Accept the compliment, darn you! lol

 

[cumulus.james]

James, I'm really proud of you for finding the courage and strength to get help. I know it's draining, but I'm really glad you are.

I aint got no courage or strength. Just shame and desperation. .

1) You are getting help from several specialists
2) You're still posting here

You may not want to admit it but you have strength and courage.

Accept the compliment, darn you! lol

No the specialists don't help. Been seeing a 'councellor' and when I try to explain my experiences she keeps saying **** like "you were excited". And i'm trying to tell her that I was really scared and it was really painful and it started mental health problems when I saw the blood and did not know what to do and all she says is that it was exciting. Wasn't exctiting, was bloody terrifying. That thing when I felt damp and went to wipe myself and all the blood and goo (semen) I can't ever get rid of that. Sometimes I wake up sweating. And the guilt cos I went back and kept doing things.

How will I ever not hate myself?

Was a child prostitute. That's a hell of an assault on your masculinity. Every man now, I think "hes gonna **** me and can't do anything about it". Course now I am 34 and unattractive this is highly unikely, but it is a responce I still have.

I also feel intimidated by mothers. Whats that about? Soon as I meet an adult female who is a mother I just don't want to be there. I hate her, I want to get away.

 

[Ioann]

You understand that your thinking is wrong. That's a start.

You know your thinking can change. Modern science tells us that's possible.

 

[SophiaGrace]

You know, I do get the feeling sometimes that you are sexually excited through how you write some of your posts. *thinks* I don't understand why your counselor would dismiss the damage you've gone through because of your sexual addiction though. Oftentimes there's not just one feeling with things, sometimes there are several. Like another emotion I am seeing in your writing is helplessness.

If it makes you feel any less alone I recently asked a friend to block all sex sites on my computer, so I can learn how to rewire myself. He wouldn't tell me how he did it so I wouldn't know how to undo it. I think I understand that maybe I will always have the cravings, since that's a hallmark of addiction, but I'm hoping to break the behavior through starving myself out of material.

 

[cumulus.james]

So I was just going through the playlist of the songs I listened to that night. Was 14, put on the radio so no one would hear me crying. And it's the most poignient thing.

Was the Nick Abbot show, sort of a really milder (non swearing) british howard stern phone in show. He made me laugh. They played Pink Floyd "Keep Talking" (this was thier new album and Nick was a fan), Suede "Stay Together", Depeche Mode "Enjoy the Silence" (how ironic), Blur "Girls and Boys", R.E.M "Losing my religion" (I am now an athiest) but most significantly, Smashing Pumpkins "Disarm".

So I have just been listening to "Disarm" on youtube, on about my 3rd listen now. Can picture a lonly, scared, confused and hurt 14 yr old boy, on his side in a sort of phoetal position, weeping and sobbing while this - the anthem of my life since then plays on.

"The killer in me is the killer in you" was a line that stuck with me.

Another one is "Disarm you with a Smile". I was kinda cute, big sparkly eyes and a great big smile.

In my early 20's I had this rival at work (we were competing for the promotions), and when I would go past him I would give him a great big massive smile. Then mental illness came about and I had a paranoid psychotic episode. I found myself in Seven kings, East London, it was autumn, it was drizzley and dark and I was creeping about the back streets utterly convinced he was chasing me and trying to kill me. It's all been down here since then.

Anyhow, have a go at this: Play this song, read the lyrics, then picture a 14 yr old who had just been sexually hurt cureld up and weeping to himself whilst this music plays. Then you might know me.



The song is true now, not just of me. But of all of us. "The killer in me is the killer in you". That is the only thing that is true of humanity.

 

[Ioann]

'What's a boy supposed to do?' Yes, I see.

But please believe, you can change the music, you really can. Hard as it may be, it can be done.

 

[cumulus.james]

'What's a boy supposed to do?' Yes, I see.

But please believe, you can change the music, you really can. Hard as it may be, it can be done.

I don't Want to change the music. That was the music. The music did change, it became NIN and Leonard Cohen. Le Tigre if I was in a good mood. Now it is silence. It is through the anthems of my youth that I can know myself.

I need to know that little boy.

He started off listening to the Bangles and Roxette you know.

 

[Ioann]

Self knowledge is necessary I suppose, before you can change. And music can be a powerful force. But surely the only point of understanding the past is to improve the future?

 

[cumulus.james]

Self knowledge is necessary I suppose, before you can change. And music can be a powerful force. But surely the only point of understanding the past is to improve the future?

Well I lost touch with myself about 10 years ago. Became someone I don't like, don't really know and am not proud to be. I feel I need to re-connect to who I was and return to that guy. Havent a clue what the future holds. I am 34 now, can't be an angst riddent teenage rentboy indie-kid anymore.

But I am motivated by this guy Dr. Terry Christain who slams Psychology and thinks that the pills are rubbish (The Drugs Dont Work - Anotehr anthem of my youth!).

He thinks that most problems stem from woundedness in childhood and the "self" gets fragmented. So I need to heal the wounds and re-integrate my "self" I guess. First I need to know what I went through, second I need to know what my "self" is.

 

[Ioann]

I'm 46 and I'm still a bit of an 80s indie kid! At least in terms of my musical taste.

I think you are right in what you say. If you understand what you went through, and how if changed you, you can start to reintegrate your fragmented self.

 

[cumulus.james]

Self knowledge is necessary I suppose, before you can change. And music can be a powerful force. But surely the only point of understanding the past is to improve the future?

Well I lost touch with myself about 10 years ago. Became someone I don't like, don't really know and am not proud to be. I feel I need to re-connect to who I was and return to that guy. Havent a clue what the future holds. I am 34 now, can't be an angst riddent teenage rentboy indie-kid anymore.

But I am motivated by this guy Dr. Terry Christain who slams Psychology and thinks that the pills are rubbish (The Drugs Dont Work - Anotehr anthem of my youth!).

He thinks that most problems stem from woundedness in childhood and the "self" gets fragmented. So I need to heal the wounds and re-integrate my "self" I guess. First I need to know what I went through, second I need to know what my "self" is.

You got to admit, as playlists go they could not have chosen worse ones. It was like "wristslit anthems"! Like tehy knew. Like they made it for me.