alittlehelpplease
New Here
For my own healing
A conversation between my older self, my younger self, and a person who mentally damaged me for life when I was a young child.
First a back story for context.
I was born in 1966 to a Catholic family that would eventually have 5 children. I’m the middle child. (Issues about being the middle child, you may have heard about from others, are real. Largely, you are forgotten about.) We lived in a small town in Michigan until I was around 7 or 8 when we moved to a newly built bank foreclosed house in the country. Ten miles northeast of town the ranch style house sat on roughly 4 acres. Behind the house was a field and then a large forest my brothers and I played in. At times, there were several neighbor kids who would join us. There was also a creek about 200 yards to the east. We played there as well and during salmon season we would bring our catch home for our grandmother to cook. It was a good area to grow up in and we played outside almost 100% of the time, even during winter.
It was here, in this area that I was molested by a much older neighbor kid. He was a year or two older than my oldest brother so he must have been around 15 or 16. This happened several times over a year or two, maybe longer. I don’t remember exactly. After we lived in this location for a while, he came to see if I would play outside with him. I felt special that a much older kid would want to play with just me and he didn’t even ask my brothers to come along. He didn’t do anything strange the first few times but later he did. I didn’t know what exactly was happening. Later I felt dirty and confused. I remember asking if this was being gay. He said no. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to be gay, and I told him this several times. I told him I didn’t want to do this anymore and I was afraid of being gay. He just kept coming over. When I would answer the door and see it was him, I felt afraid and disappointed that he was back again to abuse me and make me feel used and gross. It felt like I was stuck in this situation, and it would never stop. I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone about it. They would think there was something wrong with me and I would be the one in trouble.
By the way, just to clarify, I don’t have a problem with other people being gay. At the time I didn’t understand what it meant. I just remember hearing that it was bad and that other kids would call each other gay if they wanted to say something to hurt the other.
We moved back to town when I was around 10 or 11. After moving back to town, I didn’t have any more contact with Don, and I was relieved to not have to endure any further abuse but the thoughts of what happened still haunt me and linger on even to this day.
Our new house in town was a 100 plus year-old Victorian style home that needed a lot of work. The whole family worked to renovate it. The house was very large and sits directly across from the city park. We now had new friends to hang around with and life was a little better. I lived here until a few months after High School Graduation when my fiancé, at the time, and I moved into a mobile home on an acre of land a few miles west of town.
The conversations:
Older ME to younger Me . . .
OME: For a long time, I have thought you could have said something. Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell your mom or dad?
YMe: I was afraid. He was much bigger and older than me. He told me not to tell or bad things would happen to me. He said other people would think I was gay. He said nobody would believe me anyway.
OME: I remember you telling him you didn’t want to do this anymore. He would say this was the last time, but it never was until you moved away back to town.
OME: I get it. It wasn’t your fault. You hated what was happening but couldn’t make it stop. I know you tried to get him to stop. You were just a little kid; you didn’t understand all of what was happening. He had power over you by being older and threatening you and you were scared.
OME to the molester . . .
OME: Why did you do this to me? You made me feel gross, stupid, and ashamed. You took away my innocence, I can never be the same person as I was before. I was a good kid and had a whole world of possibilities ahead of me. You wrecked my life. I’m sure my life would have been much different if you didn’t do this to me. I have a lot of deep-rooted issues because of you. You caused me to withdraw from others and become an introvert. I have never trusted relationships with guy friends. I keep wondering why they want to be my friend thinking there has to be some kind of catch. It has taken my whole lifetime to try to fix my issues.
OME: I’m not sure if I can forgive you. I do forgive myself though. It was not my fault. I was just a little kid. It was your fault. I’ll never know what it is like to live a life without having the mental trauma from being abused, it doesn’t go away.
OME: Looking back, it becomes clearer of how this affected me as a child and in growing up. I recall having issues with anger, bad temper, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, lack of self-confidence, awkward with relationships. I began to play alone and spent most of my time drawing.
My thoughts today . . .
When my son was 5 or 6 and in Cub Scouts, I was the Den Leader. We were told to show a video to our kids about being safe from pedophiles and the like. I remember watching the video alone before showing it to my son. The video had several scenarios of someone trying to take sexual advantage of a child. I knew it would be hard for me to watch and didn’t want him to see me crying in case that is how I would react. It was a good thing I watched it alone because I cried uncontrollably through the entire video. I also cried when I showed it to my son but was able to conceal my tears from him since I had already reacted to it before.
I’m glad that nothing like this happened to my children. If it had, I could not guarantee the safety of the perpetrator.
When I see on the news that someone has sexually molested a child, I hope for them to be sent to prison for life and I hope the other prisoners hate pedophiles. There are times when this also brings out emotions, but I try to hide it.
I feel like I have been able to get beyond some of my issues over time. For instance, my wife has helped me with being less of an introvert, though she may not realize it.
I think as an adult, I have led an accomplished life that I am proud of. Again, in large part due to my wife.
Despite my accomplishments or what others may think about me, I still have . . .
Poor sense of self value.
Thinking I don’t deserve to have fun. I should be the one doing all the work. Other people deserve to have the fun, not me.
I allow people and especially employers to take advantage of me.
Hard to accept complements.
Depression, loss of interest and enjoyment.
Anxiety
Binge eating / weight problem.
Thank you for listening.
A conversation between my older self, my younger self, and a person who mentally damaged me for life when I was a young child.
First a back story for context.
I was born in 1966 to a Catholic family that would eventually have 5 children. I’m the middle child. (Issues about being the middle child, you may have heard about from others, are real. Largely, you are forgotten about.) We lived in a small town in Michigan until I was around 7 or 8 when we moved to a newly built bank foreclosed house in the country. Ten miles northeast of town the ranch style house sat on roughly 4 acres. Behind the house was a field and then a large forest my brothers and I played in. At times, there were several neighbor kids who would join us. There was also a creek about 200 yards to the east. We played there as well and during salmon season we would bring our catch home for our grandmother to cook. It was a good area to grow up in and we played outside almost 100% of the time, even during winter.
It was here, in this area that I was molested by a much older neighbor kid. He was a year or two older than my oldest brother so he must have been around 15 or 16. This happened several times over a year or two, maybe longer. I don’t remember exactly. After we lived in this location for a while, he came to see if I would play outside with him. I felt special that a much older kid would want to play with just me and he didn’t even ask my brothers to come along. He didn’t do anything strange the first few times but later he did. I didn’t know what exactly was happening. Later I felt dirty and confused. I remember asking if this was being gay. He said no. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t want to be gay, and I told him this several times. I told him I didn’t want to do this anymore and I was afraid of being gay. He just kept coming over. When I would answer the door and see it was him, I felt afraid and disappointed that he was back again to abuse me and make me feel used and gross. It felt like I was stuck in this situation, and it would never stop. I didn’t feel like I could tell anyone about it. They would think there was something wrong with me and I would be the one in trouble.
By the way, just to clarify, I don’t have a problem with other people being gay. At the time I didn’t understand what it meant. I just remember hearing that it was bad and that other kids would call each other gay if they wanted to say something to hurt the other.
We moved back to town when I was around 10 or 11. After moving back to town, I didn’t have any more contact with Don, and I was relieved to not have to endure any further abuse but the thoughts of what happened still haunt me and linger on even to this day.
Our new house in town was a 100 plus year-old Victorian style home that needed a lot of work. The whole family worked to renovate it. The house was very large and sits directly across from the city park. We now had new friends to hang around with and life was a little better. I lived here until a few months after High School Graduation when my fiancé, at the time, and I moved into a mobile home on an acre of land a few miles west of town.
The conversations:
Older ME to younger Me . . .
OME: For a long time, I have thought you could have said something. Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell your mom or dad?
YMe: I was afraid. He was much bigger and older than me. He told me not to tell or bad things would happen to me. He said other people would think I was gay. He said nobody would believe me anyway.
OME: I remember you telling him you didn’t want to do this anymore. He would say this was the last time, but it never was until you moved away back to town.
OME: I get it. It wasn’t your fault. You hated what was happening but couldn’t make it stop. I know you tried to get him to stop. You were just a little kid; you didn’t understand all of what was happening. He had power over you by being older and threatening you and you were scared.
OME to the molester . . .
OME: Why did you do this to me? You made me feel gross, stupid, and ashamed. You took away my innocence, I can never be the same person as I was before. I was a good kid and had a whole world of possibilities ahead of me. You wrecked my life. I’m sure my life would have been much different if you didn’t do this to me. I have a lot of deep-rooted issues because of you. You caused me to withdraw from others and become an introvert. I have never trusted relationships with guy friends. I keep wondering why they want to be my friend thinking there has to be some kind of catch. It has taken my whole lifetime to try to fix my issues.
OME: I’m not sure if I can forgive you. I do forgive myself though. It was not my fault. I was just a little kid. It was your fault. I’ll never know what it is like to live a life without having the mental trauma from being abused, it doesn’t go away.
OME: Looking back, it becomes clearer of how this affected me as a child and in growing up. I recall having issues with anger, bad temper, low self-esteem, feeling unworthy, lack of self-confidence, awkward with relationships. I began to play alone and spent most of my time drawing.
My thoughts today . . .
When my son was 5 or 6 and in Cub Scouts, I was the Den Leader. We were told to show a video to our kids about being safe from pedophiles and the like. I remember watching the video alone before showing it to my son. The video had several scenarios of someone trying to take sexual advantage of a child. I knew it would be hard for me to watch and didn’t want him to see me crying in case that is how I would react. It was a good thing I watched it alone because I cried uncontrollably through the entire video. I also cried when I showed it to my son but was able to conceal my tears from him since I had already reacted to it before.
I’m glad that nothing like this happened to my children. If it had, I could not guarantee the safety of the perpetrator.
When I see on the news that someone has sexually molested a child, I hope for them to be sent to prison for life and I hope the other prisoners hate pedophiles. There are times when this also brings out emotions, but I try to hide it.
I feel like I have been able to get beyond some of my issues over time. For instance, my wife has helped me with being less of an introvert, though she may not realize it.
I think as an adult, I have led an accomplished life that I am proud of. Again, in large part due to my wife.
Despite my accomplishments or what others may think about me, I still have . . .
Poor sense of self value.
Thinking I don’t deserve to have fun. I should be the one doing all the work. Other people deserve to have the fun, not me.
I allow people and especially employers to take advantage of me.
Hard to accept complements.
Depression, loss of interest and enjoyment.
Anxiety
Binge eating / weight problem.
Thank you for listening.
