"...there's something wrong among the men on my father's side of the family..."
"traumaboy" - a memoir about abuse, neglect, and survival
"He can't get me anymore!!"
My father and I had no contact the last 23 years of his life. He was an angry, vengeful man, found legally guilty of mental and physical cruelty of my mother. When he died, some family mourned him the way most people mourn when someone passes - but I heard a voice. A kid inside me, joyfully jumping as if out of my skin: "He can't get me anymore!!" I had no idea what it meant. I hadn't seen the man in nearly a half century. I'd long gone on in life - to a successful, lucrative career. Five painful years would pass as I slowly realized, added together, and accepted memories, fragments, and senses from my childhood: Sexual abuse from age 6.5, if not from my crib. "traumaboy" shares my story.
Troubles From My First Hour
My father pushed my mother down a flight of stairs shortly before I was born. Maybe even hours before I was born. She was drunk, listening to loud, rock-and-roll music on his Hi-Fi stereo, and, he (as he told me when I was fifteen) wanted to teach her a lesson.
When I was born - battered, bloody, and bruised - an attending nun cleaned me and gave me to my mother, who took one look at me, cried, and said:
"This one is ugly," and then handed me back to the nun.
"Mild Brain Damage," words that would trap me
My doctor told my mother that I was born with mild brain damage - that I'd be an "Odd Duck," not like the other kids. He also said that, left with space and supported with encouragement, I might find my own path and be as successful as my brothers and sisters. I was left with space, neglected, and not encouraged. Instead, the words mild brain damage were used as a weapon against me:
my mother convincing me there was something wrong with me, and
my father using the words as cover for his sexual deviance and pedophilia.
Psychedelics and, Finally, Freedom
I've been in therapy nearly half my life. Starting with a doctor who diagnosed me with OCD and tried to cure me of being gay by over medicating me and leading me in a "Rush Limbaugh meditation" in his office, I've seen inside the walls of a suicide watch in a mental hospital. It wasn't until I turned to a world-renowned child trauma doctor, the only professional who got me to talk about disturbing memories I had of two showers with my father when I was a kid, that I finally got meaningful help towards Freedom. On my own, working within a clandestine network of drug dealers and off-the-record doctors, MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, and a Spiritual Native American Grandfather helped me free myself.
Learn about trauma
Being human means experiencing joy, love, pain, and trauma.
We all go through it. But all experiences of trauma are not equal.
"traumaboy" explains in clear terms how trauma works:
Why some people experience a traumatic incident like a child getting hurt in an accident and eventually say, "it wasn't so bad," while others who saw the same accident experience mental anguish and undergo therapy, sometimes for years; How critical parts of the human brain work when a person experiences trauma; What you can do to help yourself or a loved one who's experiencing trauma.
The Massive Problem of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) and what you can do
1 in 3 girls, and 1 in 4 boys, in the US are sexually molested before age 18. This horrible truth, multiplied by the number of girls and boys in the US, means there are more than 21 million CSA kids in America - a population that, were these kids in a country all by themselves, would make for the 59th largest country on Earth. A country of abuse and pain larger than Chile, Netherlands, and Romania. Larger than Greece and Sweden combined. Conservative figures show that the number of CSA kids worldwide totals more than India's population. "traumaboy" lovingly and patiently helps you understand what you can do, and say, to a child or adult in your life who's suffering the impact of CSA and/or severe cases of Complex-Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.