Healing Without Remembering

Recovery is Ongoing

This is my story:

My name is Geoffrey. I’m a 65 year old man in my second round of recovery.

At age 31, I entered therapy for being unhappy with my life course and feeling stuck. My therapist immediately suspected that I was a CSA survivor. I had no conscious knowledge that this was the case, but in fact my therapist was right. Through dream journaling and a corroborating memory that my older sister recovered, I learned the identity of my abuser. He was Gene, a friend of my father’s (they met at work) who did handyman jobs around our house and yard. Gene abused me starting at age 4 and continuing until sometime after I turned 9.

I do not have episodic memories of my abuse but I have body memories of being anally penetrated. Raped is really the more accurate term. I also learned through my dreams that I was orally raped as well as forced to orally service his anus. I also clearly remember at age 5 using my trike’s hard rubber front tire to ram all four hubcaps on his truck, denting them beyond repair. I was fortunate that the hubcaps were made of soft, lightweight aluminum because this meant that they could not put up too much of a fight against my determination to “leave my mark” on them. I didn’t even really know why I was doing it at the time but I knew I was very angry with Gene. I must have already been starting to lock away conscious knowledge of the abuse episodes. He laughed the whole thing off. Now I see that this was to prevent my parents from looking into what might be behind my destructive behavior.

So for 34 years I’ve known that I’m a CSA survivor. I am going through this second round of therapy and recovery now because of issues I’ve been having about my father’s connection to my abuser and therefore to my abuse.

“Healing does not begin with perfect memories.

It begins with believing yourself“

I don’t know if or how much my father knew about my abuse but he has always been associated with it in my mind since I learned about it at age 31. I now suspect that Dad and Gene had a sexual relationship. I have a lot of anger toward Dad for bringing Gene into the family realm and putting me in harm’s way. I’m in the midst of processing this anger. I feel in my tissues and bones that he sacrificed me to Gene, whether knowingly or not. I feel like he trafficked me. It’s only now, close to 4 years after he died, that I am able to strip away the pretense of him being this wonderful father. I was his biggest fan, but I was hiding from, and lying to myself about, the pain of his ongoing betrayal and abandonment.

I am doing well with Recovery 2.0. I have a great male therapist, I’m listening to other survivors’ stories on YouTube, I’m doing some dream journaling, I’m writing some poems, and I’m really processing all of my thoughts and emotions about all of this. Also, a part of my journey is searching for safe places online where I could potentially share my story and some poems that I’ve written related to my abuse. This is how I found Focused Light, which feels like a safe, supportive space to share my experiences. I’m feeling a strong need to do this at this point in my recovery because I want other men like me to know that not having visual memories of their abuse does not somehow disqualify them as survivors of sexual trauma, and that they absolutely do not need to have visual memories of their abuse in order to heal.

Before learning of my abuse at 31, I had deep self-loathing and had a premonition on my first wedding anniversary that my life would end in suicide. I didn’t even know why I hated myself at that point. I know now that it was because of being physically, psychologically, and spiritually shattered to bits by the CSA.

“I want other men to know they do not

need visual memories to heal.”

I then suffered a second bout of suicidal ideation after the birth of my first child, a boy. I believed then that I was no kind of positive male role model for my son and that he’d be better off without me on the planet. My wife and her parents loved me through these darkest of times and I checked myself into a psych ward to save my life. There, I met a wonderful psychiatrist who helped me understand that I was not worthless and that I could take on the jobs of being a good father to my son, being a good husband to my wife, and finding meaningful, good-paying employment to pursue for the support of my little family.

It’s been decades since I stopped hating myself. And I so easily could have been a suicide before the birth of my first child. I lay that round of suicidality, and probably most of the second round, at my father’s feet.

I am grateful for my wife, her parents, my psychiatrist, my little newborn son, and my own small kernel of refusing to ever give up. All of these elements combined to help me stay here on earth and to continue to live and love no matter what the future could ever hold.

This has been my story. There are also four poems that I’d like to share. The poems each address different aspects of my abuse:

“The future holds my past ” deals with an intense dream I had where I awoke crying, just prior to uncovering the fact that I had been sexually abused in childhood,

“Unfuck Myself ” deals with self-loathing,

“Metal Toy Cars ” addresses the destruction of my body,

and “It could have happened this way ” talks about how I felt trafficked by my father.

The future holds my past

I wake from my dream,
weeping
for a time that is long over
that is never over

I pour tears and memories into the chasm,
but they cannot mend it

I travel forward in time,
only to learn
that my past still waits for me.

Unfuck Myself

I want to go back and unfuck myself
I was four years old
I wish I could

Before the first time
He forced his man penis
Into
My boy body
Was the last time
I liked me
For a very long time

He hijacked
Pockets of my time
But
It was so much more

He found
A trusting, kind little boy
Happy to be learning about life
And
Eager to meet Daddy’s friend

He used my little body
Violently
He made me his living,
Breathing,
Fuck doll

He made me bleed

I want to go back and unfuck myself
I know I can’t
I was four years old.

Metal Toy Cars

The damage I inflict
On my metal toy cars
Is in my hands

In time,
I take a hammer
To each one of them

Denting, crushing, destroying,
And finally,
Discarding

I feel ashamed

But
I know the story
Does not end here

The damage he inflicts
On my body
On my mind
On my heart
On my soul
Is out of my hands

I am being destroyed.

It could have happened this way

After years of protecting you,
I can now say:
This is exactly what it felt like

Daddy,
You let Gene rape me

I always knew
That there was something between you two

And whatever it was,

It was no good

Now I finally know
I know it from my insides out

You let Gene rape me
Because you had something to hide:
Your relationship

Gene threatened you
He said he would tell
Tell Mum
That you liked men
Start the whispers at work
And you believed him

But Gene was fucking with you
If he had wanted to blow
Your marriage, your career and your life
To smithereens
He could have

He could have pinned it all on you
Made it look like you
Were the only one
To pursue
And that he was just
The object
Of your desire
But had no interest in you

Gene was never going
To go that far
He knew
He didn’t have to

Gene played you
To get to me
You paid for his false silence
With my young body,
With my future,
With my life

You made it so easy
For him
You laid down a path for Gene to follow
Straight to me

Dad,
You sacrificed me to Gene
To keep your secrets hidden

You made me pay for your sins,
And I have been paying
Ever since

What Gene did to me
Nearly ended my life
What you did
Was worse