im male... when I was between the ages of 7 and 10 there were three older guys on the next block who used to kick my ass on a regular basis.
the usual bully types, but in this case particularlly agressive, sneaky and unforgiving. it got so that if I saw them somewhere in the neighborhood but they didn't see me, my first option was to turn around and get the hell out of there as fast as possible.
but that didn't always work. it went on for several years, but thankfully not too frequently.
one time in particular when I was around 8 or 9 I turned the corner near a local toystore and much to my dismay, there they were, all 3 of them, sitting on a bench on end of the cross street. I turned to run but immediately two of them got up and restrained me, while the 3rd, the oldest - like 16 or 17 years old, told me not to worry, that they had turned over a new leaf and were going to stop harassing me, and that as a token of their sincerity he had a gift for me, a train set, and that I should wait for him to come right back. this was 2 blocks away from my parents house in a big city. he lived 1 block back towards the p's house.
I of course told them that while I appreciated their change of heart the gift was entirely unnecessary, but he insisted.
so while I waited the two other kids, brothers, aged roughly 7 and 14 made sure I didnt try to leave. they were all bullies and generally I had never been trained to defend myself, even though I would struggle etc I never did the good stuff like trying to poke their eyes out or stomp their tracheas, the good self defense stuff every parent should teach their kids when living in a bad neighborhood. and for some reason I would get in trouble in school whenever I resisted bullies there so my parents specifically forbade me to "fight back" in many contexts, absurd as that might seem.
so we waited for the oldest to return, we'll call him M.R, while P.D. and C.D held me in check. well MR comes around the corner of the alley so we didn't see him walk the long block from his house, carrying a big flat box that was presumably the train set. he came back to the bench where we were and said, "see Anonymous, we've turned over a new leaf!" and opens the visibly dirty and decrepit box now that he's close enough for me to see it.
Inside was a totally mashed and mangled plastic train set, with plastic tracks, missing parts and generally looking like it had been stepped on, set fire to and who knows what else.
so at this point I knew I was done for. but for the first time they didnt just push me around or surround me and try to overpower me while I marginally would fight back.
instead they dragged me back to his house, brought me inside and there were others there, the older one MR's father most likely. they did various terrible and unspeakable things. MR was going into the military soon he said, and they said I was a pussy, a bitch, they made me take my pants off and told me I had to do 100 pushups to prove I wasnt some kind of bitch. well I started to do the pushups but I couldnt do 100 of them so MR basically had his way with me. Yep, he raped my ass, then things really got weird. I wont go into the details I remember but it seemed to veer close to ritual abuse, with many depravities forced upon me, and always their sneering, evil intensity yelling and threatening me. When they were satisfied they had thoroghly molested, scared and tormented the living jesus out of me about 3 hours later they let me go, warning me if I ever told my parents they would kill my parents and torment me far more than they had just done.
well needless to say I came home totally flipped out, scared senseless but relatively silent because of the threat. these perps knew I had toys that they didn't have, coming from broken homes as they did, like a couple hand held video games of the era (this was maybe 1979 at the latest.)
before leaving they said that if I didnt give them some of these toys, or money, that the assaults would continue. now needless to say this was hardly the first assault when it came to violence, but if memory serves it turns out to have been one of only two or three at most incidents with any sexual content with these jerks (out of like 10-20 incidents total of just generally being chased, threatened or getting my ass kicked...)
so when I came home my mom busted me trying to leave with a shopping bag full of toys that I was taking to them later that day. at first I didnt speak, but she could see I was so scared and probably also that my personality had changed in the direction of abject terror, that I was obviously a victim of torture or other heavy duty harassment...
so eventually all babbling and crying I related enough of the story that my mom (not my dad for some reason) wandered up the block to where they lived, prolly took her a minute to find the place since we didnt know these people and had no association with them whatsoever, they lived in squalor and the adult there that I assumed was MR's father seemed alcoholic at best or possibly a junkie.
anyway, I did not go with her, I do not know what she said or did, but I never ever had a problem with those kids again. however my mom and dad ALSO reassured me that all of the above was "a bad dream", "a nightmare", or "just like a bad dream" and I should forget it.
and this I did for many years until being in my 20's.
I lived with a girlfriend on the other side of town. one day I was visiting my parents and was walking up the block where MR and his two cohorts had lived so many years prior. we lived on a sidestreet but they had lived one block over on a main street with store fronts.
well walking past one of the liquor stores this dissheveled, kinda junkie-looking guy half whispers in a raspy voice, "hey anonymous! anoymous! you remember me?"
and I was like "M???" now bear in mind I was a young adult by now, having finally learned a couple basics of self defense in the interim and having fought many more battles with various grades of bully, and seeing this guy I was instantly ready for ANYTHING, ready to defend myself to the utmost.
but I could see this guy was a mere shade of the bully he once was but needless to say, the many incidences of violence all came rushing back. not so the two sexual abuse incidents, because I had suppressed them very well thanks to my parents suggestions that "it was just a bad dream and everything would be OK."...
but so heres this guy MR looking like I certainly would have no problems defending myself from him. though I never knew him or associated with him, during the interim it was neighborhood knowledge that he had joined the special forces and I had seen him one time when I was about 17, he looked pretty tough. but now like 7 or 8 years later (= I was 25, 26) he looked considerably less powerful, weakened to the core of his being...
hes like "yes anonymous, its M, dude, I am SO sincerely sorry for all the things I did to you as a kid. with God as my witness I beg your forgiveness. please forgive me. I was very evil to you" etc etc.
and being of a generally good natured spirit and seeing this tortured broken human in front of me, thinking that whatever tortures I suffered at his hand must be small compared to the demons under whose hand he must have suffered to wind up so tormented a soul.
and so I forgave him with ultimate sincerity. I didn't really remember the sexual abuse stuff at the time but even with the degree of violence its likely many a person wouldnt have forgave, or might even have pounded on his silly ass at that point. but I forgave him and meant it, and like to think i'd still have done so had I recalled the full extent of his atrocities.
however the story doesnt end there. his response, he's like "so you still live in the neighborhood? do you smoke weed?" and I was like, "uh, well, yeah doesnt everybody, but I kinda gotta go," and hes whips out a bag of weed and was like "we should hang out, i've got some weed, its been a long time etc. etc."
now bear in mind I *NEVER* hung out with this person, and in fact the hair on the back of my neck was instinctively standing on end at the mere suggestion, based on recollection of the countless incidents of violence I suffered.
so politely as possible I refused. I lied: "i'd love to but i'm real busy, sorry dude" and after a couple repititions he accepted this but not before writing his phone # on a piece of paper and handing it to me.
I left, went back to my p's and then back home to my gf.
roughly two weeks later it was in the paper that he hung himself.
now, things werent going so well between my girlfriend and I after being together 3 years so I ended up going by my parents house about a month or so later. on that visit my mom related to me that MR had hung himself two or three weeks prior. she had no idea I had seem him approximately two weeks before that on my previous visit.
over the following weeks, months and years the entirety of the above story started to unravel, along with several other equally horrific ones involving the same characters...
theres my abuse story. I have a couple more, but that one stands out as particularly intense...
to this day my sexuality is rather scrambled, as a result of these and a few other fun incidents... i am attracted to women, but i also identify with women and femaleness much more than maleness... people tell me im attractive, but i have a really hard time getting with girls, even tho once i do they usually tell me im pretty good in the sack... so instead of actual human contact i enjoy crossdressing on a regular basis... its a shallow substitute for the real skin contact with girls that i long for... afraid to try bothering with paying for sex, too many risky unknowns there... its been about 10 years since my last girlfriend, the dissolving of that relationship is a whole other abuse story in itself...
let me just close by saying that, even here in a big, world class city, its very difficult finding any help whatsoever for these issues. i have intense issues of worthlessness and shame, you would think that in the LGBT community there might be some therapy available, but I've tried several times and once they find out you are "Transgendered" but *NOT* homosexual or even very bisexual, well, i mean they basically don't seem to care one whit.
the usual bully types, but in this case particularlly agressive, sneaky and unforgiving. it got so that if I saw them somewhere in the neighborhood but they didn't see me, my first option was to turn around and get the hell out of there as fast as possible.
but that didn't always work. it went on for several years, but thankfully not too frequently.
one time in particular when I was around 8 or 9 I turned the corner near a local toystore and much to my dismay, there they were, all 3 of them, sitting on a bench on end of the cross street. I turned to run but immediately two of them got up and restrained me, while the 3rd, the oldest - like 16 or 17 years old, told me not to worry, that they had turned over a new leaf and were going to stop harassing me, and that as a token of their sincerity he had a gift for me, a train set, and that I should wait for him to come right back. this was 2 blocks away from my parents house in a big city. he lived 1 block back towards the p's house.
I of course told them that while I appreciated their change of heart the gift was entirely unnecessary, but he insisted.
so while I waited the two other kids, brothers, aged roughly 7 and 14 made sure I didnt try to leave. they were all bullies and generally I had never been trained to defend myself, even though I would struggle etc I never did the good stuff like trying to poke their eyes out or stomp their tracheas, the good self defense stuff every parent should teach their kids when living in a bad neighborhood. and for some reason I would get in trouble in school whenever I resisted bullies there so my parents specifically forbade me to "fight back" in many contexts, absurd as that might seem.
so we waited for the oldest to return, we'll call him M.R, while P.D. and C.D held me in check. well MR comes around the corner of the alley so we didn't see him walk the long block from his house, carrying a big flat box that was presumably the train set. he came back to the bench where we were and said, "see Anonymous, we've turned over a new leaf!" and opens the visibly dirty and decrepit box now that he's close enough for me to see it.
Inside was a totally mashed and mangled plastic train set, with plastic tracks, missing parts and generally looking like it had been stepped on, set fire to and who knows what else.
so at this point I knew I was done for. but for the first time they didnt just push me around or surround me and try to overpower me while I marginally would fight back.
instead they dragged me back to his house, brought me inside and there were others there, the older one MR's father most likely. they did various terrible and unspeakable things. MR was going into the military soon he said, and they said I was a pussy, a bitch, they made me take my pants off and told me I had to do 100 pushups to prove I wasnt some kind of bitch. well I started to do the pushups but I couldnt do 100 of them so MR basically had his way with me. Yep, he raped my ass, then things really got weird. I wont go into the details I remember but it seemed to veer close to ritual abuse, with many depravities forced upon me, and always their sneering, evil intensity yelling and threatening me. When they were satisfied they had thoroghly molested, scared and tormented the living jesus out of me about 3 hours later they let me go, warning me if I ever told my parents they would kill my parents and torment me far more than they had just done.
well needless to say I came home totally flipped out, scared senseless but relatively silent because of the threat. these perps knew I had toys that they didn't have, coming from broken homes as they did, like a couple hand held video games of the era (this was maybe 1979 at the latest.)
before leaving they said that if I didnt give them some of these toys, or money, that the assaults would continue. now needless to say this was hardly the first assault when it came to violence, but if memory serves it turns out to have been one of only two or three at most incidents with any sexual content with these jerks (out of like 10-20 incidents total of just generally being chased, threatened or getting my ass kicked...)
so when I came home my mom busted me trying to leave with a shopping bag full of toys that I was taking to them later that day. at first I didnt speak, but she could see I was so scared and probably also that my personality had changed in the direction of abject terror, that I was obviously a victim of torture or other heavy duty harassment...
so eventually all babbling and crying I related enough of the story that my mom (not my dad for some reason) wandered up the block to where they lived, prolly took her a minute to find the place since we didnt know these people and had no association with them whatsoever, they lived in squalor and the adult there that I assumed was MR's father seemed alcoholic at best or possibly a junkie.
anyway, I did not go with her, I do not know what she said or did, but I never ever had a problem with those kids again. however my mom and dad ALSO reassured me that all of the above was "a bad dream", "a nightmare", or "just like a bad dream" and I should forget it.
and this I did for many years until being in my 20's.
I lived with a girlfriend on the other side of town. one day I was visiting my parents and was walking up the block where MR and his two cohorts had lived so many years prior. we lived on a sidestreet but they had lived one block over on a main street with store fronts.
well walking past one of the liquor stores this dissheveled, kinda junkie-looking guy half whispers in a raspy voice, "hey anonymous! anoymous! you remember me?"
and I was like "M???" now bear in mind I was a young adult by now, having finally learned a couple basics of self defense in the interim and having fought many more battles with various grades of bully, and seeing this guy I was instantly ready for ANYTHING, ready to defend myself to the utmost.
but I could see this guy was a mere shade of the bully he once was but needless to say, the many incidences of violence all came rushing back. not so the two sexual abuse incidents, because I had suppressed them very well thanks to my parents suggestions that "it was just a bad dream and everything would be OK."...
but so heres this guy MR looking like I certainly would have no problems defending myself from him. though I never knew him or associated with him, during the interim it was neighborhood knowledge that he had joined the special forces and I had seen him one time when I was about 17, he looked pretty tough. but now like 7 or 8 years later (= I was 25, 26) he looked considerably less powerful, weakened to the core of his being...
hes like "yes anonymous, its M, dude, I am SO sincerely sorry for all the things I did to you as a kid. with God as my witness I beg your forgiveness. please forgive me. I was very evil to you" etc etc.
and being of a generally good natured spirit and seeing this tortured broken human in front of me, thinking that whatever tortures I suffered at his hand must be small compared to the demons under whose hand he must have suffered to wind up so tormented a soul.
and so I forgave him with ultimate sincerity. I didn't really remember the sexual abuse stuff at the time but even with the degree of violence its likely many a person wouldnt have forgave, or might even have pounded on his silly ass at that point. but I forgave him and meant it, and like to think i'd still have done so had I recalled the full extent of his atrocities.
however the story doesnt end there. his response, he's like "so you still live in the neighborhood? do you smoke weed?" and I was like, "uh, well, yeah doesnt everybody, but I kinda gotta go," and hes whips out a bag of weed and was like "we should hang out, i've got some weed, its been a long time etc. etc."
now bear in mind I *NEVER* hung out with this person, and in fact the hair on the back of my neck was instinctively standing on end at the mere suggestion, based on recollection of the countless incidents of violence I suffered.
so politely as possible I refused. I lied: "i'd love to but i'm real busy, sorry dude" and after a couple repititions he accepted this but not before writing his phone # on a piece of paper and handing it to me.
I left, went back to my p's and then back home to my gf.
roughly two weeks later it was in the paper that he hung himself.
now, things werent going so well between my girlfriend and I after being together 3 years so I ended up going by my parents house about a month or so later. on that visit my mom related to me that MR had hung himself two or three weeks prior. she had no idea I had seem him approximately two weeks before that on my previous visit.
over the following weeks, months and years the entirety of the above story started to unravel, along with several other equally horrific ones involving the same characters...
theres my abuse story. I have a couple more, but that one stands out as particularly intense...
to this day my sexuality is rather scrambled, as a result of these and a few other fun incidents... i am attracted to women, but i also identify with women and femaleness much more than maleness... people tell me im attractive, but i have a really hard time getting with girls, even tho once i do they usually tell me im pretty good in the sack... so instead of actual human contact i enjoy crossdressing on a regular basis... its a shallow substitute for the real skin contact with girls that i long for... afraid to try bothering with paying for sex, too many risky unknowns there... its been about 10 years since my last girlfriend, the dissolving of that relationship is a whole other abuse story in itself...
let me just close by saying that, even here in a big, world class city, its very difficult finding any help whatsoever for these issues. i have intense issues of worthlessness and shame, you would think that in the LGBT community there might be some therapy available, but I've tried several times and once they find out you are "Transgendered" but *NOT* homosexual or even very bisexual, well, i mean they basically don't seem to care one whit.
yeah i do periodically make efforts to look for help. im not too stuck on "needing help" in the sense of acknowledging some brokeness that only someone else can fix. i could definitely benefit from some kind of therapy but i don't feel too broken overall, nor does my life reflect too much disarray at the present time. however there are definitely a couple issues i could use some feedback on, and i welcome the opportunity to learn better strategies to live my life and move towards goals...