To be, or not to be, that is the question.

I have agonised over sending this post. It is probably the most revealing thing I've written. I have spoken to some friends and the reaction was mixed. Overall the opinion was to post it. I did so briefly yesterday, but then chickened out. To quote a good friend of mine "There are costs & consequences associated with living in truth, just as there are with living in lies & falsehood."

If you choose to judge me harshly then you are free to do so. If you choose to unfollow me then again that is your choice.


To be free of the past, to be free of the nightmares. To be free of my own, personal, demons. My fears haunt me. My desires terrorise me. The overwhelming pressure I feel inside to share all I know; of myself and of the realities of trying to survive through my teens and twenties.

There were times that I sank so low I thought I could never climb out of the gutter. I had different personalities within my own head to deal with too. We've all seen the cartoon depicting a man with an angel on one shoulder, and a devil on the other I think? Imagine four on each side... Each determined to be heard, with me in the middle, mostly unaware. I thought for years that I was mad. The biggest proof I had was the evidence of others and the fact I lost time so often. Blanks in my memory.

Drink caused me to behave in ways that would make me cringe with embarrassment when sober. I smoked weed, at first enjoying the triply highs, but later only experiencing earth shattering lows. Anything to escape who I was. I was soiled goods. I was dirty, second hand trash. Unworthy and unable to fit in with society.

I was raped by a college "friend" on my seventeenth birthday. He was seven years older than me. In some ways I don't blame him because I acted out sexually with anyone who liked me, or wanted to get to know me. I acted out this way through my late teens, my twenties and into my very early thirties.

I left college a year later. It wasn't a decision that made me popular with my family.

After a few weeks someone else tried it on with me. I reacted badly. I sank into a black pit. I ended up homeless, slept on the streets for six weeks in the middle of winter. I also sold myself in order to get some money for food, for drink.

I managed to pull myself together, and with help from a friend got somewhere to live and a job in a nightclub. All went well for a few weeks, though I felt I was losing my grip on reality.

I experimented with much during my late teens. Drink, drugs, sex, religion and even magic. I also experimented with death. One weekend, at an all time low I swallowed a load of pills washed down with copious amounts of vodka. I woke during this attempt to see my mother in front of me. She was mighty pissed at me. Told me it wasn't my time, that I had much to do. I saw her, I heard her, I even recognised her scent. I promptly emptied the contents of my stomach onto the floor, then passed out face first onto it...

A few months later my father died. I knew he was ill, but his death still came as a shock. He had remarried, had a "new" son and lived near his wife's family. I spent little time there. When he had been diagnosed with cancer, I was eighteen. He asked me to look after his wife and baby when he died. It was a difficult moment, but I agreed. When he married her, I was living with the grandparents and also an uncle who lived near my school.

On the night of his funeral, my dear sister, her then husband and also her "next" husband got me very drunk. They sat me down in the living room and she started interrogating me about my life. This is the same woman who had called me a liar when I plucked up the courage to tell her at sixteen that I had been abused...

A few hours into this "discussion" my sister decided I should be put into a mental hospital. She was a trainee nurse at the time and her ex boyfriend worked in such a hospital... My fathers widow tried to dissuade me, but I told the family doctor whom my sister had telephoned that I feared for my life and that I wanted to be admitted into the hospital.

My sister and aunt had told me a few times that I was responsible for my fathers death. That worry about me had sent him to his grave early... My sister had blamed me for my mothers death too. She told me when I was nine years old that my mother would have lived if I hadn't have been born. My mother chose to have me knowing she had cancer. She delayed treatment until after my birth. She lived a further nine years...

I spent about ten days in that hospital. My sister spread the word that I was "nuts. The doctors in the hospital eventually disagreed however and told me to stay away from her for my own sake. I was discharged and had no choice but to go back to the grandparents house. This was after some torturous "therapy"

I spent eighteen months in therapy, but even back then, the full extent of the sexual abuse did not surface. The therapy revolved mostly around my self image and my self harming behaviour. The reasons were never fully explored.

The grandfather died, I married. I saw my fathers widow and my half brother once only. I saw my sister about three times in ten years. After my marriage failed I went off the edge again. I spent my first night alone with a bottle of vodka. It was empty by morning.

The self doubt, the insecurities came flooding back. I spent ten years "in the wilderness" with my fractured personalities. The conditioning I had undergone as a small child leading me. My place in life was to please others. To be subservient, to simply exist. There are memories of these years that haunt me almost as much as those of my childhood. There are people I knew then that don't understand this.

Towards the end of this period I started assimilating some of my personalities. I grew more confident, I longed for normality. I was desperately unhappy. One Christmas I tried to kill myself again. A good friend talked me through my pain, a friend that I've now lost.

New Years Eve, the same year... My sister called me, drunk, apologetic and full of shit. She was having a party. She asked me to hold on then next thing I knew my fathers widow was talking to me, then my half brother. We agreed to meet up. It took 14 months for me to pluck up the courage to do so.

I cleaned up my life. This was eleven years ago.

I eventually kept my promise to my dying father, but not in a way he might have imagined. I fell in love with and married his widow, became stepfather to my own half brother. We are a family. My sister reported me to the police for marrying my fathers widow. They checked everything and we had done nothing wrong. They were considering prosecuting her for wasting police time however... I haven't heard from her since.

The aftermath of the childhood sexual abuse followed me like a shadow.

Rather than go into individual details I shall list those that I have experienced. Still am in some cases.

Alcohol and/or drug abuse. Self harm. Self loathing. Anger and fits of "rage". Random feelings of immense grief or doom, sexual dysfunction, doubts over sexuality, "prostitution", feeling unworthy, feeling dirty, feeling set apart from society, depression, D.I.D, mood swings. Losing time, setting myself up for a fall, hurting others before they could hurt me. Being withdrawn, eating disorders, fear of meeting strangers, fear of being hurt, acting out, attempted suicide, physical manifestations of past abuse. There are more, but even writing this is triggering me.

My life was a mess. Along the way have been those who took advantage of my naivety, my good nature and my generosity (materially and otherwise). I have made mistakes, I have hurt people. I have hurt myself.

I survived the years of abuse, the years of self harm, I lived. Surviving or living is not enough. I deserve more. I could write for days filling in the gaps above. One day.

In the meantime, I will continue to try and thrive. I lost my childhood, I ruined my early adulthood, I escaped.

I've lost my business and the way of life I enjoyed. So I must start afresh. I shall rise from the ashes of my past. I shall do so with head held high and with a determination to succeed, to enjoy life.

This is my life.