Dealing with Abuse

Sometime last week while engaging in random conversations with a guy I recently met, he made an observation about me that no one - literally no one I've met - had ever made. I was taken aback by it at first, and then my defense mechanisms kicked in, and I countered his observation with a question to which he responded and left me shocked, yet again.

What my guy friend observed is that I was dealing with abuse. In a bid to hide my shock which might have indicated he was right, I said he could only have deduced that about me if he was dealing with abuse as well. He did admit to being abused and being the person I was, I wouldn't leave the matter at that. I asked questions.

His aunt had abused him several times while he was just a child, an all too familiar story but with opposite characters. By the time he hit puberty, he had grown addicted to pornography and masturbation. He told me about having to get himself to recover from all that, and the how difficult the process was for him. He is 29 years old.

I was shocked and ashamed when he told me. Shocked because I had never met a man who was abused (or maybe I have and just don't know), and ashamed because a woman like me had done that to him. While I know his experiences had nothing to do with me, I felt shame and that was the only explanation that came to mind as to why I would feel ashamed. Aren't we supposed to be the guardians, the nurturers?

I know about abuse not particularly because I lived through it, but because I now have three people who have trusted me enough with their experiences. It makes me wonder just how many people I know who are walking around with this ugly past.

The first time I heard about another experience other than mine, it was from a girl I had gotten close to in college. She told me how her uncle fondled with her privates, and not only hers but her younger sister's as well. I now realize that I could have spoken up about my experiences to make her feel less alone in this, but I didn't, a decision I now regret.

What I am seeking to understand is how do people recover from this? Many times it feels I never grew beyond that point in my life. Like a part of me is still trapped in the past. I can't get get closure. One of the people who know this about me urged me to come out to my family, because he believes it will help me in dealing with it, however, it will be a very very difficult conversation and one which I don't feel like I am ready to have yet. Even though I can talk about it with other people, I can't discuss it with my family. Not just yet.

Any survivors of out there? How did you deal?