by Chris de Serres

Created on: June 13, 2008   Last Updated: October 31, 2008

Have you ever noticed how that we rarely see ourselves in the media or on TV? I never saw male survivors anywhere as a teenager so I used to think that I didn't exist. That part of me that relates to being a victim didn't seem to have representation anywhere I looked. I subconsciously searched everywhere to find someone or something to attach all of this fear and shame to. After a while I just concluded that this part of me shouldn't exist. So I pretended as if the abuse didn't happen and that I wasn't that child who had been damaged. All the setbacks that occurred after my abuse were just my fault. I took responsibility for barely graduating from high school. I accepted the failure of relationship after relationship. I understood that if I was going to be alone for the rest of my life then it was through my own doing. I didn't even mind living a life alone because it meant that I never had to confront my inner demons. They would never affect anyone but me and I could hack it, or at least I thought I could.

I was arrogant enough to believe that I had control over the abuse in my life, even as I never identified with it or brought any attention to it. I was above it, yet always below it. It was destroying everything good that came into my life and I still refused its' existence. My abuser wasn't my abuser. He loved me and IT didn't exist. I wouldn't let it exist in me. I would feel the depression and never question the source from which it flowed. I would get angry and withdraw from the world because I felt it was always in me and always something I did.

I saw men on the TV and in the media and I found myself cheering on the heroes. The hero was what I wanted to be but I always had more in common with the villain. The villains were always the one's who were beaten and abused as children. They were always denied the right to be living, breathing individuals. In those scenes right before the villain does his or her dirty deed there were the flashbacks of them being utterly violated. It explained to us why they chose to violate others. The serial killer killed because a part of his humanity was taken from him. The prostitute injected heroin into her veins because her father violated her sexually at a young age. I neglected and isolated myself from loved ones because I was just like them.

The hero was something that I never could be because he grew up wholesome and loved. He always had control over his environment. He was unaffected by the swirling chaos around him.

• 1
• 2
• Next Page >>