Continuation of "I am not a monster!!!"

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Neither Mundane nor Pointless, but MPSIMS seems the best place for this.

A while back, I started this thread. After my last post in that thread, I basically decided to “let sleeping dogs lay.” Eventually the thread sank off the first page and I breathed a huge sigh of relief. I resolutely decided that I would never again bring up the subject.

Little did I realize that I had opened a sort of “Pandora’s Box” in my head. Somehow, in some sort of weird twist in the mental processes, by admitting to you guys my unacceptable sexual desires, I was also admitting them to myself. Even though I know and have always known what my desires are, and even though I have strenuously fought those desires, there was a part of me that didn’t want to know about it. A part of me that was comfortable not knowing about it. That part of me that I guess is some sort of mental “protection”. That part of me I didn’t even know was there. I know it sounds weird, but I suppose it’s possible to know something about yourself, and deny it at the same time.

I found that I could not comfortably return to the mental state I was in before that thread. It was constantly poking at me, irritating me. Sometimes it was so subtle if I busied myself I could ignore it. Other times it was overwhelming. But it was always there. This previously unheard voice that was saying, “Pduol, you’ve got to deal with this.” So I took some of the advice that I received in that original thread. I sought professional help.

The purpose of this thread is that I feel like I’m going to go crazy if I don’t talk about some of this. Obviously I can’t talk about it with friends and family, so I’m turning to the SDMB. I’m hoping that the SDMB can be a “listening ear” when in real life, there is no such option outside of my once-weekly appointment with my psychiatrist.

I realize that the topic of pedophilia is, by its very nature, disturbing. There are many extreme opinions and much controversy. I wish to stay out of the controversy as much as possible. I am a 41 year old man who has pedophilic desires, has never acted on them, and is seeking help. In this thread, I am going to speak the truth as I understand it. I realize that this truth will offend and disgust some people and for that I am going to issue a preemptive apology. If you don’t want to read it, please go no further.

As I said in the other thread, I am attracted to girls around the age of 11 years old. My psychiatrist is of the opinion that there were 3 events in my life that happened at the age of 11 that stunted my sexual growth. In other words, at the age of 11 I had sexual desires and impulses that could be considered normal. However, due to these events, while I continued to grow physically, I ceased growing sexually and emotionally. Therefore the age of female that I am attracted to has been capped at 11 years old. These three events are the following:

  1. My father “going off his rocker” – My father came and got me and my then 8 year old sister out of school and left the country with us. My mother and father were separated at the time and in the process of a divorce. We lived with my mother and, although I’m not certain, I think there was a restraining order. We were out of the country for almost 4 months. At the end, there was a huge standoff with the local police and my father threatening to shoot himself. I grabbed my sister and hid in a closet with her.

  2. My mother’s cancer – At the same time my father was losing his mind, my mother was battling cancer. She could not work and spent a good deal of time under medical care. With my father in jail, no child support was being paid. At the age of 11, I was mowing yards and doing whatever work I could get in the neighborhood. Not for extra spending money, but so that we could have something to eat.

  3. This will only be the second time I have admitted this. The first time was two days ago during a session. A man offered me $100 to masturbate him. What the hell, we were desperate. Anyway, once I agreed he became interested in much more than just masturbation and ended up anally raping me. I never told anyone. My father was in jail and I was afraid my mother was going to die and talking about this would take her concentration off of the battle she was fighting.

So now a question for you guys. Maybe this is a more IMHO thing but I have to ask. Does this explanation make sense? Can someone’s sexual growth be stunted by traumatic experiences? I know that I’m asking laymen about a professional’s opinion, but I really want to know what you all think. Since she told me her opinion on Wednesday, I’ve suffered from insomnia. I didn’t sleep at all on Wednesday night and I might have slept an hour or so last night. I’ve been analyzing this from every possible angle.

This is all stuff that, in my mind, I’ve “put behind me.” I’ve always been proud of the fact that I’ve overcome the tragedies of my childhood. Maybe that’s always been false pride. Maybe it has a much greater effect on me than I’ve ever been willing to admit.

I know that I’ve never found a sexually mature female near as appealing as one just entering puberty. There were 2 times that I was able to at least come close to satisfying my desire. One time I was 16 and was dating a girl who was 12. We never had sex, but there was some touching and feeling. I realize that this is approaching child molestation and am ashamed of it. I didn’t know any better at the time. Another time I was 17 and dating a girl who was also 17, but was very late hitting puberty. She was just starting to develop breasts when I met her. We had sex at every opportunity. It was around this time that I realized that my sexual desires where not normal and since that time have made it a point to only date women who are my age or older. Mostly to make sure nobody could detect where my desires truly lay. Is it possible that the attraction that I feel is because, sexually, I’m 11 years old??

Where I stand now is that I’m scared to take this any further and at the same time I’m scared not to. I’ve lived a long time with this desire that can never be satisfied. Half of me wants to just stuff it all back down into the box and ignore it as best I can, and the other half is barely hopeful that it might be possible to live the remaining years of my life with the desire gone or at least reduced.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. Please notice that this is not the pit, so if you feel the desire to flame me, there is an appropriate place for that and it’s not here. Any and all CIVIL comments are welcome.

2

I just want to say -

  1. Good luck and good on you for going to a shrink.
  2. Yes, I certainly do believe sexual inclinations can be modifed or even damaged by early childhood experiences.
  3. I am so sorry for your traumatic experiences.

The rest I’ll leave for others to go over.

3

Thank you Anaamika. I would like to say that I am not now, nor have I ever looked for pity or for someone to feel sorry for me over those 3 events at 11 years old. Most people in my life don’t know about the first 2, and no one knows about the 3rd. I bring them up here because they are relevant.

4

As difficult and painful as it is, yes, you do need to take these monsters out of the dark and stare them in the face and master them. I won’t go into details here; this is your story, not mine; but a couple of decades ago I went through a similar exploration of internal darkness. It was a bitch to get through, but it brought these issues to a resolution I could live comfortably with, and life is much better, more peaceful now that the process has been gone through and completed.

Best wishes for a successful journey through a bleak valley of deep shadows. You WILL get through it.

5

I was sexually abused, it still haunts me to this day, unfortunately. I am glad you are getting help and I’m glad you’re talking about it.

6

Hey, Pduol, I want to commend you on your courage in taking the necessary steps to confront your problems. I wish you the best of luck!

7

Like **EddyTeddyFreddy **said, this isn’t about me, either. But this statement could have come from me a few years back:

It took me a while to realize that even though I’ve overcome my past, and can be rightfully proud of that, it still had an effect on me. And I wasn’t doing myself any favors trying to ignore that effect.

I came to think of my past like a battle. I survived, maybe even saved a few lives along the way, and went on to live a happy civilian life. But I was injured in that battle, and those injuries need to be attended to and healed. Ignoring them won’t make them go away, and more importantly, getting treated does not in any way negate the fact that I survived.

You can and should be very proud of yourself for surviving those awful things, and thriving in your adult life. And you should be even more proud of yourself for recognizing that you need help and getting it.

I also want to note that, even though you’ve never asked for anyone’s pity for what you’ve gone through (which is indeed admirable), there’s nothing wrong with accepting pity, or feeling it for yourself. You went through some terrible stuff, and it’s sad that had to happen. There’s no shame in acknowledging that.

And lastly, I can attest from both my general understanding and personal experience that someone’s sexual growth can definitely be stunted by traumatic experiences. It can also, at least in some cases, be fully healed when those traumas are dealt with. I don’t know what’s possible in your case, but I can say with 100% certainty that dealing with this will get you to a better place than you’re in now.

I wish you all the best.

8

Thanks to all for the kind replies. In both of the threads I’ve started on this, I’ve expected a blood bath. I guess I expected it because of the taboo nature of the topic. I have always had a rule for myself. “don’t talk about it or acknowledge it in any way.” Obviously that hasn’t worked. (Or, on second thought, maybe it has. I’m still alive and I haven’t acted on any of those desires.)

The encouragement in the replies means a lot to me, it really does. And although it seems to go against everything I’ve done in the past, currently I plan to see this through till the end, whatever or whenever that may be.

It’s just that a session once a week is so damn far apart. In between, there’s no one to talk to about it. I’m not normally a big talker but dammit I need to talk to someone. I’m not willing to admit to anyone face to face in real life that I have desires for underage girls.

I feel as though I’m rambling and incoherent. My brain is going 1000000 different directions at once.

And I’m angry!! I’ve always wondered why I didn’t have any anger towards my father. Well, I do!! I guess I always have, it’s just that the mental “protection” wouldn’t allow me to feel it 'cause it’s too damned painful.

And I feel as though I could cry at the drop of a hat. I’m sitting here typing, choking back tears.

9

You can’t help what’s been done to you. You can’t help your feelings or attractions. What you can help, what you can control, is your actions. From everything you’ve said, you’ve behaved admirably throughout your life under circumstances more difficult than most of us can understand, and you deserve a mountain of credit for that.

I served as a sounding board for my then-friend, now-wife when she went through a similar process to what you’re doing now. I think in the end you’ll be amazed what a difference it can make in your daily life. Like you, she felt like she had dealt with her past as best as she could, and it didn’t seem to every really bother her, but after talking it out and really confronting it, her past really did go away.

10

Awful things happened to you that made you be something you wouldn’t have otherwise been. You’re acknowledging that, and it hurts. It’s OK to cry! Cry all you need to, and get well. I’m offering prayers for you.

Ellen

11

Can you keep a journal or diary in a way that protects you, that cannot be discovered by anyone in your real life? If so, I strongly endorse writing out all the thoughts and emotions that are boiling away inside you. Don’t try to organize it; just let it all roll on out, let it run where and as it will. When you’re done, you may want to save it, perhaps to provide to your therapist; or it might feel better to BURN THAT SUCKER when the torrent is (for the moment) exhausted.

Whatever you choose to do with what you’re written, you’ll find that it acts as a relief valve for all the stuff you have to keep bottled up between weekly sessions; and boy oh boy, that stretch between sessions, especially in the first few months when so many things are lurching into the light, can be a torment of frustration, as you wrestle internally with all the stuff you’re dredging up after so long suppressing it; yet must continue to suppress it from everyone around you.

You are absolutely correct to let no one in your life know about this; yet you are realizing that you must now let yourself know about it. The pressure to express the turmoil inside you must be tremendous. Come to us; come back here and pour it all out, as often as you wish. It will be of some help to you.

12

Upon rereading this, I felt impelled to tell you that this is EXACTLY the process I went through, of suppressing the wrong thing for so many years, of having it fight its way through the layers of protective suppression until I could no longer deny it, forcing me to confront and deal with the issue at last. “Pduol, you’ve got to deal with this.” Yes. You do.

ETA: Normally hearing voices is a bad thing, but this is one voice in your head you really do need to listen to. :wink:

13

Looking for the causes of dysfunctional behavior can be a roadblock to success in dealing with them. And it’s perfectly natural human behavior to want to know how and why.

Some people get so lost in trying to figure it all out that they remain stuck. We’ve all heard people who say, “I will be able to quite drinking (whatever behavior) once I know why I do it.” But this is rarely true and can actually be used as a, perhaps unconscious, way to continue the behavior, searching for answers which may never be apparent. Waiting for the magic cure.

Some people never know how they developed uncomfortable behaviors and it doesn’t prevent them from making healthy adjustments to their thoughts and behavior.

So try not to get too caught up in what happened and how it worked for you. Rather focus on changing what you need to change in the moment.

Good grief, ask your psychiatrist to refer you to a support group! You need some peers who are having success and have some understanding of what you are dealng with in order to grow.

14

Well, bloody hell, man, of course you’re angry! Goddamned right you’re angry! You have every right to be angry. Hell, I’m sitting here feeling furious that all this happened to you and it’s not even my life. Embrace the anger; it’s part of what you have to do to deal with it all.

ETA: Getting angry at my parents was part of what it took for me to resolve my own situation, if that helps you to know.

Crying is also a good thing; I recommend it highly. Let 'er rip, man.

15

Ramble away. We’ll listen. A week can be an incredibly long time when you’re going through this much turmoil.

Cry when you need to. It can help, and trying to suppress it will surely hurt.

And of course you’re angry! You should be! Let it out, man - that stuff will kill you if you keep it buried.

Best wishes for your therapy process. You’re a brave soul!

16

I’ll just add my voice to the chorus saying ’ I am here. I will listen and help if I can’

17

You have my sincerest sympathies and prayers, both for what you went through as a child and what you are going through now. hugs

18

I’m sorry if this is a naive question, but…

I can understand that the three events you detailed were very traumatic and life-changing. But I don’t understand how that is related to being sexually attracted to 11-year-old girls. What does 1) Hiding in a closet during a police stand-off; 2) Working to make money at an early age to help a sick mother; and 3) Being sexually molested by a grown man, have to do with finding a female child arousing?

I could almost, ALMOST, make a connection between the molestation and the pedophilia if you were attracted to young boys (that is, if you were claiming to be “gaining back the power” from your molester by wanting to be the molester yourself, something like that). But I am missing the connection, and to my (admittedly ignorant of how this works) ear, it sounds like you’re excusing your impulses by claiming to be a victim yourself.

Please understand that this is not an attack; it is a legitimate question. Maybe you have left out part of the story (I have not read your first thread). How do you connect these events to your impulses as an adult; and even if they ARE indeed connected, how does that change your treatment?

19

I know very little about this problem, but an alcoholic friend once told me that the first step to fixing a problem is admitting that you have a problem. It sounds to me like you’ve done that, and have consequently sought help from a professional. I’m glad to hear that, as I remember the first “I am not a monster” thread, when you had not seen a professional at all. Even just starting to see one indicates to me that you are making progress.

I am in no way qualified to judge whether your childhood experiences influenced you as an adult. But I think that as long as you work with your professional, he or she will help you find and narrow the causes; and hopefully, find a cure, or at least some way to control your feelings. If you wish to (and I certainly understand if you do not wish to), keep us posted as to your progress. Good luck, and know that you will be in my thoughts.

20

I got the impression that the OP was questioning the psychiatrist’s claim that those incidents could have caused his obsession. That’s why he was asking our opinion on if it sounded plausible to us.

Pdoul - I don’t know if the psychiatrist’s opinion is right. It seems possible, but also possible that that’s just the way the you are wired. I think that if you focus too much on what the cause is, and you are wrong about the cause, it could get in the way of working through the problem.