TW Male CSA My story.

I was about 13 when I was asked if I wanted to learn to play the trumpet and be part of the church band. An older man offered to teach me. I don't recall a lot of the grooming or how long before he made his first move but I recall helping him clean the church and one day I found myself lying down and he was performing oral sex on me. I remember feeling confused, embarrassed, and ashamed.

After that day, he continued to find opportunities to do stuff to me, at home, in the church, in his house, in his car, and even in a tent when there were other boys there.

It wasn't until my early 20s that I actually remembered what happened. One day I was having sex with my GF and all of a sudden the vivid flashbacks began, like a Tsunami. I was transported back to all the feelings, smells, sights, sounds etc. I immediately got angry with my GF and pushed her off me. I was a complete dick to her after that. She became the scapegoat. Needless to say our relationship didn't last much longer.

I tried dealing with it in counselling etc but ended up in a codependent relationship with a female CSA survivor and we ended up getting married. I was still dealing with all the flashbacks, anger, depression etc but a new added one was my sexuality. See all the while this other stuff happened as a kid I was hyper sexual and had sex with quite a number of my male friends as well as a lot of anonymous hook ups in parks etc. So when my marriage ended I knew I was not attracted to females and had to deal with coming to terms with being gay. This added a new level of self-blame, it happened because I was gay, and wanted it. The guy had done a number on me and I believed it was all my fault.

Thankfully, I managed join a group for male CSA survivors and made some great steps to healing. Perhaps the biggest part of the healing was speaking out my story in the newspaper and on TV. As well as spending a lot of time in therapy.

I still get intrusive thoughts, and have gone back to counselling to deal with the PTSD but thanks to a great counsellor im now better able to manage the intrusive thoughts and reactions I have to triggers. Now I'm at the stage of bring kind to myself and not placing any pressure or expectation of what recovery might look like - as in I used to think it would all go, but now I just use strategies and self awareness to no let it take hold of me.

That's my story, I'm more than OK with talking about my experience, especially if anyone can learn from it or I can support as they find their own way out of the nightmare. If you're a man who has been through this and ever want to chat just message me