4:24 p.m. - January 07, 2003
Where's my beacon? I'm adrift and need direction, insight, a map. Or, lacking that, a fundamental belief that it will not always be like today
Feeling disheartened like champagne left exposed too long. There is no beacon on the hill for me, is there? How is it that I live in the most gay-friendly regions of the world and a sneeze away from the capital of All Things Gay and cannot locate an agency therapist counselor someone-with-a-clue who specializes in or feels capable enough to focus on childhood sexual abuse and subsequent adult gay male relationships? This is what I've been looking for and just got off the phone with a therapist from the place I was assured would be It and was informed that most of their services are geared towards (open and out) gay men with other issues. I'm feeling let down and not in a good way after I said what I have difficulty saying to myself, much less to a stranger, and explaining what I'm looking for and why, and all he could say was Wow that's tough but we offer group therapy sessions for gay men to foster better self-image and safe-sex practices Would you be interested in that and I wanted to ask Tell me you're not a therapist really but didn't.
I do not need lessons on safer-sex or coming out to parents friends coworkers or how to dress in leather or hunt for the man of my dreams at the local gay bar while high on E and or how to replace monogamy with glory hole fun and excitement. I want to learn how to reconcile childhood sexual abuse and its effects on creating and maintaining adult gay male relationships so that I can have a healthy - and sexual - gay relationship. You know, each time with Spec was both incredible and horrendous one after another lacking a pattern; sometimes afterwards I'd throw up, other times cuddle and kiss; other times I'd close my eyes and pretend I wasn't there and hope it was over soon and sing my safe song and others when I couldn't distinguish between Spec and him and Spec would gently say Open your eyes and look at me, I'm not him and I will not hurt you and sometimes it worked, sometimes not but always I wanted to run away and I'd cry and be a mess and tell me, what kind of relationship was/is that? I pushed Spec away not because of the hitting but because it was easier to deal with the past when it's not recreated the two, three, four times a day Spec wanted. And myself, I can't play the role of victim because I want, wanted, to have sex with Spec just as much as he wanted with me, but each time was simply awful yet not wholly, picking out moments where I didn't feel dirty and have flashbacks coming so few that when the moment occurred, I was more in love with Spec for giving me the chance to have a normal sex life. How does one move past the past like this? And as much as I am loathe to admit it, it's what I want.
There is/was a guy interested in me and I like him, I will admit to that. But do you know what I did? I pushed him away out of fear that something might develop because I just can't handle male-male intimacy. Kicking back on some guy's couch and letting him give me head is not intimacy and that's not what I want. I want to be open and trusting and if sex happens, to let it happen and be okay with things instead of being a mess. The point is that I'm not okay.
I'm going now.
