My Story

1. Family background

My Dad was from Canada. He was an alcoholic, always seemed to be angry, and verbally abusive primarily to Mum, but also my sister and I. One year I was asked what I wanted for Christmas, and I said, “One day where Mum and Dad don’t shout.” Every night he would drink and after dinner he would start shouting, mainly at my Mum, but if my sister or I would talk with him, we’d get shouted at too. So I learned to hide in my bedroom and did my schoolwork.

I have no memory of him ever saying he loved me. I know many fathers of this generation didn’t, but his actions didn’t show it either. He didn’t spend time with me, he showed no physical affection, no wrestling, no hugging, he paid me no attention, gave no praise and showed no trust. Dad didn't even seem to like being around me. Dad was physically present, but distant. He didn’t raise me. It seemed he couldn’t be bothered or care about me at all. He would only want to spend time with me so I could help him with a project: holding wood, painting, or doing some other chore. Dad wouldn’t come on Summer holidays; Mum would take us. Dad would come on skiing holidays, but would ski with Mum. When we weren’t in ski-school and skiing as a family, it was not enjoyable. Being with Dad was unpleasant.

I asked my Dad once, “What kind of a son had you hoped for?” Stupidly he answered saying he wanted an athlete, an ice hockey player. That wasn't me.

Mum was a smothering mother. She triangulated me away from Dad. When Dad was abusive towards me, later she would apologise for him. At bedtime, Mum would come in from shouting with Dad and say, “Don’t be like your father”. Mum alone raised me.

My psychologist assessed me as having the “Anxious/avoidant” attachment style. This is when adults are unable to self-sooth and constantly feel anxious. It is likely to have resulted from a mother who doesn’t attune to their newborn, but who is ambivalent or uncaring to her baby’s needs, and possibly abusive towards them. So the baby doesn’t learn to self-soothe, but instead has to learn to react to their mother’s moods. The resultant child and adult is constantly on edge, and anxious.

2. Results of the family background

Firstly from my Dad. I deeply yearned affection, attention, affirmation, admiration, love and trust from Dad. I didn’t feel special, wanted, desired, or delighted in. But I desperately needed this. I felt invisible and insignificant, and being with him was unpleasant.

My Dad didn't convey that I was a “little man”. He didn’t train me or welcome me into the world of men. He didn’t teach me how to shave, and it wasn’t my Mum who taught me either; my sister taught me how to shave. 

The first person to refer to me as a man was a woman at the supermarket. I wrote her comment off thinking, “She doesn’t know me.” There’s no initiation ceremony into manhood, so I just felt like an imposter – some kind of “other” in a male body.

He didn’t help me learn Australian sports, I tried to play cricket with the family of boys up the street, I would get bowled out 1st or 2nd ball, so I didn’t learn. 

School: 

Then attempting to play sports at school, I was really bad. I was rejected by other boys at school, and picked last for sports teams. Playing British bulldog in primary school, I wasn’t a fast runner and when I would get tagged, I would face round after round of not tagging anyone. During this I was teased and bullied. I deduced I had no value, was worthless, there was something intrinsically faulty with me. I was “less than” other boys. I only had value if I was performing a task, so I felt used and felt as valued as a slave.

Dad forced me to play grass hockey. I played for two years. I once scored a goal and expected the team to celebrate my win for the team, instead they criticised me.

In year 5, the two classes of year 5 students were gathered in a circle in the middle of the oval which I had to walk across to go home. I already felt outside the group of popular kids. Since there was a large group of kids, I hoped to quietly join the group and find out what they were talking about and be included, so I walked up and joined the group. Unfortunately, I’m too tall to join without being spotted. The leader, my main bully, a boy named Guy Cannon, saw me. He stopped talking to the group and spoke directly to me, “This isn’t for you. Get lost!” I felt sad that I wasn’t able to join. I hoped I might still be able to stay by starting to walk off and just walk partly around the group. But when I did that, Guy stopped and started right at me. Everyone else turned and stared at me too. He said, “Get lost!” again. With everyone staring at me, I slumped, turned and walked away. I wanted to disappear into thin air. I felt rejected by everyone at school. I deduced that “Nobody wants to be my friend.”

Around this time, I would also get bullied and bashed up. I didn’t know how to fight because Dad didn’t wrestle me, I had no brothers, and my mother had instilled in me not to be violent, so I lost every fist fight.  I experienced rejection and abandonment. Again, my strategy of being invisible and hiding seemed to be the best. I had dreams of being invisible. When I’d walk, I’d look at the ground and not make eye contact. I didn’t realise my body language was saying, “I live in shame.”

I believed that “Nobody wants to be my friend” up until 2 years ago, and still default to this thinking. If someone did appear to be my friend, I’d wonder what reason they had for pretending to be my friend. Most often I’d find out that they wanted help with their homework or wanted to use our computer. Rejection and abandonment was reinforced.

I came to expect rejection and abandonment in relationships. If it didn’t happen, like if someone was appearing to be my friend, I would invent plausible stories for why they were pretending to be my friend and write them off. If I was in a conversation with someone, to avoid the “I think you’re boring, so I’m going to go talk to someone else, Bye!” I would end conversations before they got to that awkward end. So, I lived my life never really connecting with any friends, even though that’s what I really needed. 

Mum: 

Mum was a feminist and a product of the “unisex” generation, where there’s ‘No difference’ between men and women. I believed this until I started going to an evangelical church where I heard sermons on the differences and different roles of men and women.

I only learned how to be a man from the perspective of my mother, so I avoided risky behaviour and avoided being assertive and angry.  

After one night where Mum and Dad had a particularly heated shouting exchange, Mum came and apologised for his behaviour and told me, “Don’t be like your father”, I vowed not to be like my father. Initially I intended this to just be like his alcohol and shouting, but inadvertently, it became everything to do with him. 

I didn’t learn anything about being a man from my Dad; instead all I learned was from my Mum, and mainly from watching her watch TV. So she liked the Patrol Boat captain, Andrew McFarlane; Magnum P.I.’s Tom Selleck, Buck Rogers, The A-Team’s “Face”, and Superman.

Childhood sexual abuse: 

Remember I already had a poor relationship with Dad – distant, angry, no love, no affection. His name was Haddin.

When I was 7, one of my father’s friends came to visit. He was a school teacher, maybe even a school principle. He stayed in my room on the bottom bunk for a week in Summer. One day, I woke up and no one else was home, except this man. He was wearing just his underwear. He played a magic with his thumb, making it disappear. Then he did it with his penis. Then he asked if he could play a game with my penis. He asked me if I liked the feeling; I did, so I said yes. He made me feel like I asked for it. He told me, “This is our special secret” and made me promise to not tell my parents.

He took me to the Philip swimming pool. In the locker room, he got me to look at other men and boys as they changed to see if their penises were aroused. Effectively he trained me to look at other boys and men as sexual objects.

The following year, we travelled to Canada for the Summer break. I experienced a white Christmas, but I was given into Haddin’s care for a week. We stayed in various hotels. Each night, we would sleep in the same bed and he would masturbate me. A few nights in, he brought in another young boy. He came to sleep in the same bed on the other side. Haddin pulled my pants down, then pulled the other boy’s pants down and I realised that he was masturbating the other boy. He had said that this interaction was “our special thing”, but I realised that he had lied. So, I pulled my pants up. He pulled my pants down again, and I pulled them up again. I said I didn’t want to do that anymore, and thankfully he didn’t. 

My parents ultimately found out and they did say that what he did was wrong, but I actually understood what he had done that was wrong was that he lied about it being our special secret not that sexual relations between a man and a boy were wrong. So, I actually grew quite confused with that. I thought that male to male sexual relations was normal. You just had to keep it a secret. Society couldn’t accept that but I felt pleasure with that and that I just had to be secretive about that pleasure. So, I basically felt trapped. I was very confused as a boy. Because I’d been abused, somehow I was now “Damaged goods”, broken, again “less than” other boys.

This resulted in my inner voice being very critical, self-condemning, and self-hating. I was always telling myself that I was: stupid, an idiot, unattractive, I had no value, and I didn't deserve to have friends.

3. Exploration

I longed for connection with Dad and with other boys. I did discover that other boys and later teenagers and later men were interested in interacting with me sexually. The first was when aged seven, shortly after I was first molested by this man.

I longed for affirmation from the athletic, popular, confident boys. I longed to be athletic and popular. Boys and men seemed foreign to me. Somehow I was “different” from them.

In line with the “Exotic becomes erotic” theory, I eroticised what I thought was different.

At high school at the end of PE, in the locker room, boys would change out of sports clothes back in to school uniform. I was petrified that I would get aroused, and other boys would notice, and I would be further bullied for being gay. So, I wore my sports shorts under my trousers and avoided ever having to get naked or be seen in my underwear.

In the last two weeks of high school, I was bullied and called, “gay.” I had no friends, and hid in the library alone at lunch and recess until school finally finished.

At youth group, I acted out with two other boys, but didn’t ever kiss, or exchange bodily fluids.

One night after church I was with some friends from youth group sitting in a playground. My friend Peter did a few pull-ups on the monkey bars, then asked me to do some. I couldn’t even do one. His was just astounded that I couldn’t do that. This just reinforced that I was weak, I was not a “real man”, and some kind of male imposter. 

4. Healing through authentic friendships

So I said I didn’t feel special, wanted, desired, or delighted in, but I desperately needed this. I also eroticised strong, athletic, popular, and confident men.

At about 27, I had a clothed sexual encounter with another man that led to a discussion with my pastor. 

Thankfully one of the first books I read, which was titled “You don’t have to be gay”, suggested I find healthy platonic male friends. I had lots of female friends, but invested in the – thankfully – many young men at Crossroads. (When I went to disclose my SSA to my sister, I invited her over, I said I had something to say. She said, “You can say anything as long as you don’t say you’re gay.” I didn’t answer, but just said, “How about we just pray first?” She realised that’s basically what I wanted to say and said, “I was joking. If you want to say that, you can.” She said she had never guess, but worried that I had too many female friends. This was true because I found women safe and not scary or foreign)

So healthy male friends have been very healing and helpful.

My SSA isn’t really a desire for sex, but really healthy connection with Dad, other boys, and other men. That's why friendships and friendship with you is really important, healthy and healing for me.

I really invested in those friendships and I saw my same-sex attractions start to diminish dramatically. I found Christian psychologists who were willing to help me with my addictive behaviour and dealing with my hypersensitivity (my overly sensitive nature).

I’ve found a group called Brothers Road that is faith affirming, but filled with Christians, Mormons, a few Jews and Hindus. I attend a weekly Zoom meeting with them and found a lot of healing through them.

Journey Into Manhood (JiM)

JiM an experiential weekend in the USA. There were 23 other men there similar to myself. I grew a huge amount on that weekend. I learned how to relate to men as brothers. I healed a lot of childhood traumas with these peers. I healed issues with my father, my mother and kids at school. I also developed a stronger sense of who I am. Not essentially stuck at age 7 or 8. I was able to realise that I can actually hug other men and not withdraw straight away because of fear that they really did not want me there. I also feared that hugging other men would mean they would have some homophobic reaction to me, which would be rejection. I’ve realised that hugs actually can show affirmation to me that I'm accepted as a man for who I am and it's not a sexual thing. (Years ago, hugging a man had led to acting out, so I had vowed not to hug another man, but this was inadvertently suppression of a real need, which came out in looking at images of men hugging.) 

So the weekend was extremely beneficial. I received the delight that I never received from my dad. I now know that men accept me as a man and I belong in the world of men. In the months following the weekend, my sexual attraction to other men continued to diminish. However, it does come and go with my self-perception as a man, and my self-esteem.

Previous I thought I was an imposter as a man, and if somebody would kind of call me out I'd be like, “No I’m not a real man, I don't belong.” I was constantly searching for a man to give me some of his masculinity, his attention. Someone who could have delight in me. Something my father didn't give me. But I now realising that I am a man. I belong in the world of men.

Other SSA men also experience these things and know we need friendship, affirmation, trust. Because of our similar childhood experiences, we often quickly form fast bonds, like war veterans and fire-fighters. These are called, “Shared trauma attachment bonds” and I believe God designed us to have these to help each other recover from traumatic events. 

Unfortunately this has led to becoming overly dependent emotionally on some of these men. The Brothers Road group suggest having a tribe, not just one man who fills this role. Unfortunately, I was doing this with one man before I learned about this. I do have a local tribe of OSA men who try to support me, but I still need other SSA men as they just really understand.

When I feel the tiny hint of being rejected, abandoned, or shamed, or stressed, I seek to comfort, numb out, and return to the “comfort” of my abuse by finding gay porn that shows men accepting each other, being affectionate with each other, and repeating the sexual interaction that was imprinted in me as the “ultimate” way to connect with another man. 

I’ve realised that that porn was very similar to my childhood sexual abuse. So in a therapy session, I re-imagined the scene of my abuse and entered that scene as my adult self. I got angry at the abuser. I shouted at him to get his hands off and to get out and then I comforted the little me and gave him a hug. 

(BTW: when OSA men look at porn, they want to be with the woman. When SSA men look at porn, the want to be one of the men. 

SSA is a form of cannibalism. I want to get some of that man’s masculinity, or get his “masculinity” inside of me.)

I had a period of 6 months with no sexual attraction to men.

So, counselling is invaluable.

A lot of helpful therapy is calming and comforting the little “boy” inside me – the “inner child”. After reading a book with 9 different childhood triggers where the author expects the reader to be triggered by one or two, I am triggered by all 9. 

However, my “unseen, hidden child” is the one that I am most highly triggered. So if I feel ignored, bypassed, or forgotten, I will take this personally and add it to the evidence that I am not worth remembering. 

I had used my childhood passion for cycling to become a fast rider. I have felt welcomed and included in bunches, and love the post-ride coffee camaraderie. This has helped me lose my self-perception that I am un-athletic and fat. Since Covid, I started more weights training and loved feeling and looking strong. I have developed muscles and my physique almost to what I think a “real man” looks like, and can combat my “Inner critic” who tells me I am weak. I feel great when other men notice that I’m strong. However, it’s often gay or SSA men who affirm me physically. I feared potentially shaming naked situations at school so much I avoided them. But I think I actually needed them. I think it could have helped me realise that I am the “same”, not “different” or “less of a man” than other boys. The ultimate expression of trust is for another man to trust me with his nakedness. 

Together with feeling unseen, this has led me to sexting with another man in January 2021. However, afterwards I felt used and that I had reinforced or relived my abuse, so I won’t do that again. My group coach has suggested that because nudity was involved in my abuse, it’s likely to be involved in my healing. He has found healing in going to safe publicly nude spas (Japanese, Russian, Korean) where sexual activity is prohibited. I have sought this out, but not been able do this in Canberra or even when I was in the USA, except once in July 2020 when I went skinny dipping with a mate, which I found very healing.

How can you be helpful?

• Help me be compassionate to me. 
• I need you to get me, understand why my acting out seemed to make sense, attune with me.
  (If you don't get me, I will assume you think I'm stupid. "Nothing feels safer than when are in the presence of another who is attuned to the dark, shameful past inside of us and yet has a posture of kindness rather than contempt.")
• My abuse happened with men, so my healing is likely to involve men. Suppressing contact with men hasn’t and doesn’t work. Suppression doesn’t work, the real need comes out elsewhere. Don't suggest I avoid men. Connect with me. 
• I am overly sensitive and empathetic, and don't have "thick skin", so if you're sarcastic, critical in a small way, I may take it as a major criticism. If I withdraw, isolate or don't say anything, it's highly likely I have been triggered.
• I am highly triggered by feeling ignored, rejected, bypassed, unseen. If my face goes blank, my body may be responding as if to a a life-or-death threat (Fight-Flight-Freeze), my autonomic nervous system (ANS) may have kicked in and my rational brain may be offline. Ask me to be curious about if or what has triggered me, and what I'm feeling. 
• Don’t imagine me as a gay man, but as a boy who was severely neglected by his father. Don’t show pity, but love and compassion.
• Try to convey Trust, Affirmation and Love (but not pity), don’t avoid physical touch. My "love language" is Physical touch and closeness. So if you're secure in your masculinity and aren't afraid of other people thinking you might be gay, give me touch me with physical affection like you would touch your son. If it helps, consider me as a boy who was never given physical affection from his Dad and I've been craving it all my life, so try to give me some. For example: hug me - from the front, side and behind - and not with your arse out; when sitting on fixed chairs, sit in the chair right beside me, not with a gap in between; on a couch, don't give me the usual 50cm gap, give me -2cm; when sitting at a table, rest your foot on my foot, lean your knee or leg against mine, hold my arm or hand.
• Don't give me advice that you'd give to a woman interacting with men. I'm a heterosexual man with some unresolved childhood psychological issues.  
• I believe "gay love" is a myth. I think it's a sexualised response to masculine self-disassociation that fits with the "Exotic becomes Erotic" theory. So homosexual attraction is not one one end of a spectrum on which heterosexual attraction is on the other end. I see it as not one spectrum, but two independent spectrums. Love is given. Lust is taken and is a dissociative defence. Gay sex is just men taking turns masturbating using another man's body parts. 
• Refer to me as "a man who has had same sex attraction", similar to "a man who's had measles". You can refer to me as "gay" if you mean homosexual attraction, but not "gay" to mean I've embraced the gay lifestyle or accepted the gay identity as a primary identifier.

Any questions? 

• Even a year from now, if you have questions, please ask me? 
• I give you permission to bring this topic up with me later.

What are your emotional reactions to my story? Are the Helpful Things surprising or clear?