Feeling Special

I generally don't feel special and valuable to anyone. I expect I should have felt special to my parents, but that didn't happen. I cringe at kids' performances where a parent yells from the back of the room to cheer their child, but it shows unrestrained, unashamed love, affection, and pride in their child. I don't think I ever got anywhere near feeling that from my parents. 

No one has ever thrown me a surprise party. I'm not special enough for that.

The pedophile who abused me told me when he was grooming me, that him touching me, "Was our special thing." But it was robbing my wife of our special sexual touch. So it' no wonder when I'm feeling ignored, bypassed, unloved, unvalued, unseen, unappreciated, insignificant, and generally not special, that I would turn to attempting to re-enact my abuse or finding images of men being sexual with one another and having an orgasm.

However, there have been times where I have felt special. Here they are:

	1. Having Doug hold his hand on my leg at various times - particularly in public settings with other people present, like: at church, in the sauna, in the locker room, and also driving together. I get the feeling from him that there's a genuine warmth and delight in his touch, like he really would not rather be anywhere else than right there.
2. Having Cam give me a big hug despite me covering his shirt in sweat because he couldn't wait a second longer to hold me.
	3. Having Scott give me warm hugs when he dropped me off at his daughter's house each night in Kingwood, Houston.
4. Being invited by Tim to go mountain biking for a weekend in Thredbo with 4 of his other close friends. We all stayed in one hotel room.