Outback Jack's Journey

In the Journey course this week, we read chapter 11 of Unwanted by Jay Stringer and were asked these questions: What are the core accusations of shame in your story? What does it continue to try and convince you of? A: Shame tries to convince me that I am incomplete as a man, a freak, a deviant, queer, weird, unlovable, unwanted, unvalued, stupid, weak. In what ways have you attempted to run from shame, and what has been the result? A: I tried to hide my masculinity, my nakedness, my penis. I tried to hide my masculinity, my nakedness, my penis. I tried to hide from people, avoid eye contact, avoid attractive men, avoid deep friendships, and avoid awkward conversations. In what ways has faith/spirituality been used to further shame in your life? Do those sources/voices still exist, and are they adversely impacting your faith today? How might you begin to separate your faith and understanding of God from those messages? A: Sermons preached do not resonate with my struggles, so I must b...

  I went to a talk on Forgiveness just now by Dan Anderson. He said forgiveness has two aspects: An absolute insistence on the wrongness of the wrong. Forgiveness is not the same as excusing a wrongdoing, minimising a wrong, overlooking or forgetting, or just getting over it. Forgiveness refuses to say that a wrong doesn't matter. The decision by the person wronged to not act toward the wrongdoer on the basis of the wrongdoing. Rather than reasoning from the wrongdoing to a set of actions toward the wrongdoer, instead the forgiver accepts reasons to excludes the wrongdoing from consideration and acts on the basis of these other reasons instead. Two other curious things.  Jesus "invented" forgiveness. It does not exist in any historical writings before Jesus resurrection! (People cannot forgive without having first tasted forgiveness from Jesus.) Repentance (admitting the wrong) (where possible) is required for #2. (Luke 17: forgive your repentant brother 7x) I've defi...

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...

In our counselling last week, my wife did not remember me saying in a previous counselling session that if there were Hidden Criteria for us reconciling, that she needs to tell me and not expect I can read her mind.  She’s just sent an email with a list of 10x things that will show how I can rebuild trust! Being a person of your word - following through on what you say you will do. Reading and replying to emails and text messages. Not hiding information or being deceptive. Communication about things related to the girls and their care without prompting. Being able to discuss things respectfully as adults. Taking responsibility for your actions and decisions. Engaging with Christian men I respect as accountability support. Communication about what is happening with your support - new groups/dropping groups Updates on any issues with boundaries. Keeping boundaries without seeking to bend them. Evidence that you are working towards a positive future for yourself, our family and our re...

Mum, I remember you and Dad shouting at each other or at me. Later you'd come to me and apologise for Dad's behaviour. I felt it wasn't right or appropriate that you apologised for his behaviour; he should be the one to apologise, but he never ever did. You would comfort me, and then say "Don't be like your father". The consequence and cost of that meant you drove a wedge between him and me, and between me and the man who needed to help me identify as a man. Effectively you emasculated me. You said, "Don't be like your father" so many times, that I rejected all aspects of him both good and bad. I rejected his anger and violent words. But it also cost me: identifying with his masculinity, copying his assertiveness and leadership, modelling from his initiative-taking, picking up his strength of character. I hand that back to you. Mum, what’s on you is: triangulating me away from Dad, emasculating me, trying to make me “a good little boy” that was...

I see same sex sexual attraction as a projection of self-insecurities onto others. i.e. What I feel I'm lacking, when I see them in other men, I want them. I think I can cannibalise them into me. Most gay/SSA men feel low in confidence and perceive other men as confident. Similarly we feel "less of a man" for various reasons (being short, missing social cues, scars, having a small penis, being objectified, not being athletic, appearing weak, not having enough body hair, etc). So those things make it onto our list of "masculine imperatives" - essential things for real men to have. We say, "Real men have these things and I don't." Unfortunately we've defined a fiction and put ourselves outside the box. It's self-condemnation, which becomes self-hatred, and self-shaming. We look for differences between ourselves and other men. Even if I'm taller, more muscular, and more confident than another man, I will ignore those and see that he's ...

Counselling started on Wednesday with me bursting into tears simply because she asked, "How are you doing?" - a small act of kindness. My Inner Critic had been working overtime in the last week and the last few days and I was tearing myself to shred with elaborations on "You suck!": I was the one who was sexually assaulted, I had unsafe parents that I hid from, I'm the one who has hurt my wife all through our marriage, I'm at fault for causing the separation, I repeatedly can't consider how others will react or feel, particularly my wife and the kids, I have friends who feel I use them, I have lied and been deceptive, and I feel alone and rejected. In summary: I suck. Ruth asked how regulated I felt out of 10, and I was at 3. Later she told me she could not proceed if I was even only feeling 5/10. She tried to help me get present by concentrating on catching a stress ball, but that was too stressful! Then I calmed down by holding some soft material and t...