Dharmabum...thank you for your note. I appreciate it.
I am finding that I'm not as "odd" as I thought. I even laughed when I read the other day about someone's take on getting into the freezing cold shower. First one arm, then the other, then one leg....it was as if they had witnessed what I do when i'm trying to force myself into it.
It's good to realize that I'm not alone in this, and that I'm not the odd guy out after all....I guess that's one of those things I told myself for such a long time.
Lyon...thank you for your thoughts, as well. You said you just "put it all out there." I appreciate you saying that. I have covered so much of myself for so many years of my life...in fear that I would appear "less than" compared to other men. So, I taught myself to present a picture of me that looks good. Whatever the setting, I could case the joint in record time and then present myself in the say that would make me look good to everyone there.
Doing this, and living this way, by the way, takes a HUGE amount of energy. I'm really tired of living like that.
So....here's a bit more. If anyone reads this or not...it's still good to just get it out here.
I'm from a large family...lots of siblings....parents who stayed together....but a mother who was sick more days than she was well. She was a diagnosed schizophrenic who heard voices. I later learned that people with this illness have issues whereby the centers in the brain for aural (hearing) and, for some, visual processing is stimulated and their brains actually perceive that they are hearing things and seeing things which in the physical world outside their brains does not exist.
So, like any other human being, because they hear voices when no one else is around, they attribute it to the supernatural...either "God" or "the devil." My mother would say, nearly every day, "God told me to...." or "the devil is telling me to....."
She was not uneducated, but she was a Christian and she knew the Bible.....but she heard voices, and it was difficult for her to distinguish and understand the difference between what was illness and what wasn't. So, my life was a bit crazy in that regard growing up.
My father was weighed down with it all....and so I can "get" that he had a lot on him that kept him from connecting with me as a boy growing up.
So, it was what it was. My father was stressed and easily given to anger. My mother was "in another world" most of the time; her "condition" was treated with drugs which pretty much knocked her out. The more stressful the illness, and more prevalent the voices, the more medicine she took. It was like living with a drunk much of the time...and she was in bed most of the time. The house was dark and depressing. My siblings and I got out of the house as much as possible.
I have spent most of my adult life since leaving home at 18 in learning social skills, and how to relate to people. I brought small windows of relief to our family system by making good grades and excelling in musical skills.
I never revealed to anyone what was really inside me, however. This wasn't safe.
Couple this with being molested by a man at the age of 9, and having a father who was disconnected from me, and all that I've written above, and it was a perfect storm.
I will say, however, that the redeeming part of my life was our involvement with our church and exposure to good people who loved us. I believe God was merciful to my mother through her illness. Oh, and after having as many children as she did, and taking all the medications that she did...she gained weight, and developed a malady of other physical illnesses in her later years.
So.....I hid out inside myself for many many years. I learned early to to m and p...whether from magazines I found, or my own imagination.
As a young adult, I had my first sexual encounter in a rest stop along an interstate....I didn't know they happened, but I just stepped into...or fell into it. I wasn't intending for it to happen, but when the situation presented itself....as surprising as it was, I knew what it was...and just stepped in.
Adult bookstores followed...and anonymous sex...about a dozen times.
Then, there was the adult gay magazine that someone had stashed in the shelf when I was simply looking for a student dictionary. I had never seen anything like that before...but there it was in the "family" bookstore in the mall....and the hot rush of blood in my face and my heart racing....I tucked the magazine into my coat....and walked out with it (I stole it). I was too ashamed to have actually purchased it.
I spent the next 4 days masturbating and looking at the images and calling the 1-900 numbers.....it was like "Excellent" (as Gabe said in one video).....but it was the beginning to learning things I would later, and to this day, regret.
so....okay. I'll write more later. I have to go.
But, again....I am no longer doing pm. It is no longer an option for me.
I am here today because I am walking away from it. I'm done with it.
I am thankful for the men here who also are walking away from it. Hooorah.
Thanks.