Hard for me to tell my story

First off I want to say i'm thankful to finding this website. It's been so hard to keep this to myself. I've only told one person this but i've been so ashamed to tell anybody this.

I'm a 28 year old black man who was molested by a friend's older brother. This happened to me when I was 10 years old. I don't want to get into to much detail about this incident & sadly i don't remember to much about it. I think because I tried to block it out of my memory. Over the years I didn't realize this had effected me so much.

As I grew older as a child I became extremely shy and quiet around people. To this day I still am. I grew up confused by my sexuality which caused me to grow up wondering was I gay or straight. Due to this I became involved sexually with men and had unprotected sex. Thank God I never became infected with HIV or any other diseases! Although i'm attracted to women and want to marry a woman I believe that my careless sexual acts with men was due to suffering sexual abuse at the hands of a person I thought I could trust all those years ago.

Due to the abuse i've always found it hard to be myself around people but especially women. To this day as a 28 year old man I find it extremely hard to form any type of relationship with women whether it's for a loving relationship or just a friendship. I haven't been able to form any lasting relationship with women and I strongly believe it's due to my abuse as a child.

It pains me to have kept this secret like this with nobody to talk to. I have not even told my own mother who I love and am very close to. This pain has caused my life to be unbearable at times. It's hard for me to trust people and make friends. It has caused me to be a loner and to be looked upon as being akward and strange by others. I try to overcome this by having loose sexual relationships with both men and women many of them being strangers and one night stands. I suffer extreme self esteem issues and i'm always doubting myself.

I want to move on with my life and find a loving woman who can understand me and not judge me but I sometimes feel it's hopeless. I just want to feel normal.

Hello Richmond83,

I'm glad you found us, but would have preferred to meet you under different circumstances. Let me first welcome you, and I also want to congratulate you for seeing the need for change. As a Survivor I understand self-destructive behavior and how we confuse it with normalcy; but that is just an illusion. Changing the way you view your past can help you. I'm not saying to forget anything or to act as if the abuse never happened. What I am saying is you have to allow the pain to fuel your healing. You have to allow the pain to uplift you, helping you become the man you envision.

The road to recovery is not an easy one, but it is one where you can have complete control. I believe that you will find the woman you are looking for if you are honest with her, and with yourself. Are you ready to love someone the way you want to be loved? Are you in a place where you are willing to commit to a person, no matter what is in their past? Are you able to release some of those negative habits that are holding you captive?

When you can answer "Yes" to these 3 questions you will be on the right path. Getting to the point where you can answer "Yes" will be another part of your journey. You may choose to go to counseling, coaching, a support group or all three. Just don't try to go about it alone! You don't have to. We are here to help support you.

Hello Richmond83.
Thank you for taking part in the Black Survivors Forum. You may not realize it, but by you deciding to take part in the forum is absolutely a big step in itself! Although, no one is able to see you, we all hear and understand your pain. One of the first steps in healing is being able to confront your pain in some type of positive capacity. I think this is a big step and I congratulate you on it! I am very hopeful that by expressing yourself here, that you will gain the courage needed to take those steps even further and find some additional ways to continue your healing journey. Yes, moving past your hurt will be one of the most difficult journeys you will ever take in life, but as a survivor myself, I can tell you it is a journey well worth partaking in.
I encourage you to continue to voice your feelings via the forum for support, but also start to think about other ways in which you can tell your story. Of course, your disclosure will be on your time. I will encourage the fact that once you begin you will feel so much better and so many questions that you have about yourself and where you want to go in life will be answered.