HOPING TO SUFFER LESS

There would be a lot of “I” in this essay. Because that’s exactly what I’ve been neglecting.

Disclaimer : 
More than 30 years of ongoing torture to myself and I am still worried about others. I want to put an end to it. Maybe, I am a people’s pleaser. Not that I do things to please people. I do because I care. I also don’t do certain things (like speaking up for myself) because I am afraid that I will lose them or have a fear of hurting them and feeling guilty afterwards. It’s high time I put an end to it. I am coming to realise that the only way to reduce (nothing can make it disappear) this torture is to let all these emotions out. This means that the next time you talk or be with me, I am not sure if I can maintain the same standards of your perceived caring, polite, loving, soft nature of mine. Very likely that I will be defensive, impolite, short tempered, not so caring and the worst of my nightmares, selfish. The reason for this long disclaimer before the actual story is because I want my friends and family to be understanding. But if it ends up that you’ll cannot handle, so be it. Either way, I am tortured every day, night, even in dreams so I will try to share my torture with you’ll :-)

After this, I might become a totally different person. Or maybe, retain certain qualities but imbibe new ones. The idea is to not become a nice guy but to realise who I really am. And a little hope that all of this excercise will help me to suffer less.

Some Backdrop
Since 2019, a lot of repressed memories from my childhood started to come back. I will talk about a few of them in this post.

10 years ago, I watched the movie “Mysterious Skin”. It’s a movie about how two people are affected in their adult lives because of the sexual abuse that they underwent as a child. While one character’s adult life gets destroyed as he gets addicted to promiscuous sexual activities and drugs while the other turns out to be socially reclusive, with recurring nightmares of aliens trying to abduct him. In the last scene of the movie, the former character tells the latter about the sexual abuse that both of them suffered under their basketball coach as children. The latter had forgotten about this incident. He dissociated himself during the act of rape and associated the image of an alien to the perpetrator which explains his recurring nightmares of aliens trying to abduct him. It stayed as a repressed memory. While I talked about this movie to many others, nobody found the movie so profound and deep as I did. I went back to watch it several times over the years and felt some deep unexplainable emotions.

Scene when he discoveras he was sexually abused as a child

 

Last year, a very close friend of mine was sexually assualted (almost raped) and was engaged in a legal battle to fight her perpetrator. For someone like me, who normally feels bad about other people’s miseries, her case hit me on a different level. Especially since I could not do anything to help her other than just listening (we live in different countries). While this is happening, one night I had a dream of entering a familiar room from my childhood days. It’s a room where we were not allowed to enter as children.
By this time, I have been having nightmares for almost my entire life so I really wanted to put an end to all of it. So I decided to stay in this dark room in my dream even though I was feeling extremely anxious and fearful. Somehow I felt I will know the reason of why I was suffering all my life. Unfortunately, I just woke up from the dream without finding out anything. My only suspicion was that I probably saw a ghost. Yes, that’s exactly what I thought at the age of 35, that I must have seen a ghost as a child which is haunting to me to this day. Few days later, I had a dream of a man raping me and I woke up very scared, anxious and nervous. This dream made me to remember that I had such dreams earlier too but I have forgotten. After this, my suspicion of any possible sexual abuse started to grow even stronger. Besides, the term ‘rape’ had always stirred deep emotions of fear, extreme anxiety and some kind of weird interest for me.

REASON FOR MY LIFE LONG INSOMNIA

In Feb 2023, I decided to take therapy. Especially since my friend who suffered through sexual assault suggested it to me, that she received immense help in therapy and guided me to it. In my first therapy session, there was only one line that struck the most. I almost felt like I paid 80pounds for this line though it was worth much more. I shared my suspicions and dreams and my therapist said 
 “Listen to your body and trust your feelings”. 
That’s all. I went back to those memories and started to focus on my body and it all came out. By this time, I have been crying almost every other day, if not everyday since last 4 years. But after this new revelation, I was crying so loudly multiple times a day. The worst part is that I do not have the exact memory of the number of times and the details of the sexual abuse. If this was the case, maybe it would have made it less difficult to process the trauma. Most likely it happened multiple times. In my new not so sensitive language, I would put it as “I was raped many times as a little child by someone who was much older to me.”

On another occasion, of which I have a clear memory, I was stripped naked in a tenant’s house by all their family members because I accidentally touched a woman who was not to be touched for some religious reasons (at least that’s what they told me). I was crying a lot to not do it but they did not listen. The entire family stripped me naked and laughed about it. I was sitting in a corner crying in endless humiliation and if they were ever going to let me go. After a really long time, which felt like eternity at that point, I was given my clothes back. Went back to my home and didn’t tell anyone. After that incident, I never went to that tenant’s house. Now, I wonder if it was only the stripping of my clothes which I have a memory, or was there any sexual assault involved of which I have no memory.

Lastly, I keep getting a strong feeling that I was sexually assaulted as a child by many other people on multiple ocassions. Once again, I have no clear cut memories. But I am certain, these repressed memories will come up in the near future in therapy or otherwise.

Myself at the age when the sexual abuse happened

FAMILY SUPPORT

The most unfortunate part is that I was more worried about how my family might say insensitive things if I share these new revalations. They took care of me with good food, education, shelter, clothes, shoes, etc. I do not want to give the specific details of how they treat me as I don’t want to defame them. I still Love them dearly and would want them to be happy in life. It would be an ideal scenario if they are ever interested to talk to me again in life and are willing to put the effort to go to a family therapist, who could possibly guide them on how to not make it worse for me (which they always do). Though I have no hope at all. I only want to protect myself now. It’s unfortunate that the family which is meant to be the supporting pillar for the growth of any child turns out to be this way. The intention here is not to blame others or play a victim card, but to just speak out how I feel about what really happened. I do understand that they themselves suffered as kids and haven’t gotten around to resolve their own traumas.

I was physically abused until the age of 18. Cannot count the number of times that I got beaten up with hands, legs, belt, hanger, etc. I had my naughty moments but not so many that I deserved to be beaten mercilessly so many times. Also, my only identity in the family or in life was, if I succeed in studies and get a good job. Maybe, that’s why I stopped studying and quit my job for nearly 7 years now.

I was (as a child) and I still am being emotionally abused to this day. Out of their own insecurities, unconsciousness, anger issues and most importantly self righteous, Jesus Loving behaviour they tend to be emotionally abusive which they don’t realise and I wonder if they ever could. Inflicted a lot of intimidation, humiliation, bullying, emotional blackmail, etc. Despite all of it, they keep claiming, how much they Love and care for me and that I don’t do enough for the family. I don’t remember a time that they came to hug me. Infact, in many instances, they moved away when I tried to touch them.

I don’t remember a time when Mother took my side when there was an argument between me and my sisters. She would always choose their side and even gets aggravaged and adds to the emotional abuse. Many relatives (uncles, aunts) and family friends notice the difference in the attitude of my parents towards me and my sisters but they don’t want to get invovled as nobody wants to be told how to raise their own child. Besides, they don’t want to spoil their relationship with them which I understand. Most of the relatives are basked in their own glory of their personal rags to riches success stories and how the younger generation cannot handle difficult times like they did. I wonder if they actually understand what it feels to be depressed everyday of their life. Especially depression which comes from childhood abuse and the resulting trauma. Mostly they associate this word with feeling down or sad or melancholic. Or probably they do understand, but find escape in materialistic pursuits. Having said that, I do Love my relatives and they supported me in many ways over the years. They did whatever they could in their means and I am grateful for that.

TO CONCLUDE

I suffered from sleeplessness for many decades causing fatigue and low energy levels, recurring nightmares, sleep paralysis, anxiety, chronic depression, learning disabilities, multiple health issues, drug addiction and the scariest of all, sudden urges of suicidal thoughts of which I had no control. Now it makes more sense to me, as to why I was, the way I was and still am. Sometimes, I wonder why I had to suffer so many physical and mental health issues for the crimes that I haven’t committed. Is it because of my past life karma, like the Buddhists & Hindus claim it to be or because of my sins against God like the Christians claim it to be.

All these years, I justified my abuse thinking that I wouldn’t have gone into social work and supported many orphans if I didn’t suffer so much in life. But for the first time in life, I feel that, maybe, I am a naturally empathetic person and would have always lived a minimalistic life and supported the children in need. And the ABUSE I suffered, was totally unneccesary.

In every dysfunctional family, someone has to take the baton and focus on healing. Thus transforming themselves to find the strength of Love and Empathy within their hearts so that they don’t carry on the abuse to the coming generations. Thankfully, I feel safe in Hanoi and started to visit accupuncture doctor, dentist and therapist. By writing out these thoughts, I am “hoping to suffer less”