Surviving Sexual Abuse… as a Man.

28 years ago, my life changed. Dramatically.
28 years ago, sex was forced into the way in which I experienced myself. Being 8 years old at the time, sex till that point was something older people didn’t really talk about except to say it was how babies were made. To me, it consisted of having a crush on a girl, with the hopes of maybe kissing her.
After the abuse, a whole new world of pleasure and torment had been injected into me. Literally.
Over the course of those few weeks, of innocently being introduced to a game of touch, to being drugged and forced into positions no child should ever know, the impact to my consciousness was distinct.
For the past 7 years, however, from 28–35, it has been a journey of being alive in the body of a man, but experiencing life from the emotions of a boy. Having repressed what happened to me, I didn’t start remember until I was 27, a month after I got married.
If these 7 years have taught me anything, its that as humans, we have an innate ability to grow in our emotions. My emotional stability, I feel, is equivalent to that of a teenager now, but with a much greater awareness to process. 7 years ago, I had no process other than removing myself from a situation for as long as necessary to feel differently.
These past 7 years has been a process of developing a process. Any process constructive to resolution of the turmoil. Because when all is said and done, I don’t care what the world says, I can heal. I will heal. I am healing.
And this is all I need. Belief in myself. Unwavering belief that I have the ability to heal. Without that belief, well… you don’t want to see me go there. Trust me.
But what’s more, as I’ve come to understand this thing called the mind, that belief, its not something that’s just set one time and I never again need reminded. There for awhile, it took everything in me to even consider the notion that I could heal, and reminding myself of it hundreds of times a day. Until one day, when in session with my counselor, where I realized that I can re-narrate anything. I can give context to any situation of my life. And in that, I saw, is the key to transformation.
What is the context I’m giving myself to heal? That context: My consciousness was distorted, and I’m re-wiring my neurology to know myself without that distortion.
At the basis of it all, I want to come to know consent in every way possible. In more than just sexual conversations. I want to know consent when I try to force myself to get motivated to go work out. I don’t want to force myself. I want to yearn to live a healthy life, mind, body, and soul.
And sometimes, that requires sacrifice. Letting go of things that I once used as a crutch (Pornography). Letting go of those things that don’t feed my consciousness with the needed nutrition to actually heal (cussing). And giving my body a new way of moving in the world that doesn’t require me forcing myself to adapt to change.
For me, that new way of moving is what I call Body Integration. Its the modality I’ve built into my practice as a way dissolving those distortions from my consciousness, my mind, my body, and my heart. 7 years of consistent application of awareness through body-movement, for the purpose of untying trauma. A movement toward learning to love the body I’m in… This is Body Integration ← Click to learn more.
