So ... yeah as the title says this will just be me venting/bitching about my life and just as a WARNING there will be mention of rape, suicide, and abuse. I am honestly in a very dark place right now and I cannot seem to get out. I have applied for therapy so hopefully I find a good counselor soon, but I need some way to cope in the meantime... so why not emotionally vomit here I guess? I tend to keep things inside a lot but a combo of external stress and my dumb brain overreacting have made me contemplate suicide and have one recent attempt. I have been trying EVERYTHING I can think of to be happy. I just recently went on a week long trip with two very good friends and while it was very fun and I didn't want it to end... I have to force seeming happy a lot so I didn't bring them down. Now that I'm back home and (to put it kindly) not surrounded by kind people or emotions, its very difficult to even fake happy anymore. When I was younger (about 8) I was sexually abused and raped by a 16 year old neighbor. This was probably one of the first things that started giving me major anxiety and trust issues. He told me that he would kill my family if I told any one and showed me the knife he would have supposedly done it with... so I just kept quiet. Not to long after that my parents ended up getting a divorce and my father (who was once an incredibly fun and funny man... someone I saw as my hero) became very abusive to me... both physically and emotionally. He had custody every other weekend and we (my younger sister and I) were not being raised the way he wanted us to... so he took every second he had with us to basically beat in different rules and would outright explode if we missteped even once. At one point when I was about 9 I was so scared from his yelling and swatting at me that I started to cry. His first reaction to correct that was to pick me up by the neck, choke me while carrying me into another room, throw me at the bed, and then lock me in there alone. This was the worst of his physical abuse, but his emotional abuse didn't get any better until I left for college. When I was in middle school I was getting kind of on the larger side... I was fairly short but over 200lbs. Both the other kids (and my father) would pick on me for that fact and it started taking a tole on me. My father finally decided he would "fix me"and decided to make me do the work out regimens that he did in the military. Being the short stocky boy I was, my body didn't exactly handle going 0 to 1000 well for work outs. I wasn't loosing weight fast enough which made me more of a failure to him. On top of that, I was slightly more feminine than other boys so my classmates harped on me being a "fruity faggot" (which at the time I didn't even know what either of those words meant) and my dad was giving me tons of "pep talks" to keep me from "choosing to be gay." I was done with everything at this point and started contemplating suicide... but I ended up deciding against it because I couldn't leave my mom. I took control of what I could to stop the bullying and decided if the workouts weren't working fast enough for my dad then I would just stop eating as much as possible. This eventually became full blown anorexia and to this day I do not have an accurate view of my body no matter my weight (though I don't freak out as much about it). My mom saw how much I was struggling in middle school and decided to enroll me into a "classical" high school... which is essentially a private school that instead of paying for, you just have to test into and pray you make the cut off. I made it in fairly easy and for the most part my high school experience was a good one. I made decent to good friends, there was 0 tolerance for bullying, and I even had a girlfriend my junior and senior year. The main issues around this time were my father (big surprise huh?) and my step dad. My step father... is not someone who should have been a parent at that point in his life. He had some anger issues (not as much as dad but still noticeable) and on rare occasions after drinking would get... very inappropriate with me. It was never to the point of rape but definitely molestation (which at this point I was just too afraid to tell any one). At the beginning of my junior year he cheated on my mom and she ended up getting a divorce. My relationship with my mom was always pretty good but after that it blossomed. She started joking and talking to me like an adult... like a friend. But not too long after the beginning of my senior year my mom started dating another man and her personality did almost a 180. She wouldn't talk to me like she did and would get upset if I bothered her too much. I know its petty but I felt like I lost a friend. I found out later that she was/is bipolar so that explained a lot of what was happening but it still hurt. Especially when she started taking out her bad moments on me so that she wouldn't be as likely to do so to her new bf/husband (this man is a good guy and I am happy they are still together to this day but at the time I did have a smidge of resentment for how my mom started treating me after the started together). High school ended and I was lazy and didn't apply to the college I needed for what I thought I wanted to do (pre-med) so I ended up going to their sister school which (thank God) was still away from home. At college (like so many do) I ended up finding out more about myself...like how I like dudes. My girlfriend at the time just kind of stopped speaking to me after high school graduation so after about 6 months of trying to contact her I decided it was just best to move on. I ended up meeting some friends who helped me come to terms with my sexuality a bit more and some that even were still the same religion as me (I was brought up christian and from what I understood from my dad I was basically going to hell for just existing x.x). Most of these friends at this point were kind of fair weather friends though. After about a year at the university I met up with one of my old high school friends who I found out went there, and she introduced me to a group of people who would basically become my family for the next few years. Most of the people in the group were amazing but 3 in particular stood out to me. The first guy was basically the leader of this little nerd cult family thing (even though he refused to acknowledge it most of the time). He was not just smart but an actual genius (and unfortunately he knew it), he was also like walking eye candy for me... tall, lean but strong, piercing blue eyes, long straight hair down to the small of his back and a nice well groomed beard. He was also, unfortunately, very straight... and very not single... which brings me to the second person, his girlfriend. She was the mama of the group and was defiantly someone I could talk to about anything. She was super sweet... loved to cook... but the only problem was she got kinda passive aggressive whenever I started hanging around with her man too much. The third person would be the leaders mini me ... ill just call him the sheep. He was NOTHING the leader was but wanted to be him he even started emulating his look. For the most part he was a good person and I could even call him one of my best friends at one point... but that didn't last. At the beginning of my time with the group I was still kind of in full blown anorexia mode and at my worst I was 5'10" and 104lbs. Because of this and the stress of classes my health wasn't exactly the best. The group still supported me and helped me keep going for a while. One day, the sheep (who had a girlfriend at the time I should say) invited me to spend the night with him shortly after I had came out to the group as bi. I went along and he showed me how he would do cam shows and mm with other guys online (it should be noted her than just about every one in the group minus his gf FULLY expected him to be gay so this didn't come as a complete shock that he did this). He then proceeded to start a cam show while I watched him. That lasted for like 3 minutes and he ended up just turning it off and asking if we could "experiment" since he had never done anything with a guy (he had never done anything with a girl either but...). I said yes... and every couple of days we would end up meeting up and going further and further until I ended up losing my virginity to him (if you don't count rape as me losing it). About a week after that he and his gf broke up (for unrelated reasons) and our ... encounters became more frequent. He even started to act semi flirty in public but in a way where he could play it off as just joking around. We had never kissed (which does me I actually lost my virginity before ever getting my first kiss with any one... something I deeply regret), but it seemed like a relationship was possible so I kept myself open to him and we continued our secret dates. I wanted a real thing though... something I didn't have to hide... so he said that until he was ready to come out I could find someone to date in public while we still had out private life... I was an idiot and said sure. I ended up dating a guy and not mentioning what was going on with sheep at first. I mentioned it to him later and of course he was hurt at first ... but oddly enough he saw it as a challenge (he was young). My stupid self didn't really truly love either of these guys but I was sleeping with both of them and ended up happysih with a relationship with both... but the guy I really wanted to be with was the leader... which I think is the only reason I said ok to the sheeps advances... like "well i guess this is the closest ill ever get to being with him". I repeat... I AM AN IDIOT! As I said before my health wasn't that great and the university ended up medically withdrawing me the last week of one semester. I went home early and started the paper work to get back in but life back with dad FULL TIME was hell x.x. Mom moved to a different city and it was just too far of a drive to feasibly go back there with what I had. I ended up calling the leader and he said I could stay with him for free that summer until I got back in a dorm. I slept on the floor at the foot of his bed and while it was not the most comfortable... I felt safe... so I didn't complain. The semester after that was horrible though... after I got back in a dorm my roomate was 100%homophobic and a womanizer... I woke up to him have a fairly violent sounding threesome...which i am still somewhat impressed he fit in that twinsized bed. My classes were going poorly .. partially my fault (i spent way too much time trying to escape into games) and partially some of those professors weren't there to teach. I ended up getting too deep in my depression and shut myself off from the world for like a week and ended up trying to kill myself... the school found out and ...yet again had me medically withdrawn... this time half way through the semester. By this point I have had almost 2 years of college education with only 1 years worth of credit... I could not face my family. The leader let me move back in with him instead of going home. I was back on the floor an safe. The leader really took care of my needs there and watched out for me... he even helped me get back into that bull shit university... and none of this did anything to help me stop liking him. to stop falling in love with someone unreachable x.x. I tried to shift my focus away from him and to my secret dates ... which were getting more and more distant. the sheep was very stressed by his senior project and i was doing my best to help him calm down... i even funded most of it. It didn't change the outcome i secretly know would happen though... a few weeks before his project ... after i had paid for just about all of it at that point... he took me to his house and told me that he didn't see me as anything... i was nothing more than an experiment to him and that he was "straight". I was honestly kind of devastated by this. He started publicly dating a girl who was very much obsessed with him... but i quickly found out he was sleeping with multiple other men... and he cut me off because i was too close to a real relationship and he wanted a "normal" one. I didn't know what to do... i felt to revolted and hurt to physically be around him... but i also didn't want to be "that person" to out the guy. I ended up hiding away from the group... i ended up telling the leader and one other person at the time and they both felt torn. when the sheep found out that they knew he altered the story to make him seem more innocent (which the leader just flat out rejected because of inconsistencies of time and character) but the sheep still ended up turning most of the people i have grown to love and trust away from me... the only one i really had left was the leader... and occasionally his girlfriend when she wasn't randomly mad at me herself. That all ended when I left for school one day and there was an eviction notice on our house... turns out a lot of the money i was giving for bills wasnt being used for bills. the leader said that i needed to get my things that i could carry and go somewhere else becasue the sheep would be comming to help them with the move... i got what i could... and that was the last i physically saw of any of them to this day. Found out the leader saw the eviction as an easy way to get me out so he didn;t have to be torn between two people (he didnt set up the eviction... jsut used it to his advantage). I wasn't able to grab all my things before hand so i lost a good protion of my gaming stuff to them as well. After that i basically had to move back to my town but thankfully at the time my grandparents were well enough off to take me in. I had a job and I was able to commute to school so most things were ok. The only real issue about my grandparents house was my uncle. He (to put it very bluntly) is psychopathic. He has called me many derogatory terms and even threatened to kill me in my sleep on a few occasions. While my family is the type to sweep stuff like this under the rug and not mention it except for the massive amount of gossip they do... i take these threats much more seriously. This unfortunately meant i didn't feel safe enough with my grandparents for more than a few months and had to move back in with my dad. In more recent years he has completely stopped the physical abuse but is still going strong with the passive aggressive emotional abuse. This got even worse when he found out about my sexuality. Especially with the way his church is x.x. My boyfriend and I eventually broke up after a good run without sheep ... but he also ended up getting a but bad for me. If anything needed to be done (planning, paying, driving, etc) it all fell on my shoulders... at that point he didn't want to work for the relation ship but would guilt the fuck out of me if i mentioned anything about splitting up. I finally ended things and after a while we became ok friends again. I stayed away from getting in a relationship for about a year just to try to help get my brain right ... but then again I have been told that my face is the most effective form of birth control... so i don't really need to try hard to stay away from relationships... I did however get into a ... thing with another guy which i already mentioned in a post here https://kintsugi.seebs.net/threads/i-honestly-dont-know-what-to-do-now-relationship.761/ so now im here... stuck with a passive aggressive homophobic father... wanting a hero to help save me instead of striking me down.... and to make matters worse... my birthday is comming up... and i have nothing to show for my 24 years on this planet other than "im a nice person" which can easily be replaced by someone more useful.... just kind of makes me wonder why bother any more
That sucks pretty hard core, but try not to let that tear your self worth down. Like, I'm 25, and I have little to show for it. Plus, I haven't been through nearly that much shit. Surviving is a victory all by itself, and I think you are doing a pretty good job at it.
^_^ 'tis totally fine! When I have the spoons for it, I really enjoy listening to people talk about their lives. Hope you are feeling a bit better now!
*hopefully supercomforting headbonk* i hope things are a little better today (at least!) From what I've heard from you, you seem like a pretty good guy - and jsyk, i think "i'm a nice person" is a huge sign of success in life, especially if it's the biggest thing you can say about yourself.
Holy fuck, wow. I sort of suspect that, in the absence of depression, you'd have a lot of other things to show for your time, but if you can't see them now... Think a bit about what you'd like to be, and whether you can work towards it. Because frankly, if you can survive the shit you've been through so far, you can probably do damn near anything. FWIW, if the theology thing is still a sore spot or point of worry, there's a number of variously queer Christians around here who'd be happy to talk about it from a more considered viewpoint. Really sorry about your dad's shitty church, and his poor handling of their teachings. (Hint: If your way of handling a teaching involves being an asshole to your kids, you are probably doing it wrong.)
/solidarity pats Also, I can 100% confirm that your dad's belief and church are bullshit. I know this because of my learnings. ~Signed, an actual queer theologian with a theological degree
