Why did I wait so long

Why has it taken until now for me to work on my abuse ?

Why did I wait so long ?

These are a couple of the questions that are often asked by adults who start to work on their abuse. The simple answer is that you were not ready to work on it before now, or that you were unable to do so.

When you were abused, you were fed many lies, given many reasons to think that no one will believe you, or it was your fault, or it was not really abuse. It takes time to heal to the point that you can face the fact that you were abused. It takes time to realise that you were deceived and lied to, and to regain your hold on life.

The abuse may not of been recognized as abuse. You may have felt that something that happened so long ago can not possibly effect you now. "I'm OK at the moment so why dig up the past". It takes time to understand that patterns have been set up that are self destructive.

I know that when I was in my 20's I believed that my life was all that I deserved it to be, all that was normal for me as I was. After all, I had always been shy, hadn't I? Never had reasonable friends, had I?

I was blind to the fact that I did deserve more. It took many years for me to see my life for what it really was.

You may still be in the trap that your abuser set, that made you keep the abuse a secret. Possibly feel that it would show weakness to admit that you were abused. Still feel riddled with the quilt and shame, and not realized that you were young, and it was not your fault, that you were helpless to stop it, too afraid to tell anyone, did not know who to tell, or what to tell.

It has only been in the last few years that females have been able to feel free to come out with their stories of abuse, to talk about it, and form support groups.

In the UK it is still less likely that a male will admit that he was abused, though fortunately this is slowly changing. It took until 1995 for the law to accept that male rape can, and does, happen. Outside London there are very few support groups where the male victim can turn to, but there are a few mixed groups out there, and the gay community is starting to accept it as a problem.

To be able to cope with exploring or healing your abuse, you need to feel safe, supported, and to feel that you have safety nets to stop you falling too far. Until now it may well be that you have not felt safe enough to go on this voyage of discovery. The idea that being abused many years ago can still screw you up is an extremely scary one indeed. Yet with time and understanding, you will find that you can take control of your own destiny, and learn to think as a survivor, not a victim.

The process of becoming an adult is a complex one at the best of times, and it may well be that for years there were far too many things going on in your life. Things like leaving home, starting a job, doing exams, forming relationships, learning how the world works. You may alternatively, have felt like an adult for years, because you had to grow up early because of the abuse.

It is not until you have had time to live in the real adult world for several years that you realise that you can not live in it as well as you thought you could. It is hard to see what effect abuse has had on your life even though it may well be blatantly obvious to others. For years I could not see how it had effected me, not until I had a relationship with another victim. It soon became obvious how abuse had effected him in terms of his behavior and how he reacted to things like being close to others, and I started to realise that I could see a lot of myself in him. It was not until that relationship that I began to see how much the abuse had programmed me, to respond in certain ways that would still allow me to be used, abused, and controlled by anyone who recognized it in me. Also my eyes were opened to how much people had managed to use me, manipulate me, and control me without me even suspecting it before.

It is not unusual for individuals to reach 30 and above before they can recognize and deal with the problems caused by the abuse. At 20 I still believed that things would get better as I became older. That I would change as I learnt new skills and got used to the ways of the adult world, and hence I had no problem that I could perceive. Hence with no perceivable problem, I had no reason to conclude that I needed any help, nor that I would have to look into my past for the answers. I was more optimistic at that stage and looked at the world through rose colored glasses. Sometimes I wish I still had them, but at least I am learning to live in the real world.

For years you may of felt that you were the only one that had been abused in such ways. As I have said before, it is only now starting to become clear that so many males have been abused, and even more recently that some have been abused by females.

Fear probably held you back in so many different ways. Most victims have a fear of the unknown, and need to be in control of things as much as possible so that they can feel safe.

The inappropriate usage of the word survivor, by some T.V programs Etc., may have made you think that, because you had physically survived the abuse, you were a survivor, and that was all you could expect to be. It is not until you start to deal with the effects of the abuse, that you start to become a survivor. Once you have mastered being a survivor you can then start to thrive.

As you can see, there are many reasons why you had to come this far before you could start to look at yourself, and how, you reached this point. Some people will reach here sooner than others. If you are one of the ones that reached here sooner, then consider yourself fortunate, you are off to a good start. However, even if you are much older, you reached this stage when it was right for you. There is no point trying to blame yourself, or feel guilty, as this will only reinforce the self blame that very man victims of abuse go through. The fact that you are reading this means that you have realized that you need to understand yourself, and that you want to change your life for the better. The journey may not be an easy one at times, but you had the courage to get through the abuse, and that means that you have it within yourself to reach through to the other end.