It’s amazing how one never really gets over childhood trauma. One could spend copious amounts of time in therapy and working through it and it still finds a way to rear its ugly head.
The weekend after my first workplace “bullying” I kept complaining about it. Growing angrier as I recounted the story and even more anxious as it ruminated in my unending thoughts.
Then during a blur of verbal vomit I spat out the nugget of truth. I was hurt that once again, after I believed someone was my friend they betrayed me.
When I was a kid, and even still, I was so desperate for friends that I gave too much of myself. I’d do things for them, but then things, and tell them my deepest darkest secrets all in an effort to forge some kind of friendship. The problem with that kind of behavior is you tend to attract a lot of unscrupulous people. Which I did.
I was burnt and betrayed many times over my youth that I put up really high walls and a prize winning RBF that I continue to wear to this moment. It was a way of warding people away from me. And even though I was short I was broad as a preteen. (Aka I was a fatty.) Coupled with the mean mug I was thoroughly unapproachable.
This whole incident shoved me right back there, where I feel like an idiot and never want to feel that way again.
Dude… the world is going to shit. I am astounded at the depths the Republican Party will sink in their quest to… what? I have no idea what the end goal is. I don’t understand. Are they sowing hate and division because they’re actively trying to start a civil war? Have they been corrupted by and actively working for a foreign power? Or is it that their platform has nothing to offer the everyday person that they get them riled up about shit that doesn’t concern them? Whatever the reason it’s finally reached me in my personal life.
It started as an innocent question. One of my co-workers, who knows I boycott hate-chicken, asked me if I was going to stop going to Starbucks because of their new policy that the stores must remove pride decorations effective immediately. I just groaned and said, “I don’t know.” As I took a sip from my iced mocha from the bucks.
From there it quickly devolved into a tirade by him that I would respond with (or attempt to) a different perspective. He was hitting all the same Fox News misinformation talking points. One that stuck out to me was he reiterated this bs point my niece had said to me about a little kids “tucking bathing suits.” Like it did the first time I had heard it, I immediately thought “that is bullshit.” But I won’t speak on something unless I know for a doubt. And I can’t even remember the last time I went into a Target store. So I answered with “if that’s true then just don’t buy it.” Then he gave me some ridiculous thing “about the kids.” Which is funny to me because this the same guy who made a point to showcase his NRA hat in the office parking lot so I would see it, (this was after I had made some comment, to my husband on the phone, by the way) and has no problem with “the little guys” getting murdered at school. So. Spare me the bullshit about “the kids.” Literally, the number one killer of kids in this country is guns.
This conversation escalated to a point where he made a “veiled threat” that I “didn’t want to make him mad.” That’s when I freaked out. Okay. That’s the end of it. And I shut down. However he clearly had an ax to grind and wanted to use it, so he kept going.
The second half of the conversation was him telling me what I have experienced in life. Like, how I didn’t know I was gay when I was a kid. One, I did. But two, the other kids who teased and bullied me, they called me faggot and gay way before I even knew. I VIVIDLY remember the moment I asked my mom what gay was. She explained it to me. I sat quiet for a moment and then said “maybe I am.” This was at 7 fucking years old. Her negative overreaction made me backpedal so fast, I should have gotten whiplash.
This argument crescendoed into him angrily asking me if I had ever been bullied. This was after I tried to answer all of his “questions,” yet he didn’t want to hear them. He just wanted to rant.
Finally he let me answer and I told him, “honestly, dude, I feel bullied right now.”
This dude exploded. He stormed through the office, slamming drawers and the front door, shouting. For the life of me I don’t remember what he said because I just wanted this to be over with. I am NOT a confrontational person. I like to think I am but I am ultimately a coward.
He left and I was dumbfounded. Never in my 20 years of employment had I ever experienced anything like that. Ever. Yeah I knew that there were people who didn’t like me. Sure. But never had I been subjected to this. It was unhinged.
I wasn’t going to say anything to my “boss.” If he asked where he was I would just say “give him a call.” I wanted him to explain it.
Up until yesterday I genuinely thought we were buds. He had until then been super sweet and this behavior was super uncharacteristic of what I had seen. So I can only draw two conclusions, he was riled up about some bullshit these people are peddling to rile up “the base” or he is bipolar. And I want to immediately state there is nothing wrong with that. At all. I am not shaming him. It’s just now I know.
He returned, calmer headed, and I immediately apologized. I should have stopped it after the first half by saying “hey we’re both heated, let’s not talk about this anymore.” But I didn’t. I instead chose to make this a “learning moment” because I stupidly thought I could offer my friend a different perspective. He just didn’t want one.
At the end of the day he had apologized to me twice. Once after I had and the other before he left, slapping me on the back.
I am just at a loss. I’m super depressed. The office used to be my one safe place. My one “haven” where I had some control. That’s all gone. I’m shutting up and shutting down. Work will just be me clickety-clacketing away while I listen to music or podcasts.
After I had apologized he had the nerve to say “well I don’t want this to stop you from talking about your life.” Oh, you mean my life that is “political?” Sure, jan.
My favorite part was, “I have gay friends.” No you fucking don’t, bitch. You have stand-ins, props. Either that or you have the faggots that try so hard to please their heterosexual counterparts to “fit in.” They thrive on your approval. I on the other hand do not give a shit. I learned at a very young age that my peers approval was temporary and situational.
My boss spoke with me and him. He said to keep “politics” and religion out of the office. You got it, boss! You can count on me.
The whole point of this project was to work through my trauma and rekindle the memories in my head, before they were lost in the fires of emotional scarring. Much like the infernos of California, the flames relit and blazed through thousands of acres in my head. All that is left are scorched thoughts and smoke.
Sorry to sound so bleak. It’s just part of my self analysis. Through all of this I have watched with interest to see how I respond and what effect it will have on me. What I have seen thus far is that it is undeniably morphing the way I do anything. While I am someone who will lean into change, this one is decimating my former self. And while I like to envision myself as a phoenix, rising from the ashes, I would prefer not to lose every aspect of myself.
This is, of course, not the first time. I have gone through many transitions in my short little life. Most of which were unexpected, like most things.
Sometimes, though, they were due to my own selfish actions.
Long before I realized I was not built for monogamy, I was a cheater. I found myself in precarious situations often and ended up acting on impulses that didn’t represent how I felt. Yet I did it anyway. As a result I hurt my husband countless times. But he would always stay with me.
There was one point in our lives where we had just grown apart emotionally. Why, I don’t know. I think he was working out of town or he was just sick of my bullshit. (I sure was.) So, we decided to “break up” for a little while so I could work on myself. Is that what happened? Not at all. We continued to share bills, a bed, and a life together. At the time I didn’t know that what we had created was an “open relationship” without calling it that. We were so hung up on “labels” and what they reflected onto us that we would rather be “broken up” than be stereotypical gay men.
As we have seen from past posts, I don’t do life “alone.” I immediately found myself with someone new. (And as did he, for the record.) This song is connected to one of the strangest and most beautiful times of my life.
It’s mind-bending that this happened 14 years ago. It feels as if it was yesterday. I still remember my husband and I going to see “Capote” with Philip Seymour Hoffman and the box office clerk who gave us our tickets was so gorgeous. It’s strange how taken I was, and when I found him on Myspace (yes, myspace) it didn’t even occur to me that these two men were the same person.
It was Aaron.
Aaron was my shadow self. We held so many shared experiences: raised deeply religious, only children, and born to women in their 40’s, and both recently out of long term relationships. However while I had parted from the church some time ago, he was doubling down and fully intended on becoming an Episcopal priest even being a homosexual.
At the time he worked for United Artists and one of our first dates was to see the movie Mamma Mia. Afterwards, I fell in love with the song “honey, honey.”. Every time I heard it, it made me think of him. So, I dubbed him “honey, honey.”
I have this weird quirk where I designate a nickname to someone. If you are lucky enough to receive one that means I really like you. (My husband is “punkin” and Josh is “sunshine.”)
For the longest time I hung onto this relationship, even though I was the one that let it go. Regardless of this fact I would continue to check in on and virtually stalk him. What I have realized now is that what I did was cruel. I should have left him alone. I think it made the act of getting over me more difficult, because just when he may have moved on I would pop in with a text or a vague Xanga entry.
Aaron is the only person I have ever felt like I knew in a previous life. Being in his presence felt so familiar. Inexplicably comfortable. It was like we had done this all once before.
I find this entry difficult to write, because for a very brief moment I debated leaving Charlie and going with Aaron. And in that, I feel so much guilt and shame. What if I had and I wasn’t here to care for him? Who would have done it? What would have happened?
I also feel terrible because he told me he was falling in love with me and I could not say it back. In that moment I didn’t feel the same. Even now, when I ruminate over this exchange and how I felt over the entire relationship I felt something of love, but not a romantic one. But at the same time, I did. Maybe I just never allowed myself to really feel it and risk losing Charlie.
Despite that deeply rooted guilt, I do look back on the relationship with deep fondness and joy. Aaron became the ultimate muse. I wrote our brief relationship into my first finished novel length work of fiction. In it I got to tell the cute wonderful moments that burned like hot coals, only to have me ruin them by ending it. Even in the narrative I got to make myself the villain.
One day I hope to polish this bitch up and share it with the world. Share Aaron/Oren with the world.
I just want to preface this next post with a warning. This deals with some sensitive content around “sexual abuse” trauma, and if you are at all uncomfortable with such topics I do ask you to stop reading. I don’t want to trigger anything for anyone. This is, above all, a safe space. So, if you wish to continue I very much appreciate your continued patronage of my ridiculous little life.
This song was from one of those albums that completely defined an entire “era.” This came out right at the time that my husband and I had finally “split.” After 4 years of cheating on him and getting caught, we had decided to break-up. The only caveat being, we would still live together and sleep in the same bed. What we were doing at the time was staging what our future relationship would turn into. For all intents and purposes we were “broken up.” In reality it was an open relationship, but my husband and I were so opposed to that kind of “gay culture” (at the time) that we had to call it something else.
Out of this entire CD, there were 5 songs that just hit specific points in my husband’s and my relationship and some of my past experiences. This song, “Love for a Child” made my husband think of me. It told the tale of how, I’m assuming, a young Jason Mraz grew up just a little too early under the distracted attention of his disengaged parents. The line that specifically spoke to my husband was:
“…and making love at far too young an age And they never checked to see my grades What a fool I’d be to start complaining now”
It’s true, I was exposed to sex much, much too young. As a result I became overly sexualized and started to believe that I was only good for what I could offer sexually. I’m certain it is what set the foundation for my sex addiction.
The first time I was sexually abused was by a neighbor kid when I was 3. I have snapshots of what happened with him, but the one thing I remember with clarity, was my mother’s rage from finding me buck naked in the backyard. She had only checked on me because the neighborhood boy left in a hurry and I hadn’t been trailing behind.
“Why are you naked?” She had shrieked.
I remember following her back into the house, staring at her back. Her dress was beige with different colored strips and she was wearing flip flops.
All I can recall was after that event I was no longer allowed to play with that boy. Why, I didn’t know. Being the good kid I was, I followed the order.
It’s weird because that entire neighborhood was rife with kids down to do sexual stuff. When I got older there was a boy who would only ever want to play with me if he wanted “something.” He had a code name for it and I knew, once I heard that phrase, that it was gonna happen. He called it “working bears.” Which… As a gay adult man is funny to me. Bears… come on.
Once this kid got what he wanted he would turn on me. There was one time where this asshole got all of the neighborhood kids to gather on the lawn of the house across the street, and they called me a faggot. That is not an exaggeration.
My saving grace was getting out of that hell hole. My mom’s department was moving from Southern California to the Central Valley, and my mom jumped at the opportunity. I couldn’t wait to get out of there. I knew, even at nine years old, that a fresh start has limitless possibilities.
While I wasn’t sexually assaulted by neighborhood kids in our new town, I was teased and bullied. So, progress, right?
I was mainly teased for being fat. I was also weird. I had adopted the mentality really early on that I rather be strange than normal. I would say “thank you” every time someone said, “You’re weird.” The need to conform to what everyone else was doing was something I never believed. That is, unless, it was awesome. (Aka power rangers bitches!) Otherwise I marched to the beat of my own drummer, and usually kids don’t like that.
The internet made making friends way easier. I had a ton of online pals who had similar interests and were also a little kooky. It was in the digital space where I found my community.
What I also found was internet pornography.
The problem with having technologically illiterate parents is that the kid ends up setting all the shit up, and therefore learns how to manipulate the programs to do what they want. Even though my parents had me on the setting for “child safe” content, I knew exactly how to remove any restrictions. And when my hormones were raging during puberty, I would change my browsing capabilities to include adult sites and I would spend HOURS perusing every photograph.
This was all gay pornography, by the way. Never once did I search for images that featured women. Why would I want to pretend when my windows of opportunity were so short? Let’s get right to the good stuff. The only problem is then I would have an identity crisis with post coital clarity. It’s super fucked up to have religious dogma mess up your orgasm. And I firmly believe it affected my ability to even relax in the moment now. I feel this immediate urge to not be where I am. To cleanse myself of my “sins.”
Good lord I am a mess.
Finally after a few years of this ritual I needed to know if I really was “gay.” The only way to do that was to take what I had seen in pictures and put it into practice. At 13 years old I started reaching out to gay men on-line to meet up for sex.
There were only two who were willing.
The first one knew that I was a chubby pre-teen and he still agreed to meet with me. I had arranged to meet him at a Wal-greens around the corner from my house. There he would pick me up and take me back to his place. I logged off, jerked off, and found the terror in my ridiculous plan.
I logged back on and told him that my dad was a cop and I was going to turn him in. He freaked the fuck out on me. I panicked, again, and then told him that wasn’t true. He responded with this filthy e-mail saying how he was going to find me and kill me. I deleted it, but I should have turned that shit into AOL and regret not having done that to this day.
This episode left me frightened from another attempt for a about a year. Then the draw to do something about my desires pushed me to try again.
The second person I spoke to was “Scott.” He was an over the road trucker, in his 40’s, who agreed to meet with me. I lied about my age, but even when I was “honest” about being “16” he still agreed to meet with me. (God, my rage is building.)
Like an idiot I agreed to have him pick me up at midnight at the end of my street. I thought that this was safer than him picking me up at my actual house. (I didn’t want him to know where I lived!)
Like a hooker waiting for her next trick, I waited out on the corner.
Sidenote: no shame to sex workers. I just say that because of the irony of the scene.
Scott pulled up in his beat-up, aquamarine Mazda sedan. I got in and he drove me to his house just a mile down the street from my own. He snuck me in, and as we were on our way to his room someone started to come out into the hall. He yelled at them to get back in their room, to which they immediately did. He ushered me back into his room and we did stuff on his water bed.
Shortly after I met him for the first time, he dropped me off and I walked back home saying, with “absolute certainty,” that I was definitely not gay. I did not enjoy that. He smelled, he was hairy, he was old. I was not into it. With hindsight I know now it’s because I didn’t enjoy it with him. Even though, plot twist, hairy and older are very much my type. Do with that what you will.
While I wasn’t coerced into anything (I sought him out and initiated the conversation) he should not have agreed. Once he learned my age he should have shut that shit down, explained to me that that isn’t appropriate or even legal. He should have known that I was not emotionally or mentally prepared to deal with that choice. But, he did not.
The thing I find so insane is: why would he risk everything to do it? He didn’t know that I wouldn’t have told my parents. I could have turned him in, told them where he lived, or helped with a sting operation through instant message. All of these I should have done, but that would have meant telling the truth to my parents. Instead I kept it to myself to deal.
I look back on this with regret. I took from myself something that should have, at the very least, meant something special. Instead, I treated my first sexual encounter as a case study. One where the results were skewed and that, inevitably, didn’t hold any weight in my future choices.
I wish I could say that I never went back, but I met up with this dude three more times. Each time more repulsive than the last. My “favorite” had to be my first time performing penetrative sex on him in the back of his semi, parked in a Rite-Aid parking lot.
There is this video going around TikTok that states: we are who we would have felt safe with as a kid. The truth in that statement is unreal. These encounters turned me into a grizzly bear when it comes to kids and sex. If I hear someone has been harmed I get very, very angry. I want to do everything in my power to protect them from the mind fuck that comes with it. I want to keep them from ever having to deal with that kind of trauma. The only way that will ever happen is that we must sit down with our youth and have very honest and open conversations. Without them it makes sex this secret, sinister thing. One in which we need to feel shame in. And while that is not always true, there are shameful acts (as depicted above), it should come with no emotional baggage.
The Journal of a Jaded Josh 