My story/New here

[RoJo]

- Trigger warning, male anatomy -


I am a married (29 years) 56 year old man.

For a long time, since I was kid, I had a love for photography. By high school I had decided I was going to become a professional. Two weeks after graduating high school I purchased my first good camera. While playing in a softball game that summer I wrecked my knee while sliding into a base. Even though I was hobbled I went out with the team for beers to mainly kill the pain. When I got home (this being a Sunday afternoon) I realized my parents were out and so rolled a joint and smoked it in my back yard. Feeling kind of goofy with the pot and beers I decided to take, for the first time, a nude self portrait. It was basically me in our living room chair. This sort of excitement got me erect and with a "what the *" attitude I took my self portrait with the last 2 frames of slide film on the roll, rewound the film and put it in my desk drawer with a mental note to remember what was on there (me). I never did anything with the erection as I was not feeling up to it (though I masturbated like every other red blooded male).

5 weeks later I came across the roll of slide film in my desk drawer and had not a clue what might be on it or why it was floating around my desk drawer. I worked in a supermarket and so dropped it off in our film processing box to be sent out. The following weekend I had a date with a girl who I was basically in love with from the moment we first met and the feeling was mutual. I was 14 and she, 16. To cut to the chase we had our first date. That Monday I remembered that I should have picked up the roll of slides on Friday but had forgotten, so I stopped at our "Courtesy" booth to get the film. When the gal handed it to me I noticed immediately that the photo envelope had been opened a few times, though this wasn't unexpected as everyone knew I was into photography. I went to my dept and before I started work I decided to give the slides a quick look. My heart stopped when I realized the 2 images of me sitting with an erection were on this particular roll. I made a quick and rash decision to never contact my date again. I had to live with the fact that she must have thought me the worlds biggest a-hole. In fact it was 30 years later that I contacted her and apologized and I was vague with my explanations.

From then on going to work became an emotional ordeal, every single shift. No one said anything about to my face, but I knew a juicy story like this would get around. The store hired a part time meatcutter, a short guy in his mid to late forties. By the time December rolled around my life was a living *. He would make snide remarks and holler for no reason 'Beta, beta, masturbator" and similar comments. Though I worked in my hometown, none of my friends as far as I knew, knew about the pictures. That changed on the night of my 19 birthday, when in a pancake house, late at night, one of my "friends" leaned across the table and said "We know about the picture". The emotional abuse I was living through at work, was now going to follow me to my group of friends. Dealing with this emotional abuse, which was almost continuously now, drove me to my first breakdown that May. I was alone, totally alone. I cried and cried when I was alone. In the late 70;s the economy really sucked. I needed the money from the union job I had (and there weren't many other jobs to be had either) so had decided that I would keep my job and forsake my friends. I just couldn't handle emotionally dealing with both. I basically became a shut in for the next several months and avoided all contact with my "friends". Since I had no friends to hang out with anymore and feared making new ones, at night I would leave my house and sneak back into the dingy apartment house basement of hours with a 6 pack and weed. I would just spend the evening alone, getting drunk and smoking weed. That Christmas, after spending the evening alone in my basement getting drunk and smoking weed, I turned the tv on in my room and caught the very tail end of "It's a Wonderful Life", the part when everyone rallies around George giving him money. I had never seen the movie before. George opens the book and reads the inscription from Clarence, "To George, No man is a failure who has friends". This was the nadir of my existence. I didn't have a single friend. i was a failure. I think I cried that whole night. I was so alone. Just a kid. I went cold emotionally. I had no one to talk to.

That Spring I found my self walking toward a bridge which spanned a river and which had a view downriver to the city. I don't know what made me do it though everything was roilling up inside me by that point, I made it to the middle of the bridge and then I raised my fist while yelling out "I am not defeated! I am not defeated!" It was a cathartic moment. Everything was coming toward a head. Despite everything that had happened to me, I vowed then and there I was going to make it as a Photographer.

I had been going to college locally and built a darkroom in my basement. A year later met my best friend who was in my photo class and was the photo editor of the college newspaper. He really loved my work, as did everyone else and my instructors. He offered me a job as a staff photographer. Deep down I trusted no one. I had a fear my past would somehow crop up. I was hyper-vigilant about hanging around people. The scene at work eventually improved as new people were hired, but again I remained hyper-vigilant. I soon met my future wife and became a pro photographer. Never has a day gone by that I don't remember what I went through, not a single day.

During a project I was working on, all my efforts seemed to be for naught and with a few other things I had a relapse and a breakdown 9 years ago. It was then that I finally told my wife about my dark past (she was from out of town when we met). My wife was tremendously supportive and it was only then that I saw a psychotherapist for the first time. It was a relief to get all of this off my chest (though hard ). I have been okay until recently when I had another relapse. I did see another psychotherapist, but, the fit didn't feel right and I let it peter out.

Even before the internet I had suspected I had suffered from PTSD. The first psychtherapist agreed. But just today I found out about C-PTSD. That aside, would I be wrong to wish that meatcutter, who made a impressionable 18 year old boy breakdown emotionally, for him to die a horrible lingering death? I don't know how to end this life story. I just want to know what it is like to be happy, again.

[Three Roses]

Hello and welcome, Rojo! Glad you're here.

Many of us have wished harm to the people who have hurt us. It's understandable and normal to feel that way, I think.

People really don't have a clue sometimes how much damage they can do worth what they say - I'm so sorry you were treated that way, at such a tender age. Words can be so hurtful!

You are welcome here and I'm glad you joined.