It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. – Frederick Douglass

Here I am once again, wide awake in the middle of the night needing to get a fix. A fix to escape my thoughts, my anxieties, my past and my pain. No, my fix is not a drug, my fix is not alcohol and it is not food.

The only fix I have right now, is through this blog.

Recently, I was again reminded that I am not completely healed from my past. While the wonders of social media keep us bound together like one big happy family, it also ties me back to the person that broke me; my childhood abuser. There I sat, in my office, literally shaking as I saw his name on a liked picture of my friend’s child. Boom! I was shot right back to square one. Shot back to the nights I laid in bed wondering what the hell was happening to me; confused, as parts of me were being touched repeatedly. I was then robbed of the success that I had felt by accomplishing my yearly goals. I was robbed of the confidence I had proudly accumulated by pushing my limits all year long to deal with these kinds of situations. But, there I was, confidence reset. Defeated. I had Failed.

Later that week, at my staff Christmas party I was once again haunted by my past. Fresh off being reset, I began to cower back into my socially awkward shell. As the booze went down my friend’s throats, the cheer around me went up; except I was falling down. You see, I was the fall back plan to my abuser when he was drunk. I cannot equate alcohol to happy times, no matter how much I try. I thought I had this conquered, but because of my reset earlier in the week, I guess I didn’t. I just wasn’t prepared. On this night, I just couldn’t cope anymore. I had to leave early. Did I fail again?

I feel like a worn down, late model car. I just came back from the garage feeling great! My friend the mechanic has done everything he could to help get me back into tiptop shape. Then, days later, my check engine light comes back on… I am broken once again. I hate feeling this way, I desperately want to be new again, but I am starting to loose hope that this will ever happen.

This is a request to anyone reading this blog. If you have an urge to exploit a child in any way, please talk to me first. I will demonstrate -to you in words- just how painful it is to deal with my wounds. I will let my face show how confusion, guilt, anger and sadness can all be expressed at the same time. I will provide you with every example of what defeat feels like and what life is like “functioning” on little to no self confidence. I will be the model of how the fallout from childhood trauma extends well into mid-life; it never goes away. Hopefully, I will help save you from your sick desires and lead you to get the help you so desperately require. My only wish is that I had a time machine.

Perhaps my cure to this endless self torture is through perpetrator prevention? Perhaps it is through victim services? I don’t know. What I do know, is that I hope that I can permanently fix myself soon before I realize that I am permanently broken.