My name is Nathan and I’m a thirty-seven year old man. I’m in love with a beautiful woman, I’m a proud father, and I’ve recently published a book. I’m happy… but it’s taken a long time and a lot of work to get here. I was a victim of sexual abuse at the hands of my older sister during my early childhood. I want to shed some light on how this atrocity continued to have a negative effect on my life for years to come, and how I finally overcame it. I want to share a little bit of my story with you.
In 1981, I was a six-year-old little boy with blonde hair and blue eyes. I carried a Spiderman lunchbox to school, loved macaroni and cheese, Hulk Hogan, and most of all… my mom. I spent lazy Saturday mornings in bed watching cartoons, played hide-and-seek with my friends, and had cookies and milk in front of the television at night. In a lot of ways, I was just like the other kids my age. I loved my birthday and looked forward to Christmas. I enjoyed video games and going to the park. I collected toy cars, admired super heroes, slept with a teddy bear, and told my mom I loved her every single night.
I was also quite different from the other kids my age.
I was a six-year-old little boy with a dark and devastating secret. I already had clinical insomnia and cried my way through sleepless nights. I already had a stress-related ulcer and had to take medicine for it before school every morning along with my Flintstone Vitamins. My mom didn’t know what was wrong with me, and my dad didn’t care. They didn’t know that I had lost my innocence, and was being sexually abused by my older sister on a regular basis.
It went on for a year, and the rotten secret devoured my youth and completely altered my existence. My sister moved out of our house shortly after our secret was discovered, and we would remain estranged for years to come.
In 1988, I was an awkward thirteen-year-old boy doing my best to fit in with kids who hadn’t had intercourse with family members. I had a girlfriend, an older woman, of fourteen, who gave me my first handjob in a playground in Maine. I hated it and my reaction insulted her, making me feel abnormal and cruel. I felt sick instead of excited and the inside of my mind was being pelted with unnatural images of my sister, who I hadn’t seen in years. My girlfriend was disgusted with me, and looked at me as if I was a bug she’d enjoy stepping on. She wanted things I couldn’t give her; to touch me, blow me, maybe even have sex with me, but I didn’t want any part of it.
As the days went by, every time I would push her hands away, she would take it personally and make sure I knew there was something seriously wrong with me. “Maybe you’re gay,” she’d tell me with that look again. Obviously, this relationship was doomed and I was dumped in less than two weeks. I felt bad that my issues had hurt her feelings, but how could I ever explain myself, at thirteen years old? How could I explain to her that when she touched me, it reminded me of how my sister used to touch me? I would never find the words in time to prevent her from labeling me a freak, and running off to tell all her friends.
It hurt when she broke up with me, and I remember thinking I was doomed to suffer a lifetime of similar rejection. In the middle of the night, I got a steak knife from the kitchen and brought it back to my room. I cut my forearm, long and deep… hypnotized by the droplets of blood cascading down my wrist. For the moment, I stopped wondering what was wrong with me and the fragmented memories of my sister and I, naked in the basement, began to dissipate. Other kids my age were practicing their instruments and wondering if they’d make the team. I was honing a dangerous new coping skill, which I would carry with me for the rest of my life.
I was wondering how deep I could cut… before it was too deep.
In 1993, I was a seventeen-year-old young man, who’d just lost both his parents. My mother died after a five year struggle with breast cancer and my father died from bronchial pneumonia three months after that. They were both in their forties, and had been divorced for years. My sister had moved back up to New England, from Florida, and wanted us to be there for each other in this time of loss. I was orphaned and homeless, alone, and at the end of my rope.
My sister wanted me to move in with her, but I just couldn’t do it. I wanted to because I felt so alone and needed a family, but it was impossible and I started to feel like being around her was killing me. My big sister was nothing more than an emotional trigger, and I was a scared six-year-old boy again in her presence. I tried to cling to the last surviving member of my family, but ultimately, I failed and remained on the streets for some time.
While my forgotten friends were graduating from high school and starting their lives, I was peering out the windshield of my dead father’s car at the dark, lonely streets in the middle of the night. I was chain smoking and putting the cigarettes out on my skin, and I was thinking… quite seriously, about taking my own life.
In 2001, I was a grown-up, married man. Together, my wife and I endured a ten-year dysfunctional relationship built on a foundation of co-dependency. I was hard working, but numb and depressed. I was often successful in my various endeavors, but I remained detached and socially crippled. I alternated between periods of high functionality and times of complete insanity. Sometimes I sought therapy, and treatments, and found a wide menu of anti-psychotics and anti-depressants. I was in the habit of sticking sewing needles into my flesh, cutting myself with razors, and burning myself frequently.
With these times, the memories would come –fragmented and sharp flashbacks of my sister and I, entwined and sweating, behind the bar in the basement –memories with teeth that bite down and show my struggling little body and hers, bigger and stronger, writhing against it. I grab one of my box cutters from work, and cut my stomach a dozen times… until I’m lost in the blood and my sister can’t find me anymore. This might happen on a rare occasion when my wife tries to initiate sex later in the evening. I won’t be able to perform because I’m broken. My wife will take it personally, no matter what I say, and she’ll let me know that I’m killing her. I’ll cut myself again, for punishment this time.
My peers were buying houses and having kids. I was hallucinating, talking to my mother’s ghost instead of my wife, and thinking about taking my own life.
In 2005, I was divorced and on my own for the first time since I lived in my father’s car. I found myself in love for the first time… real love. Unfortunately, it came with the cost of being involved in a severely damaging love triangle. My new girlfriend was separated, but still married, and her husband was my boss. We were off and on for months, and each time we were off, I sunk further down the rabbit hole.
I started starving myself and I was cutting more than ever. I had to get a prescription from my doctor to get an erection. I developed severe social anxiety and started having panic attacks. Eventually I lost my job and developed full-blown Agoraphobia. I barricaded myself inside my apartment and waited to die. I thought about my parents… and talked to them. I thought about my sister, and she was with me again, invading my mind with the alien smells and slurping noises of our sordid past. I could hear her in my jagged memories, promising me our father would kill me if he found out about our secret and what a little pervert I was.
I was dying, alone, in my apartment, but it wasn’t meant to be. My newfound love, as confused as she might have been at the time, would not give up on me. Eventually I was brought to the emergency room and then transported to a psychiatric hospital, where I was committed.
Upon my release, I moved in with my girlfriend, the love triangle was no more, and we would go on to be happy and have a child together.
In 2011, I lost my mind again. Four times since the death of my parents, the mental illness that was born in my sister’s bedroom and nurtured through loss and death, has interrupted my life and threatened to end it. I was having audio and visual hallucinations at work. My panic attacks were back worse than ever. I developed severe Agoraphobia again, and all the guilt that comes with it. I stopped sleeping and eating –cutting myself sometimes twenty or thirty times at once. I would boil a pot of water and pour it on myself, and I even broke my own toes with a steel barbell plate.
I was living in a fugue state and losing my ability to function again. I made a mistake and tried to keep all this from my girlfriend. I didn’t want her affected by my madness, but I made everything so much worse in the long run. I wasn’t thinking clearly. Before I left my job, to be institutionalized for the second time in my life, I had started confiding in a woman at work and even kissed her. I had completely lost control and didn’t even recognize myself anymore.
I lost nearly seventy pounds in six months and cut myself hundreds of times! I was blacking out and cutting! I was having visions of chopping one of my fingers off with a meat clever. I had never been so afraid of myself, and never been so sure I was going to die. That used to be fine, but things are different now. I have my own family, and in spite of my serious psychological issues, they love me and want me in their lives. So I went back to the hospital and I explored every available option for treatment and medication.
In the end, writing proved to be the best form of therapy for me. I’d been writing my whole life, but I taught myself how to do it a lot more honestly… and thoroughly. I finally saw my parents for who they really were and was able to say goodbye through the words I wrote. I explored every relationship and event in my life, inside and out. I learned everything I could, held fast to my fond memories, and finally discarded the ones that were holding me back.
I have forgiven my sister for her crimes against me, and the more I write about it the better I feel. For so long, I’ve tried my best to keep my memories repressed and buried, only to have them come boiling up to the surface with a vengeance. That hasn’t worked, and now that I have a new lease on life, I’m going to do things different. I’m not going to hide my past or be ashamed of it, instead I’m going to let it empower me and drive me to do good things.
Now, I want to tell my story and raise awareness to the fact that some men like me, suffer for a lifetime from the sexual abuse they experienced as little boys. I want to turn all this pain into purpose, and maybe… just maybe, help someone else feel less alone. If I can do that, it will all be worth it.
About The Real Supermum
Cant imagine what you must have gone through, sending big hugs to you x x
Reading your story defintely brought a tear to my eyes, how horrible and life destroying it was for u, I suffered similar to what u have and it takes time to rebuild urself and trust someone I take my hat off to u because u have ended up becoming a strong male and been able to talk about ur life and how its affected u as a whole I think ur very brave
Oh no that’s so sad
I’m happy you’ve found the best type of therapy for you x
What an emotional story to read. I admire your strength to share something that has troubled you for so long. Cant imagine what it must have been like to go through what you did, but so glad you have found happiness and long may it continue, if anyone deserves it – its you xx
Such a sad story, your sooo brave <3 glad you have found happiness x x
Whay a very emotional piece, and an emotional roller coaster you have lived and survived through. You are such a strong man, and your family and friends are treasures as you are to them. Thank you for sharing your story with us all, and I’m so happy that you’ve found peace and happiness x
i cant imagine what you must have gone through, must have been so hard
big hugs to you, im really glad you have found happiness now with your family, well done for sharing with us too all the best for the future xx
Read my first blog on @TheRealSupermum
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A very emotional blog post. Thank you for sharing with us. What a devestating thing to go through. Your so strong… im so happy you have found a way to comfort and get you through such a difficult time. I wish you all the best for a happy and fulfilled future xxx
It’s not very often you hear of a boy being sexually abused by a girl. If your incredible brave story, and being brave enough by speaking out. it might have just helped one person that’s going through the same thing. X
such a sad story i cant imagine what you must of gone through. big hugs im so pleased you have now found happiness
best wishes for the future 
Wow. Well done for coming out of the other end.
Im glad you didn’t let the past rule your future.
Thanks for sharing x
You absolutely brave brave man and well done for speaking out. it’s hard enough for a woman to do but for a man to admit something like this, society makes it much harder and it’s men like you that make people realise it’s okay to speak out whoever you are
Your an inspiration hun to other men, it takes a lot to make me cry but your honesty has got to me. I’m so glad you found a way to cope an found the happiness you so very much deserve. Hugs hun xx
Such an inspiring & wonderfully brave man! Thank you for taking your time to post this on Emma’s blog. The awareness isn’t oit there enough about male abuse. We need to try & get it more out in the open & realise that males do go through this abuse too.
Im so happy to hear you’re channelling into the positive energies, hope you go on to live a happy & healthy life, leaving all the negative memories behind! Xxx
Thanks you for sharing your story I don’t think there is enough awarness of men being sexually abused/raped ect and for that reason I think men tend to keep in deep inside for fear of what people will say ect I know a couple of men that have never really spoken out about in case it makes them look weak ect this story is a true inspiration to men and how it can rule your life but if you fight back you can come out the stronger person well done for sharing this story and also so glad that you came out the end of it and didn’t let it end your life you was the victim in all this and how it tore you up inside is so sad I was abused when younger and didn’t speak out for years but then I realised the longer I keep quiet I’m still a victim if that makes sense and didn’t want him to win hope your sister got what she deserves hugs !!! Xxxx
thank you for sharing your heart breaking story which only goes to highlight this awful thing is not exclusive to one gender alone good luck with the rest of your life xx
wow
you are a very brave man x
such a brave man thankyou for sharing my partner has also read it x
wow .. you are such a strong man for going through that AND telling us all your story. There is not enough awareness out there that men to get sexually abused, either because they don’t want to be laughed at or they’re afraid society will label them freaks like you said above. Very brave man x
think ur such an amazing brave man to speak out about this most men wont and i just hope reading ur story it encourages more men to speak up xx
Wow
very brave for sharing your story x
very brave man, thankyou for sharing x
I need to thank everyone who wrote in, sincerely, and from the bottom of my heart. It is not easy to share these things (as so many of you know), and there’s always the fear of harsh judgement and ridicule when you expose yourself and feel vulnerable. Everyone’s comments have made me feel like I’m doing the right thing by sharing my story. You fuel my courage, support my mission, and inspire me with your kindness. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
What a heartbreaking story. I actually just read the book review for surviving the fourth cycle and have ordered the book online. Nathan – you are an inspiration. Thank you for sharing such sensitive and emotional parts of your life. So brave and helpful yo many.
Truely inspirational. I am sure you are helping lots of people. You seem to have a lot of insight into your mental illness and hopefully this will help you stay well and out of hospital.x.
Thank you for sharing this. Made me cry. I will order surviving the fourth cycle, as this must be quite a story indeed.
Your an inspiration! and a very strong man!x
I read the chapter about this in you book and had to stop until I coulf finish crying. So great that you can share these things.
Nathan is my hero
My name is Randy Persaud and I need help. I am sexually abused by my cousin every week. The pain is unbearable. Someone please help me I can’t tell anyone because he will kill me. Help Help!!!!!! The pain is too much.
Drop me an email x
If u need to talk email me twstdpsycho@me.com I’ve been there.
Thanks hun x
I am so sorry for what happened to you, hope your life stays on the right track wish you every happiness. Randy seek help nobody deserves this asap x
Nathan, Hi I just read your post and I wanted to say that I think your amazing. I identify with a lot you have written- my brother , but like you have with your sister I forgave him. Doing that freed a lot of emotions for me and I hope it has for you too.
Your journey has been dark and fuelled by pain in many forms but Im so happy to see you found some light to hold on to. It gives me hope that demons can be fought and beaten if it takes a long time to get there.
Just like you I spent time in hospital, four years and my 21st birthday infact but I too chose to write and its something I continue to do.
When I wrote my story on here, I thought I would be blamed but I had nothing but support and what shocked me was people thanking me for helping them to find their courage. Bad things happen to good people and I want you to know I connected with nearly every word you wrote.
Thankyou for being so honest and helping me put some of my words into place.
I wish you love, luck and life, a happy life as you so deserve it. X
Randy…. I know his threats seem real but he would not kill you. Please tell the police or someone close… you need for him to stop doing this to you. You need to be stronger than ever and tell someone. X