an introduction

For men with words they are afraid to say.

For women who have been hurt by men who have words they are afraid to say.

For children who have not yet learned to speak with words and instead act out of fear:

I have a friend named Deborah, who is a healer. She heals mostly with crystals, a talent she turned into a skill shortly after recovering from a near-fatal car accident. But Deborah also has a third sight. She is able to enter a trancelike state, and once she puts her hands on you, she can sense what part of your body is the place that stores the hidden narratives you don’t want others to see. In some people, this hidden place is in the shoulders, in others the neck, and in still others the back. For me, my hidden narratives were kept in my chest. Funny thing, though. Deborah was able to find where my tension was located, but she was unable to find what the source of the tension was. After what seemed about 30 minutes of trying, Deborah emerged from her trance with a look of fatigue, and what she told me through that look is something I don’t believe I’ll never forget.

“Brother,” she began, “I’ve never experienced anything like what I’ve just been through just now. I was trying to see what lies beneath your surface, but every time I tried to look, it was like I was underwater, and there was a tempestuous sea inside of you. I swam as much as I could to get through all of the bubbles and rough water, but I couldn’t find anything there. I don’t know what it is that you’ve been through, but I can’t imagine the weight you are carrying. Just know that I am here for you whenever you need me.”

And with that, Deborah reached out to hold me, as the dear sister she is, and she began to cry for me. She had to. I had lost the ability to cry for myself.

I am a forty year old man-child. I say this because I look like a man. I walk like a man. I speak like a man. I dance the ungraceful dance of masculinity. I hold a job like a man. I have the wisdom of a man beyond his years (so they say). And yet at the same time I am trapped in my childhood. Not in the literal sense of course. What I mean when I say that I am trapped in my childhood is that I am trapped in the trauma of my childhood in ways that for a long time I could never understand. “What trauma,” you ask?

As a child, I was raped by both men and women. I lost my virginity at the age of 3. And yes, I still remember it. I was the child of a single parent mother who loved me and who never forgot to express how much she loved me and how special I was. And yet, I attended 11 schools in 12 grades. Eviction was not unusual for me. I remember watching my mother physically and verbally abused by her second husband when I was 13, and I remember watching my mother’s boyfriend have sex with other women behind my mother’s back from the time I was 4 until I was 6. I remember watching my mother fight with words, fight with her fists, and fight with her mind, and it still not being enough. I remember living in battered women’s shelters. I remember having to live with friends for weeks at a time. I remember living in apartments with so many roaches on the floor that when you turned on the light in the dark, it looked as though the floor moved. I remember being homeless. I remember living on the streets, trying to find corners that were unoccupied, and being keen enough to find corners that had never been occupied. I remember being so poor that for several consecutive days, my dinner consisted of popcorn and pancakes. I remember having to always get used to living in new neighborhoods. In the fourth grade, I remember watching other classmates have orgies. I remember having had sex so often by the time I was 10 years old that when I moved into the suburbs, I could not understand “why these stuck up bitches don’t want to fuck.” I remember the times I should have been thrown in jail, but was saved by God. I remember the times I should have died.

And I remember surviving.

I have hurt some people in the middle of trying to survive.

I have been afraid of living for trying to survive.

And somehow, I have dared to live in spite of the fear.

I am a forty-year old man-child.

I have post-traumatic stress disorder.

I have to help myself. I have to accept the help of others. I have to help others.

These are my stories.

Telling them helps me to heal.

- dgk