Hello everybody. I wanted to take a second to introduce myself. My name is Adrian. I'm a 23 year old male, and trying to cope with repressed memories, which have recently surfaced. The details are below. I want to warn you, this is a very sad story, but, it does have an ending that is starting to get happy.

Up until long ago, I lived what I considered to be a normal life. I had the normal 20-something problems : Money, car, work, school. But, one day that changed drastically.

I was surfing the web, and decided to visit a friend's site. From there, I saw a link to her best friend, so, I visited the site, and read her story (which can be found on the Survivor's Sanctuary Page. I suggest you read through some of the other stories). After reading her very moving story of abuse and tragedy, I sat there and absorbed it. Then, things began to happen. Memories started surface. Memories that were so vivid and painful, that I sat there, smoked almost a full pack of cigarrettes in under half an hour, and started crying.

From what I have been able to piece together, partly from my psychologist's help and partly from the help and support of two very good friends, most of my childhood lies in repressed memories. What lies below might seem broken and incongrous, but, it's coming together piece by piece.

My father worked on the road a lot when I was younger, trying to support me, my mom, and my baby brother and sister. He started out as a delivery salesman for a major sausage distributor, and, then, quit that job and started working for the Rail Road, as a crewman. So, basically, for the first 8-10 years of my life, I only saw him on weekends, every other week.

Members of my mom's family came to stay with us occasionally to help her out with raising us, as she was working the graveyard shift at various nursing homes. One of the family members was my Uncle Scott. Uncle Scott was always very cool. He was my mom's youngest brother, and we always had lots of fun playing out in the yard.

One day, I remember (bits and pieces come and go), lying down for a nap in the middle of the afternoon, and he came in to lay besides me. He always came in to read stories to us. Only, this time, it was different. This time, he told me he was going to show me how a man loves a woman. That was the only time I can remember him molesting me. But, it was not the only case of me being sexually molested. And, I am getting ahead of myself.

I never told anyone. I was about 6-7 years old, and generally scared. First off, it was a very close family member, and he had said that if I told, he would go away for a long, long time. Which, I didn't want, because he was my favorite uncle, at that time.

Basically, time flashes forward about here, with many bits and pieces of memories. Most of them involving my dad constantly yelling at me, calling me fat, lazy, slobby, stupid and worthless. There is one incident that does remain very vivid about this. One day, the family was visiting a friend and her family in town. I had helped my dad unload the trunk of the car, and, went to close it. Only, my baby brother had shoved his hands under the trunk lid at the last second, and they got smashed inside. While I was frantically trying to pull the keys out of my pocket and open the trunk, Dad came around, after hearing the commotion, and, when he saw what had happened, he automatically kicked me in the ass, screaming, and telling me how stupid I really was.

Now, fast forward again a few years, to middle school. My cousin had come to live with us, because of some family problems. And, shortly afterwards, she started to sexually molest me too. This lasted for well over a year. It started out with her fondling me, then, it progressed to oral sex, then, to full sex. And, my parents never suspected anything.

I don't know why I never told anyone about this. Maybe because I was scared. Maybe because I didn't think they would believe me.

And, now onto high-school. My sophmore year, my best friend, Yolanda, and I always met in the mornings, on the baseball field to talk about homework and life before class started. So, one day, I went to our normal space, and as I got closer, I saw her standing there, alone. And, as I got closer, I noticed she had a gun to her head. I dropped my books, and ran towards her, screaming and crying, praying she would stop. But, she didn't. As I reached her, she had just fallen to the ground, as the shot was heard around the campus. But, I knelt there, crying, wondering why. The ambulance came and took her to a major medical facility, dedicated to trauma cases. She spent a day there before she was officially pronounced dead. I never got a chance to visit her family in the hospital, because her family never really did like me.

The funeral was beautiful, even though it was closed-casket. This brought my biggest fear to the forefront. The fear that I was unable to help my best friend in a time when she needed me most.

No more than a week after her suicide, her boyfriend, a dear friend of mine also, committed suicide himself. His funeral was closed-casket also. I had lost two friends of mine in the same month, both to suicide.

I wish I knew exactly how I was able to surpress the memories so totally, so completely, so effectively for so long. But, somehow I had been able to. And, when I asked one of my dearest friends, who had been through very similar situations, why this was happening, now all of a sudden, she suggested that my mind finally decided it was time for me to deal with all of this shit. So, I am. I am currently seeing a pychologist, who has been very helpful. And, the two best friends of mine have been very helpful also.

I just wanted to share this because I want people to know that I understand the problems many people are going through, and, it is difficult, but, with patience and support, you can get through it yourself.

With love,
Adrian...

Contact Adrian at sraosa11@aol.com

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