Growing up I knew at a very early age, at least sexually, that I was - "different". The site of the naked, male body fascinated me. I wanted to touch and be touched. Some of the feelings of loneliness, isolation and not feeling loved or needed in my childhood came from an alcoholic household - I joined the party at age twelve. I shut down my feelings around age six and began experiencing the onset of several mental health issues, and my own feelings of being insecure, "not good enough" and physically weak. As time went on I tried to entertain my gay sexual feelings but was "outed" in a very cruel way at the age of twelve. A few months after this I was raped by a total stranger and repressed the experience, terror, images and pain for over thirty years until I could no longer deny the flashbacks. This was the beginning of my life as a survivor - please pass the Kleenex - boo hoo (smiles).
The next six years of school were spent in a small town with people who had no idea how devastating their comments, the frequent gay bashing beatings, and the ongoing trauma would be to me in later years. This was the fifties and sixties, when you were suppose to tough it out, be a man, etc. It seemed to me the adults I turned to back then did not know how to listen or seemed not to care about the frightened, traumatized child in front of them. It was not their fault. We all operate within the realms of what we know at the moment. I turned myself inwards and found a trusted, reliable friend and lover in music. Music became the outward expression and release for all my pent-up emotions of rage, anger, loneliness, fear and panic. I practiced long hours with my friend the saxophone. Being gay and too young I had to settle for the mouthpiece (Yikes-smiles). I entered, or rather RAN to college in another state and wrapped myself in anonymity. I sought a career in Music Education and went through college and life having stuffed my own personality, gay sexuality, and self-esteem. I learned to distrust anyone in authority, doctors, counselors, and others. I thrived on constant chaos in my personal and professional life. I replaced warmth and human compassion with bitterness and iceberg/volcanic anger – a lot more under the surface that was boiling hot, destructive, and unpredictable.
One day I faced a turning point in my life as I became ill and had to abandon my music career just short of attaining my bachelor’s degree. I wandered in life for almost two years tending bar and running restaurants. Outwardly I appeared friendly to all, felt needed and liked because people were finally coming to see me. The various jobs and positions I held filled the emptiness. Yet the loneliness built, the need for release increased and the booze and drugs flowed all too easily. I became my own best customer as a drinker. A "natural wit" as one employer stated I still "played the room" being there for everyone else. I think I was just wit-less as I look back at it now. Mixed in with all of this were the effects of my mental health illnesses that included Manic-Depression and Panic/Anxiety attacks. If the booze and drugs did not distort my perception of the world then my illnesses did. I awoke, somehow and decided a change was needed so I attended college again, earned my Accounting degree and proceeded to try and slip into mainstream society. A gay alcoholic nut case "quietly" slipping into society - hmmm? My thoughts said to change my career and not my lifestyle or my thinking. "But your honor", trying not to slur my speech too badly, "I already have enough speeding tickets, I can't fit another one on my license!" (Oops).
Accounting and I were a match made in both heaven and hell. My intellect allowed me to climb the corporate ladder rather quickly. I was soon earning a good salary, lots of responsibilities, and a 60-80 hour 7 day workweek due to my relentless need to be successful. I could release my anger on the employees and plants that I closed under the guise of being a "troubleshooter" and "company man". Outwardly pleasant and secretly a passive-aggressive. I felt driven to show all those demons in my head that I was good for something, that I was not a "throw away". Yet the levels of stress, drugs and alcohol soon took their toll. In 1991 I ended up in a psychiatric hospital with a suicide attempt. I was mentally struggling to hold onto reality and slipped into a semiconscious state. Teams of nurses, doctors, and counselors worked hard to keep me going. Finally, after three days of uncertainty I "awoke" in the lounge of a locked mental health ward not knowing my name, terrified because I could not remember how I had gotten there or what went wrong. I had learned to close off my feelings and "think" my way through life. Now, even that had failed me. My bathrobe barely fit the emaciated 98 pound body I had worked so hard to create in my struggle to be finally worthy of calling myself a human being. I did not learn the lessons I needed early in life to prepare me to live. Rather, I learned how to survive by sacrificing myself, two marriages ending in divorce, three children who believe I have abandoned them and others that I have scared physically and emotionally for life. I had become one of "them", the bullies and tyrants I hated and feared as a child. Yet, there is always hope. I found I could change and find happiness even after I had reached my bottom - I wanted it badly enough!
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