svenb's Journal

    Hello everyone on Daily Strength. My name is Sven,  I am a 38 year old gay man that has been through and still going through many obsticles in my life. I wanted a place to share what I've been through and a place to organize my thoughts since there is many struggles I go through in my life today.

    As I stated before I am gay and being gay in general has it's own problems, but I also choose not to accept sexually preference till later in my life and in doing so I have harmed many people, including myself with my denial. I am hoping to not only accept myself but to make ammends to those I harmed, one of which is my ex-wife.

    Another issue I have,  is that I am in recovery form addiction to alcohol and drugs, my clean date is November 21st, 2008. I do go to 12 step support groups and I have an sober support group, but it never hurts to add to that support group and Daily Strength is way of expanding that group that I have never thought of, so I thought I might as well give this a try, plus is a nice outlet when I'm between meetings and I can't get a hold of people that I usually call on. Plus sometimes I've found that I can open up to people that I really don't know better than my own support group. I guess I still have trust issues. 

    I also deal with the fact that I have a mental illness and what I've understood, it's not one that many men have, I have Borderline Personality Disorder and non-specific depression disorder. I usually don't discuss my mental illness to anyone I even have a problem discussing it with my own therapist, but since I'm laying my personality out to you people anyway, I might as well give you everything. Plus I've discovered in my life the more I risk being vulnerable the more help I recieve about learning about myself. Eventhough I don't know you people out there, I feel safe. I actaully don't know why, I guess I feel like I've held some of this stuff for so long it's just a relief to get it off my chest.

    Something else about me is that I am an adult child of an alcoholic and I had a lot of physical,  emotional, verbal and sexual abuse in my history. Too be honest I'm not to sure how much that affects me today, but I'm sure it had something to do with shaping of my personality good or bad. It is also something I don't mention much, but I do have have bad times that i sometimes use that fact to beat myself over the head with. I also noticed that the fact that I was a "latch-key kid" probally gave me the fear of being alone that I suffer with today. I actually would like to find other ACOA's to be friends with here, because, of everything, I feel like that this is something that I don't get help with today. I would just like to know that I'm not alone. 

     One more thing I like to mention is that I'm wiccan and that go to an Unitarian Universalist Church. I don't think thats a problem, I just thought it's an interesting part of my life and that it's not something people come across very often. I also think it's an important fact in my life that may help someone else. Plus I think it's jusat plain interesting to talk about.

     I very suprised I had so much to say about my life and I did't think I would blurt it out like this the first journal entry, but I guess once you open a little you'll be surprised you had a lot bottled up. I thank you for reading and I hope I make many friends here. May the God and Goddess Bless you and I wish you all happiness and peace.