on five thugs who attacked me, and won.  I am a person who fears very little of the practical world or the everyday adventures, fearing only the unknown demons of one’s self.  I had no problem jumping into the middle of a knife fight, unarmed to help a good friend from making a fatal mistake or becoming one.  I had no problem trying to save our neighbors from their burning home, to no avail.  Jimmy, age 6, Ernie age 4, and their mother Cathy all died.  I was eighteen.  And I had no problem swimming into treacherous water to save a friend from drowning when I was fourteen.  Not the smartest thing for a person to do with limited swimming skills.

I never doubted my courage until Recovery. I wondered if I was a coward for not stopping the abuse or stepping out of denial and facing the truth.  Or was I courageous for finding ways to survive?  Was there any way I could not have been so trapped?  These are some of the many questions that haunt me.  My answers will come in time I am sure, but at what cost.  However, in reality, the answers probably do not matter, because I suspect I will find some answers do not exist.  And maybe they are simply not important.  Time will tell.

Patting myself on the back and convincing myself I was free of the abuse was another of my very complex and clever defense mechanisms keeping me from doing just that, facing my fears and tending my wounds.

I have spent so much time and energy hiding and running from my past in so many ways and only now, realizing it was this behavior that kept the past in the present and so much alive.  The actual act of denial became a way of life.  It was all I knew and I was not able to realize or understand there was another way.  Denial is this stranger always tapping you on the shoulder but you refuse to turn and look.  The energy it takes to maintain such a defense has taken a toll on me, emotionally and physically.  It has made me old before my time.  My anger which was the silent nautilus part of my life for so long was the cancer that has "eaten" away at me and left my life replete with empty emotional holes.  Yet I am still here, always staying one-step ahead of the demons, most of the time anyway.  Of course, I am not referring to the devil’s disciples.  I am referring to shame, guilt and the suffering that come with them.

It took a long time to recognize and give names to these demons.  But once I did, there was no mistaking them or how damaging they have been.  Recently and because I have started my recovery, it is apparent to me I have accepted shame and guilt.  I don’t really understand why I have accepted them.  All I know is, I feel differently.  This simple transition seems to have made a difference.  In what sense or to what degree, I don’t know.  I just know it is different.  Different in a positive way I think.  I truly hope it is a positive beginning without end.  I am far too acquainted with short beginnings that did not end so nicely, only to fall into another cycle of unrecognized self-destructive behavior.

Since my divorce, it has been particularly hard for me to take a solid bearing in life.  For many years now, I have been just getting through each day without plans or goals, just waiting for God I guess.  Sure, I have desires, as everyone has.  I know I want happiness, a home, and some stability in my life, friends and so on and so forth.  I simply couldn’t find a path to stay on.  I was caught in the onslaught of life’s tsunami just pushing me along with no real hope of freeing myself from its deathly grip, leaving me with a sense of confusion or disillusionment brought on by a broken and diminished spirit.  As with so much in my life, I simply have no understanding of this.  And yet, in many respects my life has been good, full in ways I could not have done without, but empty in ways that shroud me in numbness.  At the moment, I see my life as one of fullness but unfulfilled, a life with great potential, unrealized.

My life has had so much great joy.  But this has not helped me clarify my feelings about my life and has left me somewhat confused as to the sum of my life, or what it means.  I have many great memories, equal only to the memories lost, perhaps never to be found. 

I have always loved people and all they have brought into my life.  I consider each person I have met, a treasure, pleasure and or an experience that has added to the richness of my life, no matter what they brought to me, good or bad.  And for those who I want to hate or should hate, I cannot hate them.  It is not in my nature or Christian faith, and of course, I have become so good at suppressing my anger that I have to question even this simple belief about myself.  I don't know when I will start working on my anger that I have yet to feel its full measure.  I hope when I do, I don’t find myself hating anyone.  Hate scares the hell out of me.  I have seen so many people be "ate-up" by hate

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and have been miserable for it.  I have convinced myself no one is worth hating, even if they deserve it.  When you hate, you give too much of yourself to that person and keeps what they did to you in control.  Maybe through recovery I will find I am just as capable of hating and not really forgiving.  I hope this does not turn out to be the case because here again, I would have lived a lie about my own belief that I am a forgiving person.  Maybe I have been too much of a coward to forgive and simply shrouded myself in another shadow belief.  Time will tell, but for now, I will accept the richness of my life as the sum of all my life events and experiences, both good and bad, from this point of view, I have lived a very full life.

So, this is my beginning, a place of renewal, self-discovery and a means to forgiveness. Forgiveness?  I thought I understood it but I never did.  And like so many, I fooled myself into believing I had forgiven all who needed it, everyone except me.  But this changed.  It is a time when the future is mine, unfettered from the dictators of the past and a hope for conquest over life-long companions.  Hopefully, a future with friends and family and with no sense of shame or guilt.  This is my nexus, the point in my life when I choose not to accept my life as it has been, a place where I can see my future through the eyes of history and I can choose a different path.

Now, how do I make this happen?  It only took me until I was 53 to get to this point.  Of all the tragedy and losses in my life, of all the emotional struggles, this nexus is the most frightening and painful for me to confront.  Frankly, it is numbing, overwhelming and flat out terrifying to me.  Why?  Because I know the only way to make recovery happen is to heal.  And to heal I must journey back through the events of my life that have defined me.  And this is not all of it.  I am trying to figure out who the hell I am.  What scares me the most is; I may discover my self-perceptions are wrong.  Maybe I am not the good person I think and perceive myself to be.  What if I am wrong, maybe I am the one most responsible for the events of my life.  Yeah, I am scared!  What part of the lie I have lived so long is true and what part is not?  How much am I responsible for my life and how much am I not?  What is the truth?  I guess this is what I am trying to figure out.  But it is not just about me.  It is about all kindred spirits everywhere.  It is about righteousness, healing, and hope.  It is for all those who have lost hope and for an eight-year-old boy who has found a glimmer of new hope.  It is about Love.  Recovery is about all these things, but one rises above all others.  Recovery is about courage to change.  The same courage it takes one to fight a cancer, risk one’s life to save another, face an enemy on the front lines or the courage of a mother protecting her child.  A courage deep seated in the very essence of one's being.

Facing, “one’s self” is perhaps the scariest trial a person can endure.  And maybe the trip could prove to be the most rewarding and fruitful.  Whatever the case turns out to be, when "the jury is in" the verdict will be what it is and it will have no appeal.  For this reason, a very special courage is needed.  And as far as I am concerned, "Damn the torpedoes" and "Let Loose the Dogs of War" because I have nothing to lose anymore.  Make no mistake; I believe recovery is a war.  Not like the war we survivors have fought our entire lives to simply survive each day, but a war that is fought by my choice and on my own terms.  This is the most important difference.  It is said, "Pick your battles." I have and I know recovery is a battle that can be won, without exception.  I believe it is a matter of commitment to one’s self, something I have never done.  One undeniable truth for me is, I had the courage to survive ten years of sexual and emotional abuse and now I intend to use that same courage to heal.  To push forward and make a life for myself free of the shame and guilt.  Free to live my life in peace and tranquility.

Having made this proclamation to myself, has made me realize, the first thing I need to come to grips with is how much damage was done to me.  And yes, I know how much we hate this label "damage". 

Unfortunately, it is very true.  The label does not matter, the truth does.  What makes me very angry is the fact, the effects of the many years of abuse has affected everything in my life including the loss of my marriage and the most important person in my life, my wife Barbara.  If this isn't damage, then what is?  I had often wondered what molded my behavior Christmas night 1994, the last day Barbara and I spent together.  How much of my behavior was plain stupidity and lack of responsibility, and how much was from the emotional brain-washing and conditioning from so long ago, or was it just another form of acting out?  Well, at this point in my recovery, I can only assume I was "acting out" again.  The infamous encrypted cry for help

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that no one understands, not even me at the time.  I never understood the belief that when someone is acting out is a cry for help.  I have pretty good grip on it now.  It is a very real thing and as real as it is, it is equally as easy to ignore or dismiss mindlessly.  Whatever my reasons were for acting out; I have no excuse and no pain greater or deeper than hurting Barbara.  As unintentional, and innocent as the events were that led to our divorce may have been, does not matter.  That night I could have made a better choice. Why didn’t I?  Was it just another of my many self-destructive behaviors?  I never wanted to go through life with any regrets.  Hurting and losing Barbara is a regret I don’t see myself getting over.  If I wanted to try and find some good in this; I suspect understanding how much the abuse has cost both Barbara and me will help me get in touch with my anger.

There will be no absolution or forgiveness from Barbara.  Her 18 years of severe abuse from her first husband, (I was her second) and her lack of trust in me, has left Barbara unable to forgive anyone for the smallest infractions.  I have seen her willing to walk away from her son, instead of dealing with the issues, and she has walked away from good friends for what I would consider pretty minor issues.  The one thing which is very clear and is a result of her abuse, is she tries to avoid conflict of any type at all cost, unless she feels wounded, then she turns vicious.  Barbara is truly the "out of sight, out of mind" type person.  In fact, she personifies this character trait.  She has never understood how much she has lost because of her keen ability to stick with this mentality.  She has never understood how much she has denied herself or how much opportunity for personal growth she has been deprived of because of the extreme sexual, psychological and emotional abuse she suffered at the hands of her first ex.  This is why I feel so bad for Barbara; she has lost so much and carries so much inside.  It is unfortunate she never spent one day in counseling for her abuse.  She is such a good person and as with all victims of abuse, she didn't deserve what happened to her.  She is enslaved with the same effects all battered women and survivors of sexual abuse suffer, who have not dealt with their wounds.  Who could blame her?  I was able to stay in denial for forty years, and if denial allows Barbara to live a life she is content with, then who am I to judge?  My only wish for her is to be happy.  I have never missed anyone as much as I have Barbara; and my heart has never stopped aching.  She was everything to me, the nautilus part of my good life.  And I have to bare the guilt of hurting the person I love more than anyone.  I hope she finds a way to step out of her denial and really understand just how much her abuse has cost her.  I hope she finds peace and ultimately realizes I am not the monster she portrayed me to be.  And I hope she comes to understand how much love there was and is between us.  Our counselor, at the time of our separation, told me she was projecting all her hate and wounds from her first husband and her abuse on me; that bomb had been primed for a long time.  All I did was supply the trigger. 

It made perfect sense to me, her projecting all her inner anger and hurt on me; I did the same to her in a very unkind letter to her during our separation and my bargaining days.  So, I do know the truth of why she feels as she does about me.  Throw in the fact, I failed her and it is understandable she would hate me.  Understanding does nothing for the hurt I feel every second of every living minute, a penetrating hurt so profoundly deep, it wounds my soul.  Being hated by Barbara so much, is an open wound to my heart.  I know any love she has for me is buried so deep beneath the hate, that she will never allow herself to feel it again.  To be hated that much by a person you love must mean there had to be great love at some point in time.  Regardless of her hate, great or true love cannot be destroyed, it is simple put aside. 

I never spoke to Barbara about her being sexually abused by her first husband.  And if I did, she would never have considered it a possibility.  The truth is her ex-husband was the pedophile’s pedophile.  He was 26 and Barbara was 15 when he took her over the state line and eloped.  He had been seeing her from the age of 13.  He married his victim, brutalized her, and wounded her deeply. Barbara never understood this.  She was sexually abused as much as I was.  I guess she will never know how much we have in common, and in the end, she considers me worse than that animal.  Try living with this.  I was her hero and she was mine.  I have never lost the emotional empathetic connection to Barbara.  I wonder how recovery can heal this pain.  Fat chance!  I understand Barbara’s denial and I know her heart.  I guess what I find so sad about Barbara's situation, is she doesn’t understand how much more her abuse will cost her if she doesn’t get the help she really needs.

And so, my journey has begun, my awareness is at its peak and I am ready.  I guess a good place to start is

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to understand just how I see myself.  It is time to put my life, and my emotional state-of mind as it exists today, under the microscope.  Following is one of my early journal entries.  I think it best explains where I am.

“It’s 11:20 Saturday night September 17 and I am sitting alone in a motel room, trying to stay focused enough to expose my true feelings while pondering my life. There is something sad about this picture!  Smoking pot has become my major past-time, and it has been since Barbara and I broke up.  This behavior has cost me dearly.  I have finally realized smoking pot is a major escape for me, and a major problem in my life.  The only good thing about this is I know it is ending soon, very soon.  Stopping this self-destructive behavior is a priority in my life and is one of the many self-destructive behaviors I’m becoming aware of. 

I have fought depression most of my life but I have been successfully treated with antidepressants.  The antidepressants have taken me to a point where I can deal with life.  Unfortunately, I have to say that I am still depressed.  However, I am convinced this is more a result of what I am doing here with recovery.  I am hopeful it will pass.  The good news is, the doc helped me realize I am a “high functioning” depressive.  Meaning I function normally in everyday things like work and so forth, but it takes real effort to do anything for myself: another source of energy drain.  Living everyday life should not be so much of an effort. 

At times, I am perplexed why all this crap has affected me so much at this time in my life.  Other times I am angry as all hell when I start connecting the dots.  As I review my life, I have been able to see my behavior from a point of view of emotional development and how my emotional life and behavior was influenced by the long term sexual abuse, emotional conditioning and brain-washing as a child.  And at times, and becoming more often, I feel hopeful and optimistic about my future.  For sure I am at the Awareness Stage of my recovery.  I can hardly wait for the other stages of recovery to kick in; they will probably kick me in the ass.

There have been other significant self-destructive behaviors. Being financially irresponsible has been a favorite past time for me, since my divorce.  I have just now begun to develop some fiscal responsibility again.  Another familiar cycle I constantly find never ending.  And of course, until recovery, I was always scratching my head trying to figure out why I did it again.  Until recently, I had always given my money away.  I was always taking care of everyone else and never myself.  I have been this way for as long as I can remember, even as a kid.  Helping other people has always been a great joy for me.  Unfortunately, I never learned to take care of myself first and rarely did I do or buy anything for myself.  One of the changes I have made is to take care of myself first.  Focus on me and only me for a while.  And frankly, I have discovered by taking care of myself first, I will be able to help more people in better and healthier ways. 

What is equally important for me is to understand why I was compelled to do this to myself, (put other people first at my own expense and well-being).  I always thought it was the right thing to do and I genuinely felt good about helping people.  I considered it doing God’s work.  Now I wonder if I was buying companionship, love, and acceptance; I am not sure.  Maybe I had such low self-esteem I just wanted people to like me or I needed to feel wanted.  I guess the best I can hope for is, maybe it was a combination of the two.  One thing is for sure, I don’t know!  I suspect, I may have felt I didn’t deserve anything and therefore put my focus on others.  This has resulted in me having very few personal belongings.  I lost everything was when Barbara and I broke up, I took one plastic bag of clothes and that was it.  I never believed Barbara would not give me my belongings.  What a surprise to me.  She wouldn’t even give me a picture.  I didn’t figure on her hating me; in-fact I didn’t think it was possible.  They were right when they wrote, "hell hath no fury as the fury of a woman scorned" or something like that.

Losing everything is another old companion.  We have walked a long path through life together.  In 1979, when I was finally on my own and living in a house in Chelmsford, Massachusetts there was a house fire that took my home to the ground.  I walked away with the clothes on my back and a car.  And of course, I had to rebuild and in the end, I lost the new house before I could finish it.  I was rebuilding it by myself and I ended up burning myself out.  It was in the late seventies and early eighties, during a major period of high inflation, and 18 to 24% loans were all that was available, if you could get one. After the house burned down the town of Chelmsford gave me only two years to start rebuilding.  So, on the twenty­ third-month I secured a private loan with a very high percentage rate and not enough funds to complete the construction, or enough funds to have anyone else do the work.  I was between a rock and a hard place, but it was a start.

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building my home.  I started in November and lived in a broken-down trailer on the site, no heat, I just did not want it for some reason.  I worked through the winter and it was tough.  Trying to build a house on your own was a fool's errand and to do it during the winter was as tough as it gets, but I felt I had little choice. 

I have to wonder why I am always finding myself starting over.  Maybe that is all life is, a series of starting overs, the reality is, it was my fault and my fault alone.  I made the choices regardless of the fundamental motivation driving me to be self-destructive.

All of this motivated me to choose to find a path that changes all of this.  Meaning recovery, or not, and regardless of whatever truths need to be faced, or whatever the process brings.  I can choose to let the abuse continue to influence my life by using it as excuses, a crutch or some overwhelming fear that paralyzes my soul, and changes nothing.  Or I can choose to end the suffering and begin a new life by finally giving myself a break and a chance at something better.  Which path would you choose?

To sum things up I can say with confidence I have stopped waiting for God and accepted the fact, I could and want to, live another fifty years.  I have been waiting for God for ten years and now am telling God He can wait.  With this eye-opener, I am committed to letting the next fifty years to be a new life without the millstones of the past chained around my neck.  It is my future and it can be whatever I want.  And I want to be known for the person who looked at his life, didn’t like the hand he was dealt, but played the hand the best he could and in the end won.  I don't want to be one of those old guys always talking about the past with regret, always telling embellished stories that have little resemblance to the truth.  I want to be an inspiration and a person who will be remembered for overcoming life's trials and someone who made a difference in some people’s lives.  I don’t want to be remembered as a person who was abused and never recovered.  I would rather be dead than remembered like this.  I am tired of this crap and I am ready to do whatever it takes.  I will endure the pains of recovery.  I am told recovery is like birth or surgery.  It hurts like hell for a while but a new life is born and the wound heals.  Most people who have kids will tell you they were worth it.  I know, in my heart of hearts, recovery is worth the pain and work.  It is worth a new beginning and a new life.  Anyone who has endured the pain of abuse has earned a chance at a better life.  We have the right to be free of the torment and sadness.  We have the right to have a happy and full life. End journal entry: So, my search for a path to recovery and understanding has begun.  I am not a professional counselor and I can't afford continuous therapy so for the most part I am on my own.  And it would be unrealistic for me to believe “doing it on my own” has any chance of working.  It is a delusion and another denial trap.  At some point, I will need to work with professionals who can help me.  But for now, I will do my research and begin introspective journey to those dark places in my past.  I will learn, grow, and apply what I learn.  This has to be my minimum commitment to a successful recovery.  No one can do this for me. I have to take responsibility for my own recovery.  I have to do it as intelligently as I can and learn to reach out for help, something I have never done.  Only I can remove the obstacles to my recovery and a better life.  Only I can face the unknown demons that have haunted me.  And only I can make the difference for myself.  I think it will be very important to find ways to measure my progress.  So, I will do the easy things first and develop a plan for myself to follow.  By doing some of the easy things first I hope to start rebuilding my self-image.  I believe becoming cognitively aware of how I am feeling and thinking will be a critical skill to learn.  And how I feel should be a good indicator of my progress. Developing a plan was the next step. This is one of the first tough ones.  I am enthusiastic about it but it is really making me think and is bringing me back.  As I was developing my plan, I found myself feeling sad yet hopeful.  I remember the slow awakening that suddenly erupted into a shower of reality.  The day I realized, just how much of a lie my life has been.  And the moment I realize the door that held the shadowy demons had been unlocked and the shroud of denial that had protected me for so long was gone forever.  And the real sense of sadness and loss I felt was the catalyst for developing a more truthful relationship with me.  My calling had come - it was my time to heal.

This revelation happened one day in Colorado.  I had left my home and family in Massachusetts, some years before, after my divorce.  I wanted to start a new life.  I had visited Colorado during my first separation from Barbara.  At the time, I was visiting my brother, and I fell in love with the state.  God sure had a good day when He made Colorado.

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For a few years, everything had been going pretty well.  I had finally started settling into an apartment and I had been in love again (or so I thought) and I was going to marry again.  This was a real surprise.  Then it all started turning bad again.  I realized my very wealthy fiancé (her family anyway) had some very serious mental health issues and as our counselor told me privately, there was very little hope of Theresa and I having a successful relationship.  Her condition was such that our counselor believed she was very suicidal and had great potential for being very violent.  Her condition has a name but out of respect I will not mention it here. 

It suffices to say it is a very serious psychological illness with no cure.

I had never, "lived in sin" with women until Theresa.   I was amazed how things had changed after I moved in with her.  She quit her job, slept all day, and drank all night.  While her family was very wealthy, Theresa was financially broke.  I was making a very low wage compared to what I was used to, and supporting Theresa really drained me, in many ways.  For the last six months, we were together, I was on suicide watch with Theresa.  Our counselor told me he was gravely concerned she could do herself harm.  At this point, my only mission was to find a way to help her and her parents bridge the distance between them, and then move on.  Theresa was in serious trouble and she needed her parents.  Her parents were nice people and church going but very self-centered when it came to their money.  They believed, and somewhat rightly so, their kids needed to make it on their own.  What they failed to realize was how much they contributed to the mental health of Theresa when she was growing up.  It appears they were far more interested in making money than raising kids.  It really damaged Theresa.  I was successful in convincing her parents she needed them in her life and Theresa’s mother took the ball and really went with it.  Her mother really wanted to have a healthy relationship with her daughter and she was a great woman.  I really liked both her parents very much.

Theresa condition was such, I was told by our counselor that she could snap at any time and I could end up with a knife in my chest.  Well, after hearing this and six months of pure exhaustion to the point of audio hallucinations, all brought on by an intense suicide watch, it was time for me to move on.  I accomplished all I could and I did get her parents involved.  I was truly burned out.  Theresa was one of those, "I hate you don’t leave me” people and I found out she had had a couple of prior finances who also left her.  So why didn't I do the same thing much earlier on than I did?  Why did I feel obligated to help Theresa and her parents mend their bridges?   Was I again taking on more responsibility than I should have?  Was this another pattern of my life, or was I being a genuine caring person who recognizes a person in need and didn’t have the heart to abandon her as she believed her parents did?  I have never been able to turn my back on anyone in need.  The relationship damn near killed me and yet I hung in there until I was satisfied I could do no more to help her; hubris perhaps, stupid at best, but well intentioned.  I suspect this may be a form of over compensating and may be connected to the abuse.  I have also come to believe there was probably an element of insecurity and loneliness that needed to be filled for me.  If it was the latter I didn’t recognize it at the time.  An empty heart is a terrible thing to live with.  However, Theresa was a wonderful person in so many ways.  She was smart, drop dead gorgeous, and she was someone you could have an intelligent conversation with, not to mention she was a great lover.  It was sad leaving her.  In time, her relationship with her parents improved immensely and that made me feel good about what I had helped accomplish.

After Theresa, things had spiraled down further.  The economy was bad and finding a job in the best of times in Colorado was a challenge.  I had lost my job, lost my medical insurance, so I decided to interview in Ireland for a job.

While there, I started noticing significant rectal bleeding, I contacted my doctor in Massachusetts, and he told me it could range from a minor thing to a cancer of some sort.  He told me to get checked-out ASAP.

I went to a doctor in Ireland the next day, and he did an examination and some blood work.  A couple of days later he told me I had cancer.  I was floored and really taken back.  At first I didn’t want to accept it, but I had to tell the company I could not accept their job offer.  I flew home after a few days of R&R in Galway, while trying to sort things out.

After a few days, the bleeding subsided and I had to make some real choices, I was told the bleeding could come and go and it did.  I had no insurance and I had pretty well had it with life.  How could I pay for

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I went up to the foothills and lay under the stars one night trying to decide what I wanted to do.  It was in the foothills of Fort Collins where I decided I was not going to have the cancer treated, nor was I going to do any follow-up with doctors.  I decided it was time to let go of the ghost.  Only the manner in which I would die was in question.  I contemplated taking a very long deep woods hike and simply never return.  I could survive for a while but in the end nature would take me, regardless of how good my survival skills were.  I decided the one-way trip into the woods was tantamount to suicide.  In fact, I was not sure if not fighting the cancer was a form or suicide.  I kept my condition and plans to myself, I had burdened my family enough over the years and they didn’t need this anymore than I did.

Over the next several weeks I decided it was time to put my affairs in order.  The bleeding was coming and going.  Sometimes it was barely noticeable and other times I thought was going to bleed to death.

This was a bizarre time for me.  Deciding to give up the ghost was a great feeling of relief that I didn’t understand.  I had truly lost my will to live.  And this kept bothering me.  How could anyone, just not want to live anymore?  I loved life in so many ways, of course I was not happy about where I was in life and didn’t understand this either.  But, to give up, I knew that was not me.  I didn’t understand any of this.  Over several weeks it started to dawn on me, things were not right.  Over the previous few weeks, I had decided I was still very much in love with my soul mate, Barbara and I didn’t care about living life without her. I also realized it could not be just about Barbara.  After all, I had already learned to live without her, as much as I didn’t want to.  I was starting to feel a little lame in my thinking. 

I found myself constantly thinking about my life and all the events in it.  I was having flashbacks.  I had never experienced flashbacks like these before and didn't understand why.  I was getting angrier by the day about my life and divorce but I was still not realizing the truth about why I was feeling as I was.

As I did with everything in my life, I was dealing with this alone.  And how ironic this was for a guy who has a twin sister and is one of eleven children?  I really needed my family but I could not reach out to them.  I began to look at things philosophically and convinced myself I was ok with dying.  I had lived a full life and experienced a lot, been in love, seen a lot of the world and as much as I didn’t want to be, I was ready for death.  I was in my late forties.  In hindsight, that is a pretty sad state of affairs.  I was a young man who felt old and burned out.  I had had my full measure of life.

But something else was happening to me at the same time, a strange and unfamiliar consciousness began to creep in.  For the first time, I was beginning to doubt myself about my choice not to live.  Why?  These strange and unfamiliar feelings, were letting me know I was pissed off about many things.  And not being able to understand why was confusing.  I wasn’t feeling sorry for myself but my gut was being torn in many directions.  I have always had an elevated level of intuition.  But my gut was trying to tell me something and I could not break through my denial.  Of course, at the time I did not understand denial was the blocking force.  It seemed I was experiencing a primal conflict of some sort, but unidentified.  Something very deep inside seemed to be trying to get out or get my attention.

I struggled with these feelings for many days, perhaps weeks.  Trying to come to grips with the fact that I had entered the twilight of my life and my time here could be measured in a year or two.  The knowledge that

the quality of my life would diminish during that time was very depressing.   At the very least it was time to talk with a priest.

The priest I selected was a very fine and kind person.  He seemed genuine, something I had not seen in a long time.  He informed me it was not God’s will for me to die.  I told him, even though I was very spiritual person, I had no understanding of God's will and for that matter could not understand how he (the priest) could understand what God's will was for me.  He tried to convince me I had options.  I explained to him I knew I had options, but am choosing the one that best suits me.  I gave him my confession and he gave me the "Last Rites" or as he explained the sacrament of healing.  This was all fine and dandy but I had already reconciled my soul with God and I was ready to meet Him on my terms.  In fact, I have never feared death, only life.  Death for me is just another beginning.

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Although I was becoming conflicted about my choices, a sense of calm still embraced me, an acceptance that everything was alright and I had nothing to worry about anymore.  In truth, it was not going to be that easy; I just didn’t know it at the time.

Over the next several days, I began planning to get my affairs in order.  For the most part, I only had to make whatever arrangements were necessary for my funeral, burial and hospice care, none of which I had any idea of what was involved.  This was a very surreal time for me, nothing less than weird.  Picking out my own casket was bizarre and finding a cemetery, deciding what type of ceremony to have and what not, all were beginning to take a toll on me.  I had to take a break for a couple of weeks.  During this time, I decided I wanted to be buried and not cremated, so I decided to visit some cemeteries and see which one appealed to me.  It was strange visiting these places of internment with a new sense of meaning and purpose.  After all, in the past, my visits to cemeteries had been visits to lost loved ones and not for myself.  But something else was happening.  I began to sense my shield of perceived calm and contentment was beginning to feel more like a trap door or a cover of some sort.  As the days passed I began to feel a profound sense of sadness.  Sadness compounded by an equally strong sense of tranquil acceptance for my new path.  It was a confusing state of emotions for me.

While visiting one of the cemeteries my clarity of thought was definitely beginning to come into focus.  I realized my sadness was a reality check that my gut was telling me for a while.  The reality was, for the first time in my life, I had quit, given up, thrown in the towel.  I had never quit at anything and in fact, I was quite the opposite in character.  I would always take on too much and drive myself to exhaustion.  I was bewildered by the whole mess!

It was just days ago, when I was absolutely sure of everything.  Now I found myself sitting in a cemetery, staring my welcome future straight in the eye, free of fear, anxiety, burden, or trepidation.  As I looked at the headstones, reading the names and dates, taking particular notice of the ages.  It was the young ones who made me sad.  How much worse they must have had life than I had, I thought.  I wondered how many of these souls gave up and just threw in the towel?  I guess I figured it would be just a matter of time before I would meet most of them.  I guess I could ask them when I see them.  Ha, Ha.  But that is how I felt.  However, it wasn't long before I felt pretty damned selfish.  What right did I have to feel this way?  So many others had it much worse!  Part of me was ashamed, part of me was sad, other parts of me were happy and at peace. 

I had given up, and then again, why not?  What the hell, I had had enough and my choices were not about anyone else.  It didn’t matter how much worse it was for anyone else.  I was really struggling intellectually and conflicted at some level.  It was as if some part of me had a different idea and was trying to get me to listen.  It was turning into a rough day.  These feelings were all new to me and I really didn’t know what to make of them.  And I still had that growing gut feeling.  Something was instinctively telling me something was really wrong.  I knew it was nothing to do with the obvious situation but something more important.  I wasn't sure what the hell I was feeling and frankly, it concerned me.

The more names I read, the more I realized all these names had been people with lives and families of their own.  Each had their own successes, failures, personalities, joys and triumphs.  But here in this place they were just names etched on headstones, devoid of life, spirits in another world.  Names only known to the loved ones left behind.  I am sure they were a mix of rich and poor, educated and not, men, women and children, and a mix of many professions.

But here in this place of hallowed ground, full of lost lives, everyone was equal.  It didn’t matter what their life was or what they did, none of it mattered because in death we are all equal, at least in the eyes of the living; the dead are just memories.  I wondered how I would be remembered.  What did these people mean to the world or what were their contributions?  Did they make a difference for anyone or themselves?  Did their lives count for anything?  How did their lives measure up against the yardstick of life?  Were they good or bad people?  From my vantage point all they were, were names on a headstone, whispers in time marking faceless lives.  Facing one’s mortality was beginning to be much harder to accept than an hour before.  And the feeling in my gut began to make me sick.  Or maybe it was the plethora of emotions triggering my gut.

My sense of serenity began to give way to a greater sense of truthfulness.  Here I was facing my future with calm and contentment over the last several weeks while trying to sort out my new sense of confusion.  I could

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feel the emotional pressure welling up inside of me. What the hell was this gnawing in my gut?  It was driving me nuts at the time.  What the hell was it that brought me to this place of refuge, solitude, and desperation?   Why am I sitting in a cemetery trying to decide where my final resting place would be?  What brought me here?  And then it happened.  My emotional fog began to clear.  Not the fog of the moment, but fog of my life.  My heart was racing, I was sweating, and I was feeling a powerful sense of fear emanating from every part of my being.  It didn’t feel like an anxiety attack, hell I had enough of them to know the difference.  This was something different.  Then it hit me like a hammer to the head.  I was at the end of my life and when you are there- there is only truth.  There is nowhere to hide.  The truth simply is.  It hit me that my life was result of the abuse, more to the point for the first time I felt and believed I had been damaged and hurt by the abuse and it had affected and controlled so much of my life.  I knew at that moment I had been in denial most of my life.  The abuse had really hurt me and cost me so much, damaged me to a point where I find myself in this revealing but pathetic place.

My mind began to play the movie of my life.  I was experiencing flashbacks, intense flashbacks of the nature I had not experienced before.  I was seeing the abuse all over again, smelling the smells and feeling the hurt and pain, feeling the sadness.  The sons of bitches had really damaged me and hurt me!  I had never acknowledged this.  Before this, all I had done was, give myself a pat on the back for stopping the abuse and superficially dealing with it.  I had never connected with the hurt, pain, or truth of the abuse.  In a single moment of time, this all changed.  I had been stripped naked with nowhere to hide, just me and the truth.  I had never experienced a more profound sense of reality and sadness.  A real sense of acceptance that I could no longer run or hide, or deny who I was; I was a guy who spent his entire life living a lie.

Part of me was numb and another part of me felt liberated and free. But my feeling of loss was overwhelming.  I had never felt loss like this, including my wife (divorce) or the death of my dad.  This was totally personal to me and for a guy who rarely allowed or could allow myself to be in touch with my inner-self, meant I was totally unprepared for these types of feelings.  I truly felt I had just loss myself, or the person I was charading as, and a stranger had emerged from the fog.  I felt alone, very sad, and a depth of morning I had never felt before.  I wished I could have just let go of the ghost then and faded with the wind.  But that was not going to happen.  Everything “I believed I was" just disappeared, and I was alone with a stranger.  Perhaps being just a name on a headstone was no longer a great idea.  My life had to count for more than just this ending.  For the first time, I felt, and more importantly, understood I had been seriously damaged: the hurt and the wounds affected everything in my life.  In hindsight, I would have thought should have been feeling angrier.  I suppose I was; it was just not obvious to me.  I am amazed I was not enraged.  It wasn’t like that at all, just a sense of loss.  No, here in this place, there was no denial, or judges, confusion, or ambiguity, just raw truth.  I had just walked through a door and it shut tight behind me with no way to go back.  Or so I thought.  In time, I would come to realize I needed to go back, just not through that door.   It would be a door of my choosing.  I just hadn’t realized it yet.  For now, the last page of a life of denial had been written and the chapter of denial was over.  Not so bad a place to be but a scary place for sure.

Words could never describe or do justice to the feelings I felt as result of my epiphany.  It can only be summed up as a life changing moment.  I spent another two or three hours walking and allowing myself to just feel, trying to get a grip on all of it.  As the minutes turned to hours, I felt different, not in a bad way or a good one for that matter.  I was in an emotional place I had never been before and I didn’t know how to process what I was feeling, or where these feelings would lead me.  I needed time, time to think.

Over the course of the next few weeks I tried sorting things out and what it all meant.  I began to reason the damage done to me was as real as any physical injury could be and there was no minimizing it by saying "others had it worse,” a terrible game to play with one’s self and one of denials clever weapons, in its arsenal of many.  To deny the truth about one’s self is simply wrong.  It is like a person who just lost an arm and then saying, "Oh I have another one.”  It doesn’t work this way; all injuries are relative to each of us.   To deny our pain is an injustice to ourselves.  I slowly accepted the fact that I didn’t want to die.  It would be wrong to do so and I wanted more than death for myself.  I had found the enemy but he was not mine.  Not yet anyway.  I felt like the alcoholic or drug addict at their first AA meeting, where they stand up in front of the group and declare “I am so and so and I am an alcoholic".  For me the words are different: Hello my name is "Richard"

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and I am a victim of child sexual abuse and I don’t want to be a victim, I want to be a survivor.  Another simple truth was spawned from this process; I had to "Recover," just like the alcoholic, drug addict or battered women and it was very painful to accept.  It meant I had problems that needed to be dealt with.  I was broken and I needed to be fixed.  It was profoundly difficult to accept my life was just a huge lie that I refused to recognize for so many years.  The humility was overwhelming.  This was the last thing I needed, to confront my lie, wounds, pain and loss of faith in myself.  And to what end, to find out I am broken and needed fixing?  In many ways, I was very humbled and I knew I now had to make the bigger choice, life, or death. 

Death would put an end to my life and I would have accomplished nothing, contributed nothing, and made no difference for anyone.  I would be a forgotten name on a piece of rock pushing up daises.  Or I could choose life.  Which meant dealing with the cancer and then the damage from the abuse?  Deciding would not be a slam-dunk.  It was a challenge to once again, reach deep inside myself, and ask some very hard questions.  What did I really want for myself out of life?  Was I willing to accept and live with the truth no matter what it revealed?  Was I up to starting all over again?  And the most difficult decision, was ''am I up to the challenge of a very intense recovery process for both cancer and abuse?”  Would I even survive the cancer?  And perhaps I would have to live life with a colonoscopy bag on my side?  My grandfather did but he did not live long after his surgery, only a couple of years.  And of course, I still had to decide if I as able to recover financially after the medical expenses because I had no insurance.  For that matter, could I be treated for cancer without any insurance?  Maybe when it came to treatment, I could not find treatment?  Financial issues were the least of my problems, but nonetheless, they were on the pile of things to consider.

My epiphany in the cemetery made me realize just how hard I had been fighting my whole life, how much energy it took to stay in denial.  And now I was faced with the fact that my life had burned me out.  The light of my spirit had been dimmed and now did I have what it takes to turn this around? Or did I even want to?

As the days passed and the numbness gave way to feelings of calm, I recognized the abuse had already, in a manner of speaking, killed me, the real me anyway.  I no longer had any sense of who I was.  How dead can I be?  The more I reasoned with myself the more other feelings were beginning to evolve.  The stirring in my gut was beginning all over again.  I was on a wild-roller coaster ride of emotions.  I was feeling anger and a strong desire to fight, but fight what?  I was developing an intense resolve toward anger.  And these feelings grew.  The angrier I became the more I felt the desire to fight became, as did my resolve to do so.  In many ways, the recovery process had already begun and again I just didn’t know it.  The process was making up my mind for me.  My awareness was bringing me back from the brink and giving me the wherewithal to make my stand.  I would choose life and take back "me" or at least find me.  Either way, it didn’t matter; I had decided to cast a die that could not be broken.  I would fight once again, only this time I would not fight in the shadows of lies or denial, but in the light of truth.  I would give my demons no place to hide or show them any quarter; I would confront them on my terms this time.  It was t