This started out as a simple short response to the "Healing takes a long time" thread. However, as usual I am unable to be short with anything I say. So here we go.

I had a unique problem, at the time of my attack, I was the life of the party, my house was Grand Central, when I left for work I never locked the front door, If there wasn't already someone there, there would be in the next ten minutes or so. There was always somewhere between 5 and 20 people or more at my house at any given time. There was always people there that I did not know. I was always going to parrties, and throwing parties. Any given weekend there were cars from 3 different states in my yard. The cops had my house under surveillance because they thought it was a drug house, because of all the cars coming and going. I got lucky the night it happened, everyone was gone somewhere else, I was not supposed to be home so no one came by that night, or the next day, after I got home from work. For the next year and a half I managed to keep that night locked behind a steel door, in the back of my mind so I could go on with life, like nothing had happened. During that year and a half, I was always being introduced to new people, new men, men that would flirt with me. (Don't remember if I said in my intro post or not but I am bisexual). Every time I met someone new, men or women, but especially men, it was all I could do to keep from panicking. As normal, I would wake up and there would be two or three other people in my bed asleep. After that night instead of waking up and saying wake up, I woke up, and stifled a scream. I would do my best to keep from climbing on the headboard when I rolled over and saw other people laying there. Sometimes I knew them, some times I didn't. There was nothing new about that. I get up, and go in the kitchen to get coffee, and there would be three or four people sitting at my table, and I knew some, and some I didn't, there were times when there would be four guys sitting there I didn't know. At one time I would have walked in saw the four guys, and just said mornin, got my coffee and had a seat. Now, I was to scared to walk into my own kitchen. But, I forced myself to keep walking, otherwise I would have to explain why I didn't.

I may have locked everything away in a vault, but the stench was all over my mind, and no matter what I did I could not get rid of that stench. I kept forcing myself to keep pretending nothing was wrong, I forced myself to continue everything as normal. Finally it started getting to be too much for me to handle, it was getting to the point I could not keep it locked up. So I saw my chance, and I asked to transfer with my job, over three hours from home. I had decided to get away from everything, and everyone, so I could relax, and not have all those people around me day and night. The problem with that idea is, that I had no friends at all now, I was all by myself.. I didn't realize how safe I felt with having all those people at the house. I actually realized that waking up to three strange men in my bed wasn't as scary as waking up all by myself, with no one to call for security. I went to work and all the people at that store hated me. Not only was I the new guy in town, but I made sure they were following the rules, which they had not been doing, which is why there was a manager opening at the store. I would be all alone in the store at night, and men in and out. I worked at a pizza delivery company, and there were always people coming in for carry-outs. Every time I saw a man coming in the door, I would vomit in my mouth a little. It was the same way before I moved, but at home there was usually someone I knew sitting in the store talking. But, even when I was alone at home it wasn't as scary as it was in a new town where I knew no one. I tried meeting some new people a few times, but even meeting women was scary, I don't understand why, but it was. The women had boyfriends, brothers, good men friends or fathers. Finally after three months. One of my drivers came back in one night and found me on the floor of the office, unresponsive. My eyes were open, and I would look at them, but that was that. I had a nervous disconnect. My Dad and three of my friends had to drive down, pack my stuff, load me up from the psych ward, drive me home, put my stuff in storage, and move me in with my parents.

Eight months later, I finally went back to work, almost a year later I met and married my wife. I kept things hidden for another few years. Somehow having my wife around, kept me calm, I did not have the hyperventilate, or paranoia, or anxiety, or panic attacks. Not to mention the only guys I was ever around were the guys at church, and I had been around them long enough that I was fairly comfortable with them, especially they were always like real calm when I was around them. Then I got sick, and having a chronic illness, is enough to drop you into a depression to start with, so I checked myself into the psych ward. Which is where I met Amy, who finally made me admit what had happened, in front of twenty strangers.

I finally got some therapy for my attack, add that to somewhere close to fifteen years since the attack, fifteen years of learning how to ignore my feelings. Allowed me to actually get to a different place, a comfortable place. Of course i still have problems, but i have learned to handle those emotions. I think because I spent my entire school life being bullied, and tormented, and I learned how not to show emotion when someone said or did something to hurt me, so they would not know they had hurt me. I put my attack in the same place I put that torment. For some reason now I enjoy discussing my attack, when I know it will benefit someone else.