An Inch From Murder by Nealus

"An Inch From Murder: My Life as a Male Victim of Sexual Child Abuse" by Nealus - Purchase Here

"An Inch From Murder: My Life as a Male Victim of Sexual Child Abuse" - Buy Here

PREFACE

        The names in this book might not have needed to be changed, if this were a different kind of world, a different sort of Country - a less of a “Sue Happy” world. Some names have been changed - to protect the innocent. Who is that? ME !!!

        In this sue happy world, someone, some day, might come out of the woodwork and sue me, for no reason at all. I need a Heart Transplant - I don’t need someone suing me. What would they sue me for? Who knows? In 1995 - I tried to sue an abuser of mine, one I knew that had assets and I was charged or would be charged by *his* attorneys for attempted extortion, if I had pursued the lawsuit. We didn’t have laws in 1995, I don’t believe for suing child abusers from your past, in the State of Massachusetts. I could be wrong. Maybe, it has changed today - year 2005. I didn’t pursue the charges. I was too afraid of ever being locked up again for doing something wrong. The players and people in this book, although they are disguised somewhat - are real:

        As this is a true story.

        In 1984 onwards, I felt much pain and anger in writing this story. It is one of painful, intimate detail in the hope that others might not experience the full measure of sorrow; to help others suffering know more precisely what it is that they are experiencing as Males - and to give them hope that there is help out there for the many difficult negative personality traits we derive from abuse.

        And I decided - when I learned that I needed a Heart Transplant, at the age of 52, in 2004, that I must finish my pledge to myself in Prison - that if I could save one person’s life, from the heartache and anguish that has come into my life because of Sexual Child Abuse, by writing this book, then I would have truly and finally accomplished something in my lifetime.

        When stories like mine, stop being secrets, and after male victims and all victims of all forms of abuse stop suffering in horrific silence, maybe, just maybe - we are able to work towards stopping the outrages. I decided too, that maybe by me telling truthfully, what you would never discuss over the kitchen table, that you would take this message and hope that it might result in the happy ending for some poor soul, and for the millions of people around the world who right now - might be experiencing similar troubles in their lives and hopefully cause happier endings to come sooner for those that are Survivors.

        This is a personal account that deals with my effort to draw on memory in 1984 onwards; I tried to organize events in my life that would shed light onto the inactions of people, or the actions of people who so dearly affected my emotional growth as a child. I tried to draw my experiences of family life, to voyage through the life of a lonely child yet seemly happy [at least I thought I was - but often times my words in certain chapters will display - utter sadness].

        I want to take the reader through my life as an Irish Catholic boy growing up in Somerville, Massachusetts - 1951-1967; hopefully allowing the reader to be informed, to give background info, to allow them to understand a family - an individual - not like them.

        At times, to notate, that nothing unusual happened - nothing tragic - just an explanation of the input and effect the Sexual Child Abuse might have had in taking away emotional stability. How did the Sexual Child Abuse interplay with the sexuality of the normal learning experiences?

        Was I - an overly sexual child?

        I wrote the following paragraphs below in 1984-1985, marked with the [ ‘ ] - and of course, much of the above, except that I wrote this Preface–2004-2005. But you will probably see clearly, that the following was written in 1984 - unedited.

        ‘What happens to those of us and what goes on inside those of us who haven’t had a conscious awakening as to the effects of Sexual Child Abuse? What if Public Awareness has not yet affected the thinking of the victim, so that he realizes the effect of his experiences? I’m talking about those who have emotional disorders and/or “traits” that they are not aware of - not those that have managed to disassociate the experience. I’m saying, that even the bisexual, or homosexual, or the one with psycho sexual identity confusion, carries that over to those who are abusers or potential abusers, because of a “character disorder” too.

        I’m telling you that I know of that thought pattern because of periods in my life when I was disoriented because of a loss of a loved one, lack of social skills to find a love, obsession to find a love and obsession to receive physical needs satisfied, that you do harbor thoughts of turning towards the thoughts or delusions that somehow an adult male or male companion could fulfill your needs.

        I never connected asocial or anti-social behavior with the disorders that prompted me to do irrational things. What would have happened to me if I hadn’t had a psycho social stressor of losing a job, would I have gone on successfully for a time, then failed again, then caused all sorts of effects from alcoholism etc. - as the cause? Say, I got caught for stealing, I’d be in jail woeing about how sorrowful my life has been because of alcoholism and losing a girl and being awfully depressed. Then I’d head maybe to an alcohol program, suffer the confusion of jail, being just like the other so called misfits of society, no one would get into my head because as always, I’d be shy about discussing the Sexual Child Abuse [SCA] aspect of my past - no psychotherapy to dig that out from the past. I’d have been considered doing something again irrational, emotionally immature and doing something crazy when off on a bender.                                                                               

        Yes - if I had not read the accounts in the paper of other victims [female victims] - I wouldn’t have been traumatizing the past and if I didn’t run into George [my latest perp] I surely wouldn’t have shot him. All those ifs - but only ifs - that I read about 20 years ago. If only someone got the secret out earlier. If I didn’t have a good Attorney and Brother, I’d have never known about Dependent Personality Disorder or Passive Aggressive and if it were not for “Talk Net,” I wouldn’t know about the worrying signs of Mental Illness.’

* * *

        I’m asking for your indulgence here. The above areas of this preface - surrounded by the [ ‘ ] were truly written in 1984-1985.

        If I were to write them today, I certainly would re-phrase many a sentence. But I won’t touch - what I wrote then. And it is with a limited knowledge [you can tell] [you professionals] - that I didn’t have a clue about the reasons, in a clinical way, as to what I was going through. Today, I have insight and have learned of the new psychological terminology. But I felt that you needed to see my state of mind from 20 years ago.

* * *

        In this Preface, I turn my direction now to what I again wrote in 1984-1985.

        I believed at that time, that I would Title my Book - “Assault On The Past.” To follow, here is what I wrote in Jail and what I presented to a few people to explain my efforts. In May of 1985, I wrote the following and got an opportunity to actually type it.

This is Titled “Assault On The Past” by A Male Victim of Sexual Child Abuse. You might say that I had settled on this at that time, as the title for this book–”An Inch From Murder.” The Book has changed a lot naturally as things do in time. In 1987, two years after this first draft, it is evident that I made changes to my thought processes. But here goes. These were my first thoughts - after almost six months in jail.

        Three events occurred during the month of October of 1984 that changed the course of my life. The first was my thirty third birthday which I celebrated with a former friend; nothing spectacular. This so called “friend” is the man I later attempted to kill.

        The second event was that this birthday although uneventful - was purposeful because it marked twenty nine years that I had suppressed the realities and consequences of being a sexually abused child; and I was dealing with the realization that my childhood and adolescent years had been spent as a sexual hostage.

        Thirdly–I had a familiar experience and one filled with animosity because my male friend turned our relationship sour by sexually assaulting me.       Perhaps, these three events taken alone will not seem catastrophic, but collectively they had become the catalyst for my behavior over a forty-five day period which resulted in an act of violent retaliation.

        Looking back now on this short period of my life becomes difficult because it involves the uncanning of a lifetime of emotion; the effects of being a male victim of sexual child abuse. I first began to identify with this frightening social problem after reading several cases of abuse in local newspapers and from learning of the efforts underway Nationally for public awareness. I began thinking more and more about my twelve years; from four years old until sixteen years of age when seven men molested and abused me. It was only after the three events mentioned above did I begin to release the frightening and damaging secrets of my past and to believe that I had found the key which would unlock my struggles with alcoholism, depression, and the need for a heterosexual identity.

        So I decided to begin a book full of the most explicit stories of the conflicts that have raged in my mind through the years and the attempt to bring each problem into focus. I began to discuss this effort with friends and most found the story unbelievable. Almost all asked, “And you never told your parents or anyone until now?” That’s true, and I felt untrusting, confusion and resentment. But I became more determined to discover what effects my experiences as a child and adolescent could shed upon my life. Only by voyaging back and forth, do the causes and effects meld themselves into a complete picture which I am now attempting to review.

        The truth and realization of these events began as a small emotional tremor within me. Through my depressing remembrance of these occurrences, coupled with the ever present effects of alcohol, I began to develop an understanding and acceptance of my past. This awareness and admission of the truth however, erupted as an emotional volcano on a night that still seems to be part of a nightmare. My openness to my friend developed into an unexpected reversal in my hope for understanding. I was sexually assaulted by a so called friend after he insured my guard was down after a heavy night of drinking. This act closely paralleled the friendships I experienced in my youth with men that I believed to be friends, but found out later that I was only a plaything for their perverse sexual pleasure. I was again molested by someone I trusted but as usual I didn’t report this incident to the authorities; just as I hadn’t in my youth. This last experience was so shocking and unnerving that my days of bottling up my experiences were over. I was no longer a child, but an adult being molested and assaulted. The trauma of a lifetime released itself in a rage of fury and renewed depression.

        As early as twelve, my abusers used the enticement of alcohol to break away my inhibitions. Substance abuse became as much a part of my life as had sexual abuse. I began to firmly believe that I approached the problem of alcoholism wrongly; never tying my denials with the environmental experiences of my youth. Rather than masking my past, I should have sought out the elements which made me click. So finally, for the first time in my life I felt that the experiences of abuse were the most significant contributing factor that I previously neglected to consider. I believe that this was the missing link which led to my loneliness and low self-esteem. Now I know that alcoholism was my habitual means of dealing with stresses with which I could not otherwise cope.

        I began to understand that I had not been adequately trained as a child or adolescent to curb my asocial tendencies. Yet, through blurring vision from the continued use of alcohol, I never got a grip on this new found insight. I should have instantly sought out counseling; I should have had a commitment to stop abusing myself but instead I got caught up in distorting my self-awareness. There had been too many injustices committed and the only way to reclaim my self-respect and determine my worth was my ability to take revenge on those that wronged me.

        Through the past several years, I have come to understand that something in addition to alcoholism has been contributing to a life on a shoe-string and in a situation tense with rejection and disillusionment. Something was responsible for my having gone to hospital emergency rooms four times in as many years in a state of depression and/or intoxication. I described myself as being manically depressed but never stayed around long enough to receive a professional diagnosis. My symptoms were becoming more severe and increased in duration. In depression, I had been crying, wringing my hands and experiencing thoughts of unworthiness, sinfulness and wrong doing. I was utterly miserable yet my fears, troubles and worries were of normal human mischances which might happen to anyone.

        I feared failure in life and the ability to be a good father. My fears in fact, became so overpowering as to appear to me like certainties. I had lived through a series of emotional upheavals, abrupt changes of mind; illnesses and my life was filled with loneliness and frustrations. I worked fitfully at jobs which left me nothing but an irritating sense of failure; had changed jobs and had moved around frequently, apparently without plan. I couldn’t face reality and constantly ran away. My troubles seemed insurmountable and the situation seemed hopeless. I even considered life not worth the effort and I harbored thoughts of suicide. I decided of late that my lack of success was due to a lack of incentive. My self diagnosis that the experiences of being a sexually abused child was the cause of my failure, added fuel to the fire and aggravated some form of psychosis.

        Another contribution to this grave state of affairs was my inability to deal with Hypoglycemia. After being diagnosed in 1981 as having low blood sugar, I began reading extensively on the subject. I learned that a proper diet was the key to stabilizing this condition and that proper nutrition would aid many of my roller coaster emotions. The alcohol/hypoglycemia syndrome paralleled the argument of the chicken and the egg. Alcohol was creating the poor diet; the poor diet and alcohol was affecting my sugar balance; and the low blood sugar condition was contributing to alcoholism. All in all, I was an emotional yo-yo on a course towards the big sleeper.

        In retrospect, I began to evaluate my adult years and the struggles to maintain a heterosexual identity. I was married at eighteen and our first child came along quickly within 6 months. Perhaps, I had not spent the proper time as an adolescent - just being such - but I had found a love which won me freedom from the men and from the clutches of the men that wanted to form continued relationships with me. I had my own car when I was sixteen, out of necessity, because I attended school in the inner city but lived in the suburbs. The car also enabled me to pursue women more aggressively. I was able to avoid spending time with the companions of my early teens. I had few friends my own age to call on though, because of attending school - out of town.

        Between after school activities and the traveling, along with my efforts to remain on the National Honor Society at school, I had little time to hang around friends. The summer months between the ages of thirteen and fifteen were spent away from home, so I didn’t have relationships to return to except the men in my life. I found myself cruising around in the car, bouncing about looking for companionship but whatever I found was tentative. At times when these temporary friends and activities revealed a rejection towards me, I would wonder back to my users. I learned that beer was my constant companion and that I possessed ways of getting it, without having to use my fake ID. I discovered along with booze that I could acquire things of monetary value by playing games with adults which again was the beginning of a manipulatory behavioral pattern that I used later in life. I felt that I could take from people as easily as they took from me or that I needn’t give anything in return.

        After a divorce from marriage of seven years, I again found myself an adolescent - it paralyzed me. Now, seven years after the divorce in 1979, I still find myself lacking a meaningful relationship with a woman and was only able to recently realize the end of one emotionally abusive engagement. I always somehow knew that this life was held in a strict balance that could easily be tipped back towards a non-heterosexual identity. I learned this through an experience at eighteen. My college dorm counselor was available to assist me with my struggle and confusion stemming from a separation with the woman that I would eventually marry. His method of understanding and comfort was to suggest a physical relationship between us, which at first I almost submitted to because I was so programmed to this method of problem solving; substance abuse and sex. I denied his pleasure and I remember focusing on the anger, depression, and humiliation that a resolution like he was suggesting would bring. For two years, I had been able to reject the playing around by the “friends” in my life.

        Now, years later, I again feel threatened by my lack of success with women; my feelings are of isolation and of being different from others, of being “marked.” I know now that environmental influences are responsible for many people’s future sexual preferences. If others like myself were nurtured into puberty (interrupting the latency period) and were lead to feel that homosexuality is a natural choice of preference, then in my opinion, some people resort to this sexual indulgence because of their experiencing sexual abuse as a child and can probably only identify with adult homosexuality. I was fortunate as a teen to have had a stronger urge for girls and remain fully committed to spending my life with a woman.

        People say to me now, “Take these experiences and learn from them.” This is easy for others to say; it wasn’t so easy for me. In the days preceding my actions of assault, a trauma was unfolding - I was possessed with thoughts of needing to blame for the material and emotional losses in my life. I looked back with malice and contempt at the course my childhood and adolescence took and at the people that I trusted to guide me on those courses. Today, therapy is helping me reprogram my behavioral patterns. I look at the counseling thankfully now because I have been given the opportunity - with the supervision of the Probation Department - to remain in society after having my emotions lash out in a nearly disastrous manner. I unleashed all my frustrations against my latest molester in an attempt at putting an end to all the abusers in my life. I spent time in jail but it afforded me the opportunity to realize how precious life is and of the importance professionals’ roles can be when releasing one’s secret.

        Where are the people that exerted such a profound influence in my childhood and adolescent years? I think of them often and realize that the whole experience of sexual child abuse had not prepared me for any kind of normal relationship. Two of the seven men that abused me are deceased and I find it only fair to not dwell on their personalities. I will state however, that since I am a Catholic and spent time as both an altar boy and choir boy, the sexual relationships that ensued with my Uncle and his friend (a priest and a Monsignor) have altered my opinion of and participation in the Church. To discuss my Uncle further would be pointless and personally weird, as my father is still alive.

        My parents were separated when I was twelve; I am the youngest of five. I have come to know my brothers better though discussions on this subject because they too were victims of molestation by three of the seven men I knew. These men were relatives and “friends” of the family, and as my next older brother so adamantly stated, “What is frightening is the amount of sickness attracted to our family in the guise of ‘friends’ of the family.” I feel concerned for the countless other people in this country who continue their vigilance (especially males) and have second shelved the experiences of their youth. Perhaps some of them have handled it already and others may have not come to realize the significance of their past; and others unwilling to express any ramifications connected with this type of abnormal sexual experience. I possessed the common denominators so often observed in the abused child. I was a loner seeking adult and parental companionship; came from a broken home and was the youngest child. I never perceived these men in my life as being Gay. I had no comprehension of the term “Bisexual” which some now appear to have been. They all appeared straight; closet queers perhaps but their lifestyles were apparently so active with child molestation that they had no need to pursue Gay life openly. Around my family and at parties all of these men’s sexual persuasions were not apparent.

        My brother’s Godfather was a seemingly decent guy although somewhat scary when I look back at the man at who’s hands I experienced my first molestation at the age of four. The trauma of that early indoctrinating molestation will remain with me for the rest of my life. It is the most confusing incident I remember. This man too was a respected member of the community - an English Professor at a nearby College in Boston. He married later in life and it’s frightening to imagine how he treated his children - his four daughters. He’s the only one of the seven that I later knew to marry.

        My first cousin was twelve years older than I and I looked to him as a big brother, a father and a trusted friend. He was also my instructor in the earliest remembrance of sex - and for years - I only knew of oral copulation as the purpose for achieving puberty. Along with the others, I never knew intimidation or physical force; only secrets, bribes, money, favors, booze and gifts. And I was outwardly a normal active youth. I had a paper route, took accordion and Irish step dancing lessons, attended parochial school and participated in many of the church’s activities. I performed in a concert band as well as a professional band at thirteen. I also took Judo lessons from the age of eight until fourteen. Here is where our family all had an interest and we developed many valuable friends; except one. This “friend” came into my life filling in gaps of companionship left by others. I didn’t realize it at the time but of all the relationships I experienced, this man made me feel cheap and whorish. He was very generous and accommodating when I needed to borrow money. I realize now that I was being paid to be quiet and only around to satisfy his insatiable desires.

        One of my neighbors became interested in me which allowed me to have an afternoon buddy as he worked nights. He was employed as a Deputy Sheriff in the county in which I lived. He, like the other acquaintances of my youth had some appeal to me due to their profession or hobbies. I assisted this man with his bulk paper route deliveries on some weekends. In addition, to the few dollars I earned, he was always full of treats, and as an early teen, I was easily lured by the girly magazines and beer. He was just one more male in the revolving door of my sexual activities.

        A stranger, a co-worker came onto the scene when I was fourteen in a somewhat non-abusing sense because by then I was well aware of the approach. I don’t think that this lessens the effect of molestation because I consented. I never found it easy to say no since I was four years old. This man was in all sense of description - just simply queer. His actions, mannerisms, approach and desires were never hidden or masked. A real queen - a genuine exhibitor of the term, who only desired to perform oral sex; never asking of anything in return. The variety of men that I encountered was more engaged between the ages of eleven and fifteen.

        And now that I think of it - until I reached puberty, there wasn’t much they could get out of me. With my self proclaimed independence at sixteen, I was free to choose any direction I desired away from these leeches. They were no longer able to persuade me to do things that I didn’t want to do, although the division between want and need was blurred.

        I never felt any loss, just an aloneness because their façade of love proved to be an embarrassment to me and resulted in a low self-assurance that carried into my adult years.

        At sixteen, I experienced my first anger, violence, revenge aspect of my personality towards a person who began to introduce me to adult level perversions; in the guise of a female impersonator. This man was my brother’s Godfather crossing into my life again, extending his sickness over a twelve year period. I never felt so cheated in my life and this formed a basis for caution, mistrust and yes, even hatred towards those who would dare cheat me of or lure me away from the normal dreams of my future. As early as seventeen, I knew I wanted a family. I knew that I wanted no part of the sick lives I saw in the roles that these people portrayed.

        If one looks at the rising statistics of reported child abuse, you can just imagine what the unreported volume of cases might be; as was mine. The experiences of my family may or may not be a rare case, but in this situation our relatives and “friends” repeated their perversions on more than one child. Multiply the figures of the Men that I alone have mentioned, times the members of my family and against those that they may have abused in addition, then you might be just seeing the tip of the iceberg.

        I have only had this one experience of being in jail and I learned one important fact. Inmates have the obvious problem in common; being locked up - but the variety of crimes bringing them into jail is as varied as the attorneys who represent them. Only one crime is clearly the most unpopular, by the opinion of inmates; child molestation. The Pedophiles of this country should pray that they stop their actions and get help for their problem.

        Should they ever find themselves in the company of inmates at a Correctional Facility, they will never get the opportunity to see the inside of the “Big House” in one piece. They will regret the occasion when they sit across the table at mealtime, from a Man - a Lifer - in for murder (a victim of sexual child abuse) when the Man asks: “What you in for?.” Protective custody will be the only life in prison that the child abuser will be afforded.

         In November of 1984, I committed bodily harm - not to one Man, but to what he represented. I have come out from the main stratum of society to become a sexual abuse statistic; and a criminal statistic as well.

        Now, my desired hope is that I can prevent a victim of Sexual Child Abuse from developing into a criminal statistic - and more importantly - work towards preventing the SCA statistic - in the first place.

        In Part II Chapter 1 you will find this following paragraph: “the victim had been shot on the right side of his face, the bullet then exited just below the victims left ear; the bullet entered the victims head approximately 1 inch from the brain and approximately 1 and one half inches from the victims spinal cord.”

        This sentence–"the bullet entered the victims head approximately 1 inch from the brain" is the reason that I have titled this book…An Inch From Murder

[authors note: “Nealus” is a nickname the Irish use for Cornelius. I have chosen to use “Nealus” to describe myself–my Pen Name]
 

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