October 6, 2026 – The Source

For some of you reading this, after a few paragraphs in, I can all but guarantee that you’ll shake your heads in disagreement, make a determination that I’m a kook, and vow to never return to my site. And that’s ok. Different strokes for different folks.

I’ll be frank. What I wish to discuss today is highly personal and certain to raise a few eyebrows. From here on, I’ll refer to ‘it’ as the Source. The Source? It’s known by many names but that’s what I choose to call it. For those who have experienced trauma, the Source can be a singular event or a series of events that forever changed their lives (for the worse). For myself, I’m referring to the damning thing that happened to me during my formative years to cause me to change how I view the world, as well as myself.

Up until a couple of years ago, the Source has been an unknown. It loomed loud and large but I could never figure out what it was. All I knew was that I’ve really struggled to be on this planet for a VERY long time and that huge chunks of my childhood have been missing from my memory. Huge chunks from before my stepfather entered the picture.

What I find really fascinating is that before relaunching this site, I glanced over a handful of posts I’d made in the past, including the 5-part post about my two fathers. I found it to be quite enlightening and yet utterly confusing. How is it that I managed to paint my stepfather in such a formidable light, while I portrayed my biological father as someone who could do no wrong? Someone, based on my stellar reviews, who could easily qualify as Father-of-the-Year?

Let’s be real. No one is perfect. And when someone is described as being without flaws, that alone should raise a red flag. But that’s the beauty of PTSD (what one tends to develop after being subjected to the Source). In order to survive, our brains occasionally resort to performing something comparable to what Houdini might have done back in the day…The Disappearing Act.

Presto Chango! What was is no longer! At least, that’s the trick your brain attempts to perform. Why would it remove something that once was? Well, that’s one of the many miraculous processes it’s capable of in order to protect us and help us survive. By removing or blocking memories, it allows us to persevere and hopefully live long enough to eventually face whatever caused our brain to initially block those memories.

In my case, I’ve always known something was amiss. I’ve often described how I perceive the world (as well as myself) as viewing it through a cracked lens. Everything appears a bit distorted, no matter what part of the lens I peer through. The other byproduct of this condition is that I’ve always felt like I’m on the outside looking in. As much as I want to belong, whenever I get around other people, especially more than 5 or 6, the lyrics to an old, familiar song always enter my brain, “One of these things is not like the other. One of these things just doesn’t belong.”

I can be sitting amongst what appears to be a really lovely group of mature ladies and it takes nearly everything in me not to leap from my chair and run out of the room. Even as a child, I felt this way. Always the outsider who never fit in. Despite my desire to be a part of something, I just felt apart.

Of course, as a child, the behaviors I exhibited outwardly didn’t help matters. Some of what I did took place behind closed doors. Amongst other things, I sucked my thumb and peed the bed (well into middle school), and was haunted by a disturbing sexual ‘dream’ that played at-minimum once a month, as if someone had put a DVD on repeat. Each time I would have it, upon awakening, I would feel utterly perplexed and racked with shame. This dream continued up until approximately 2 years ago.

My outward behaviors weren’t much better. Fortunately, I had enough self-control to keep my thumb out of my mouth while in public, but that’s about all I was able to control. For the entirety of my grade-school years (elementary through high school), I still peed my pants on a regular basis. However, rather than go home and change, I always kept a lightweight jacket on hand and would wrap it around my waist should I wind up in a situation where my bladder got the best of me.

The logic behind that was that if I were to go home, it would only make matters worse. And the fact that I must have smelled like a urinal in the boys’ restroom somehow never crossed my mind. The other thing I often did was break out in laughing fits at the drop of a hat. But this wasn’t just a slight ‘tee-hee’. I would laugh uncontrollably and so animatedly (face bright red and shoulders shaking, while repeatedly slapping my thigh) that it was impossible to ignore, especially when I began to honk like a goose.

The most random things would trigger this reaction. A ‘funny’ look from a classmate or an unusual picture in a magazine could set me off for upwards of an hour. I actually was sent to the principal’s office on two different occasions, once as a freshman and once as a senior, because my teachers were convinced that I was high on drugs…when I was anything but. Of course, this tendency I had did not help how others perceived me. I had a lot of great attributes, but ‘weird’ is the label I wound up with.

Of course, there’s the ‘other thing’ I should mention which has had a starring role throughout my life. Suicidal ideation. The first time I wrote about it was in a journal at the age of ten. And, man, that’s one thing I haven’t been able to shake. It’s clung to me like an 800-pound gorilla throughout my life’s journey and no matter what I’ve done to change my perspective or how many therapists I’ve seen, it likes to show up for regular appearances and attempt to destroy any and all progress I’ve managed to make.

Bastard.

Ok, so this is where I’m going to return to discussing my biological father.

‘Dear old dad’ he was not. Not even close. Of course, if you read what I wrote about him in an earlier post, you may have gotten a very different impression. It’s certainly the initial impression I had. What a great guy! And, boy, he made me feel so incredibly special! But that’s before in lieu of regular talk therapy, I decided to try something a bit more radical and gave hypnotherapy a shot, along with psilocybin therapy. By trying alternative therapies, my brain finally let me see the parts it had blocked in order to protect me. And I finally understood. FINALLY!

All of those pieces of the puzzle FINALLY came together. All the missing memories FINALLY made sense. All the dots FINALLY connected to create a picture I could no longer deny. And let me tell you, sometimes I wish I didn’t FINALLY learn the truth because it was really, really bad. I’m not going to divulge all the stomach-turning details, but I will tell you this, NO CHILD should ever experience what I went through. NO CHILD.

I may choose to share more at a later date but it’s too sensitive a topic to discuss now. When I first came to terms with it, I was really torn. It’s difficult to wrap my head around what my father did to me because as much as I know it to be true, I’m still hard-pressed to believe it. I don’t want to believe it. The one silver lining from all of this? Knowing the truth has helped me recognize that it wasn’t necessarily a cracked lens I was viewing the world through, it was the lens of shame.

Despite my misgivings about what took place, I am grateful that now I can better understand why I am the way I am. I read a book shortly after the truth landed like a bomb in my lap and the book (not the bomb) helped me immensely. It explained the cause(s) and effect(s) of what I experienced and gave me the answers I had sought for so long. And, strangely enough, after having the multiple radical therapies, I stopped having the recurring sexual dream I’d been having for decades. I actually believe it wasn’t a dream after all. It was a memory.

Have I made any progress since all of these moments of enlightenment? Yes, in some ways. No, in others. I still struggle and I don’t know whether I’ll fully heal or ever feel ‘normal’ during this lifetime. But the good news is that despite whatever you or I have gone through, there’s always hope. It may be fast and fleeting, but if you can grasp it when it’s within your reach, hang onto it with all your might because with hope, there’s healing.

Peace, love and blessings to you and yours…

I wish you well.