Becoming a Man in the Shadowlands

“If you wish to have a life worth reading about you must first live a life worth writing about.” – Charles H. Randall

I was sexually abused as a child. I started writing this book by accident. One day over a cup of coffee, I told a friend. The words slipped out of my mouth before I could catch them. The secret, which I had hidden within myself for fifty years, was no longer a secret. As I broke down in tears, my friend became the first person to know.

The simple sharing of a secret unleashed a flood of emotions and memories. The experience was almost overwhelming and to restore order to the chaos of recollection; I started a journal which evolved into the story you are now reading.

I had kept the secrets and memories of my abuse hidden within me for so long that my silence became a prison. Childhood abuse casts a long shadow over the lives of the abused.

I am a survivor of the Shadowlands, and today I’m finally free. I have begun the healing process. All the energy I had consumed keeping the secrets locked within me is now available to help myself heal.

For me, healing is nothing more than coming to terms with my past and understanding how my experiences helped to shape the person I have become.

Childhood’s forge of experience shaped my life one event at a time. Each of my abusers took their turn as the blacksmith. They assaulted my body and mind with their will, each strike shaped and twisted me into new ways and directions. I resisted, to the best of my ability. I refused to break, and I would not yield. Nevertheless, I did bend and change. I would never be the same again.

Healing will be a long and sometimes difficult road to journey, but I would rather walk this path with friends in the sunshine than to travel alone in the darkness.