Earlier this year I had the honor of displaying some of my art in an exhibit sponsered each year by the Survivors Art Foundation-locally at the university near my home,the University of Florida.
(www.survivorsartfoundation.org)
Iimmediatly noticed a collage’ done by a young woman I assume was college age by what I could pick up from her art work. The collage’ that caught my eye was the word TRUST framed and matted and hanging there-the word was written in razor blades. I understood the meaning and pain behind that immediatly.
I have a pattern in my life which is a practice I call ‘damage control’ a title I derived from a course we did in boot camp where we put out certain kinds of fires and learned how to button the ship down if it was ever to get a huge hole in it and develope a leak. However my ‘damage control’ was where I inflicted damage on myself and the control was the level of control I placed on it…the extent of the length of damage I would subject myself to. Like the razor blades somewhat but instead of putting the razor blades in my hands to do the damage I would put myself in harms way and try to get others to do the damage-more less easier to explain that I would re-enact my submissions at barracks D and do these things in a public place where I could be sure to be beaten up-if not molested again. One such adventure during ‘damage control’ I was beaten so badly that I ended up in the veterans hospital for about two weeks-there was other damage too. I recently read about a man my age who was simularly raped as I was…in the military-circumstances nearly alike. He is now as I am-older , and seeking treatment and he tells his story where he uses duct tape to tape knives on his thighs and his ankles to have them ready for a potential attack-but has recently started cutting himself with them where as he sought help. I am not interested or capable of cutting myself but I had found it possable to get corrected by going out and finding the trouble to harm myself.
I thought I had such under control-it seemed to cease back about eleven years ago but something kicked me off earlier this year and surprised me and scared me at the same time-sickened me. I thought I had won that battle long ago. Fortunantly I was able to turn around and go and flee from the potential hazard of it finding my way to the home of a VA nurse I know and there I lost my self in tears weeping from the filth that existed in me earlier that day-the same filth that I have carried for all of these years.
a males life after rape 