Why I fail

First off, you probably don't want to know this about me. (Cowardly Lion slowly reads from sign: "I'd turn back if I were you." No, really, you should.)

Secondly, and very importantly to me, I've never used this as an excuse for my own actions, and I'm not starting now. But it can be important to know how patterns in our life became ingrained us. That said, this pattern belonged to me before he seared it into my being. I have already repented of and renounced the actions of my youth when it began, and forgiven my forebears for their choices which left me vulnerable.

I've written before about the weekend when he transitioned from grooming me to sexually abusing me. This first incident, on Thanksgiving weekend of 1977 at the YMCA in NYC - so pardon me for never agreeing that it's fun to stay there - was also the first time he prevented me from leaving. I resisted his entreaties for the longest time before eventually submitting to them - and to my own arousal. He was right, of course, that first time: he was only asking me to do in front of him what I already did privately. My own choices are an important part of what made me vulnerable to him. But the pattern I'm now dealing with began to be ingrained into me as he stood there, between me and the door, until my "no" began to yield to "I don't think so," and eventually, "I suppose," resulting in the overwhelming pleasure of the orgasm, and the crushing shame.

Later, in his secret apartment in Baltimore, on multiple occasions he would physically overcome me to impose his will on me, but it still resulted in my cooperation in the end, with its invariable physical and endorphic (if that's a word and not just a band name) payoff. I don't say that anymore to heap blame on myself for something that wasn't my fault. But it's important to really understand how the pattern of eventually giving in became a part of me. I gave in before him, so I'd already invited in that spiritual influence, but he bound me to it when he stole the power from me to be able to not give in when I didn't want to, no matter how determined I was not to.

I am still responsible for my own decisions, though, and that really is the point of dredging up these ugly memories.

So now I take that power back.

That's one of the things I love about Unbound: if something was taken from you spiritually, you can take it back!