In a small town in the old west, a lone and weary gunfighter enters a saloon. As he walks through the room surrounded by the people of the town, a voice begins narrating the scene, telling us exactly who this gunfighter is. But unlike every classic western to use the narrator trope, the characters in this film can hear the voice. This omniscient narrator quickly begins divulging the deepest, darkest secrets of the people in the saloon. He exposes infidelity, homosexuality, prejudice and even a bit of bestiality. As the story unfolds it becomes evident that the voice is a bloodthirsty bastard that wants nothing more than to see the people of the town kill each other in a needless gunfight.
As many here may know by now, I have PTSD and Intrusive Thoughts. An intrusive thought is an unwelcome, involuntary thought, image, or unpleasant idea that may become an obsession, is upsetting or distressing, and can feel difficult to manage or eliminate. Everyone here has been very supportive as I have been having a surge in memories and issues with it. Memories of humiliations, rapes, forced oral sex, and horrific punishments for a kid of 3 to nearly 8 years old. Things like rubbing alcohol poured into my stretched wide butt cheeks as I was held down nude, to let it flow over my anus to my tiny balls and dick. Things like being tied to the stair banister with something that kept him head yanked up, blindfolded, hands either tied to the railings or through them so I couldn’t use them to help myself. In that position the hell spawn would leave me to randomly come by to hit me, stick something in my butt, pinch me, put painfully cold objects or painfully hot ones on my sensitive areas including submerging my tiny genitals in them. Anything to torture me and see me cry for hours. The memories cause the bombardment of thoughts. Suze here recommended a cortisol level check as that will make it harder to stop the thoughts. She said there is medication to lower the level.
I told Ron about her recommendation and Ron also agreed. But unknown to me Ron was looking up a medication he takes, Sertraline. Sertraline, sold under the brand name Zoloft among others, is an antidepressant of the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor class. The effectiveness of sertraline for depression is similar to that of other antidepressants, and the differences are mostly confined to side effects.
I went to bed about 7 pm. I couldn’t sleep. When he came to bed at 9:30 pm, I told him I couldn’t sleep, that my mind wouldn’t slow down, the thoughts were feeling like constant bombs going off in my head. As we lay there he was reading his tablet and I was trying hard to sleep. I was occasionally spitting out a word here or there that I couldn’t stop and did not realize I did it until after it came out, I was involuntarily waving my hands like I was trying to push something away from me. Again not knowing I was doing it until I did it. That is when he said he had looked it up and it was also used to treat PTSD and intrusive thoughts. He takes a very small dose of 50 mg he said. I reminded him what happened when they tried to put me on those mood stabilizing / mind numbing drugs. He said that he thought it was time for me to see someone again and start treatment before it get worse. He had hoped it would pass and wain like it normally does, ramp up, spike, then drop down to manageable. Now he was worried. I told him I did not want the costs of a therapist right now, and I did not want to see one. He wanted me to call or message my primary care with the issue and see if they could handle the issue as his handles his anxieties.
That is a big step. Ron has not pushed me to see a therapist in a very long time. Over a decade or so. But I have this last year been telling him in detail the different things I remember and the abuse I suffered and from whom. Before it was always the generalized, not specifics. He doesn’t want me to return to a state where I am hyper vigilant, started in to flight or fight at every sound. Unable to sleep and when I do, then screaming out in my sleep or begging not to be hurt. He is worried I will get back to the point that if I am sleeping and he walks into the room I wake in fear ready to fight to defend myself, not yet aware of where I am. So in the next few days I will do as he asks, and check in with primary care. Hugs. Scottie
Hi everyone. As many of you mentioned and one of my doctors said I have PTSD. and it has really been pushing me hard lately. He came to me about 2 hours ago and asked me to stop blogging and watch a move or play Halo. He was getting very worried about me. I told him OK, but first I wanted to answer some comments. He came in a half hour later and seen I was still blogging. He again asked me to stop and watch a movie. I told him only a few more, I don’t want to lose them. He came in a few minutes ago after an hour and half, and said enough. He asked me what newish movie I would like to see. I told him I have never seen Spiderman No way home. He asked me to find it. I did on Prime, but it was $8. and I balked at paying that. Ron told me to buy it, and then as I ate supper watch it. Anything. Just stay off the blog, no news, and no MS site stuff. So dear viewers, I give in to my husband I bout it, and will now watch it. Hugs. Scottie
Hi. I am torn up right now with memories. I am not sure what to do. I wrote one of them to Jill telling her some of my abuse because she has told me it is ok to do that. Still it bothered me. My mind won’t release. I am having one of those times that the vortex of dark despair is hovering me right outside me. I am trying to distract my self. Damn it! I am 61 now, my last rapes happened in my early 20s. I am safe. I am happy. I have a wonderful husband who is even now making ravioli baked in the red sauce I made. Yet the memories come over me in waves. I want to forget, I want to not feel it like I did when it happened. But … but … Oh hell, I am going to do comments to help my mind settle. But today my emotions are raw and I have memories that hurt. At what point in my life do they go away? Really I am 61. I am safe, it is water under the bridge. Yet …. OK hug. Scottie
One of the guys on the MS blog shared this with all of this. Hugs. Scottie
Pastor Seth Shelley takes us on an emotional and at times difficult journey about male sexual violence. He brings forward his own story of sexual assault to ask men to open up about their personal stories too. Recorded at TEDxUNBC in Prince George, BC.
Seth speaks to an issue common around the world, sexual assault. However, it is men who also need to share their stories of abuse. Far too many men are silent about their own stories of trauma and eventual healing. It is our society’s ideas around masculinity which prevent men from opening up, and steal their narratives from them. Only through sharing with friends and family do we reclaim our stories for ourselves.
There is something that has been preying on my mind and it is effecting my sleep and my day, every day. It is not critical yet. I started the post then sent it to draft. The issue is my memories of two of the methods used to punish me when I was 3 until the family moved about when I turned 7 years old. It is painful to think of and I know it will be even more painful for those who read it who did not live my childhood. I started a post and then shoved it into drafts until I could decide to publish it.
Here is the thing. I have come to care about my viewers, and I really have learned to care about people, all people, every person in some way since my miserable childhood. I have learned to see most people as good, and learned the hard way to recognize those that are not. I try to find the best in people, try to find a way to understand them.
I know if I write out what is inside me, it will hurt people, the people who come here. I have even hesitated to put it on the Male Survivor forums I belong to as there are a bunch of new people struggling and I don’t want to trigger them. I reached out to a good online friend there who had been pimped out all his childhood, professionally from 9 until 24 when he ran away. Like me right from his earliest memories after being adopted he was abused and sexualized. I asked him if he thinks I should write it and post it. I will look for his response tomorrow.
But while I may put it there, the question I have is should I put it here. There are new people here also, and there are new authors, Ali and Randy. Their followers may be shocked by what my childhood was and leave the viewership. I am confused, I am hurting, and I am struggling with this. I always used my blogs before to tell of my abuse before I even told Ron about them. But now I am torn. I want to get this out, yet I want to protect people.
Ok wonderful people who come here and read our posts. What do you think, please be honest. Should I write what I am feeling, what is bothering me here, or try to keep it bottled up inside me and maybe only share it there on MS? Thanks. I do care about each of you. Best wishes and / or Hugs as you prefer. Scottie
Idaho’s recently enacted bill encourages parents and children to bring legal action against schools and libraries that refuse to move certain material into “adult only” sections.
Books are displayed at the Banned Book Library at American Stage in St. Petersburg, Fla., on Feb. 18, 2023. (Jefferee Woo/Tampa Bay Times via AP)
A recently enacted law requiring Idaho schools and libraries to remove materials that are “harmful” to minors infringes on the First Amendment rights of private entities, a group of private schools, privately-funded libraries, parents and schoolchildren say in a Thursday lawsuit.
House Bill 710 — which took effect July 1 after Governor Brad Little signed it into law in April — allows citizens and the government to file a lawsuit against any school or library that doesn’t move certain material into designated “adult only” sections within 60 days of a complaint.
“H.B. 710 is the product of a social climate in Idaho (and elsewhere) in which schools and libraries have been inaccurately and unfairly castigated and villainized for using and making available constitutionally protected materials with content that the state and some Idahoans disapprove of,” the plaintiffs say in the 57-page complaint.
The suit was brought by private schools Sun Valley Community School and Foothills School of Arts and Sciences, along with the Community Library Association, a privately funded public library, and Collister United Methodist Church, which operates a lending library.
The groups are also joined by a set of parents and two high school-age students, who say that they want access to these reportedly “harmful” books and other materials to further their education.
The plaintiffs say the law violates their First Amendment free speech rights and their Fourteenth Amendment rights to due process. They ask the court to block enforcement of the law and to declare HB 710 unconstitutional.
“The act’s vague and overbroad definition of ‘harmful to minors’ conflicts with decades of settled constitutional law and extends well beyond the state’s limited authority to restrict the materials that private parties, like the private entity plaintiffs, may provide to minors,” they write.
Under the act’s definitions, the plaintiffs say, materials like health and sex education textbooks, literary works like Maya Angelou’s “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings” and artworks like Michelangelo’s David would all be subject to removal, possibly based on arbitrary and subjective reasons.
“Even the Bible, if a defendant or citizen complainant subjectively believes members of their community would find them offensive,” could be targeted, the plaintiffs note.
The plaintiffs also take specific aim with a clause of the act that restricts materials that depict or represent “sexual conduct” — a definition that includes “any act of … homosexuality.”
Beyond the “vague and overbroad” definition of what constitutes “harmful for minors,” the plaintiffs also take issue with what they called the “incoherent” enforcement provisions outlined in HB 710. The act “fails to provide constitutionally meaningful guardrails on enforcement,” plaintiffs say.
“If a private entity plaintiff disagrees with the content-based assessment of the parent or minor and declines to segregate the challenged material, the parent or minor is authorized to file a civil suit against the private entity plaintiff and incentivized to do so by a cash reward and the availability of ‘actual damages,’” the plaintiffs write, referring to a provision in HB 710 that allows for a possible recovery of $250 and statutory and actual damages, if the complainant prevails in the case.
The government itself is also permitted under HB 710 to seek an injunction against any of the plaintiffs, who say this could lead to financial and reputational harm.
The plaintiffs name Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador as a defendant, alongside Jan Bennetts, prosecuting attorney for Ada County, and Matt Fredrick, prosecuting attorney for Blaine County.
HB 710 is not the first attempt Idaho legislators have made to restrict library access in the state. A version of the measure made it through the 2023 session but was rejected by Little.
In a letter after he signed HB 710, the governor commended the 2024 bill for having tighter definitions for restricted material and for lowering the recovery from $2,500.
“I share the co-sponsors’ desire to keep truly inappropriate materials out of the hands of minors,” Little wrote in April.
Libraries initially pushed back on the bill, citing free speech concerns and the financial burden it could levy, particularly on smaller libraries, but legislators stood by the measure.
“I can assure you that there is no book banning and there’s no book burning and there’s no book removal anywhere in this legislation. What we have to look at when you look at these libraries is that you have differing viewpoints and different opinions from taxpayers,” Representative Jaron Crane, a Nampa Republican and bill co-sponsor, said in committee, the Idaho Capital Sun reported in March.
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