Growing up with neglect...

My parents always wanted me out of the house when I was a kid. They sent me to a Catskills sleep away camp when I was 6 years old. Yes, 6 years old. They sent me for 2 months. I was the youngest kid in camp. My parents should have known better and the camp should have been closed down for being enablers to my abuse. They shouldn't allow such young kids barely toilet trained into camp...

I had a counselor who used to tickle me silly until I couldn't stop laughing and then hit me until I would cry... and then repeat. He did this to another kid in the bunk too. I was confused but the other kid had the balls to go to the head counselor. He didn't do anything about it. The counselor continued on his merry way through the end of the summer. (I actually had the opportunity to confront this counselor years later when he came back to camp as a chosson for a shabbos. It totally was against my nature to do that but I asked him in public if he planned on abusing his wife the way he abused me. I don't know where I gathered the strength to do that.)

School was the same way. My parents started me off early at 2 years old in nursery so I was always the youngest in the class. Smartest, but youngest. Not a good combination for the bullies. They don't like smarter than them and being the youngest made me an easy target. Lucky me, I was sensitive and would react at the slightest provocation... that egged them on even more. I constantly found myself on the other side of harmony. I didn't have peace at home. I didn't feel protected in school and didn't have a respite from the madness in camp.

(Sorry for painting such a bleak picture but part of the reason I started this blog was because I needed to vent. It has been somewhat cathartic.)

It is horrible not to have anyone to turn to. At the time I couldn't, and even now I cant think of any specific person who I might have been able to talk to about what I was going through. The only picture of love I can remember was my grand father who lived nearby. I unfortunately came home from school one day as a young boy, to him having had a heart attack and passing away young.

My parents sensing my unhappiness had the sensibility to set me up with a therapist. More later on the disaster that experience would turn into.

To close this entry I guess I wonder why I was destined by shamayim to have my spirit so broken as a child? What was Hashem setting me up for? How has it shaped who I am today? Sitting in my den at home, while my wife sleeps upstairs, anonymously blogging about my gay existence, not wanting anyone to know who the real me is. Where will this all lead?

Genetic? Maybe, but I don't think so....

While I believe there is certainly a genetic aspect to homosexuality; I believe I don't need to go there to explain my deep yearning for male intimacy.

There is no question that a prerequisite for an individual to grow up with a sound feeling of self and a healthy emotional balance, their childhood home had to feel safe. A home for a child needs to be a place that they can fall back on for stability even when it seems like the rest of the world might be falling apart.

Of course for a home to feel safe there typically has to be a positive relationship between the parents and a general feeling of calm and predictability in day to day life. Love and encouragement on a proactive scale wouldn't hurt either but might not be absolutely necessary.

I for the most part did not enjoy any of the above feelings of safety. I grew up in New York City with second generation holocaust survivors as parents. I dont judge them becauae they had to live with parents who woke up screaming in middle of the night from the nightmares of their childhood.

My father was a successful business man who gave a ridiculous amount to tzedaka. He was into the New York political scene. Rabbi's fawned on him. He was cool. Good looking and charismatic.If I had a dime for every person who told me what a wonderful guy he is I would be rich. How I yearned for his love. I believe he loved me dearly but didn't always have the means to express it. I needed him to touch me gently and to tell me that he was there for me. He sent me to a yeshivish/heimish boro park elementary school. If you think there was a male role model I was able to count on for a healthy male child adult relationship you would be quite wrong. (That might be for another post.)

My mother had to hold up the fort on her own. She unfortunately wasn't emotionally strong enough to raise all of us. Without going into details, she lived a difficult and complicated life that played out in my relationship with her. I could truly write up a book on my upbringing and the difficulty it was.

Yes, this is the gay cliche of absent father & dominating mother. What could I say? I grew up yearning desperately for the love of a man while being turned off by the instability of the primary female in my life.Where did that leave me? You guessed it.When puberty set in, that yearning turned into something more sexual and physical in nature. Unsatisfied, it just raged on further.

As I started this post, I can never say for certain that elements of my gay desires are not genetic. I have no question though that my life experiences can explain my homosexuality as a learned behavior or at a minimum it has fanned that genetic flame in a very powerful way.

Ultimately, when I stand here today it makes absolutely no difference to me how I got here. I can't undo genetics, nor can I undo my life experiences.