The one where he says he was r***d

He posted this on his "personal" Facebook page. It's sad and many parts of it ring more true than some of the other stuff he's said about his childhood. I believe the new stuff.

I have PTSD/CPTSD from a 17 year long childhood of violent physical abuse by my adopted family. I also suffer from PTSD, major depression and anxiety, and likely am on the spectrum (getting tested).

TRIGGER WARNING: A lot of what you read here might cause you distress, if it's too much please do not continue reading. Thank you. If you need help, please consult with a professional.

DISCLAIMER: I'm not a therapist. I'm a survivor. This is not advice or therapy. I'm not legally allowed to give advice on these things. I offer my own personal experiences and my actions and methods that worked or didn't work for me. That is all.

***

This post is the next part of my story. If you haven't read the first part, scroll down and read it. My PTSD is caused by the physical abuse, as well as sexual abuse (SA). I was r@ped twice, on 2 separate occasions by people outside the family.

About my experience with coping with PTSD. When you suffer from PTSD you are wired in full time fight or flight mode. It's constant, (at least for me it is) you can never shut it off (I'm learning how to tone it down). Some times it's quieter than others. Other times it's as loud as a bullhorn screaming in your ear. I personally get flashbacks, moments where I'm instantly back in my childhood body and mind, even if only for a split second, I'm there, in that moment, and I relive it over and over again every time it creeps in. Many things can trigger the anxiety and sense of fear and panic. A smell, a sound (quiet or loud), a familiar voice, a word or a song, a ringtone or the sound of an insect. A warm puff of air that smells like a memory can trigger a flashback. It can happen anytime, anywhere.

It triggers my agoraphobia and fear of crowds, fear of being in a situation that's full of energy and vibes I can't control, they overwhelm me and max out my senses and I have to suppress the urge to run. I've learned over the years to cope with it and move through it. For example I don't like going to the store, or anywhere for that matter, because people in public make me nervous, not a regular kind of nervous. I'm talking about panic attack nervous. Like feeling like I'm having a heart attack level nervous.

When I go to the store I have to get in and out of there fast. I don't like being in the store for too long and actually start to panic if things take to long. My panic turns to anger, (because fight or flight mode) and this damaged my relationships because from their perspective, we go to the store, everything seems fine, and then I suddenly start getting agitated and nervous. If they ask me a question I get short with them and it seems like I'm just being rude. From the outside I appear normal, calm, but on the inside, there's an explosion of emotion I'm suppressing so when people ask me a bunch of questions, questions about what we're getting, questions about which cheese to pick out, questions about which bread or size milk carton to buy, I snap back with short seemingly rude fast answers because I'm just wanting to get what we need to get and get out so I can calm down and stop panicking. It doesn't always happen this way, but it happens more than I want to admit.

So when I'm in a store or any public place, I need to get out of these fast!

Not that I think something is going to happen, I just am overly sensitive to the energy. The louder a place is with people energy the more panic inducing it is for me. Which is odd, because I used to go into a club or party with loud music and be fine. Mostly because I was drinking and it calmed me down. This is why people with PTSD drink. Not because we're alcoholics, but because alcohol is a depressant. (let me be clear, too much alcohol is bad for anyone. If you have a drinking problem, seek help, don't self-medicate). Having said that, I will tell you my experience. I went 30+ years with just normal social drinking at parties, loud music+alcohol, numbed the fight or flight response. I was able to push back the urge to run and calmed me down from the panic attacks.

You can imagine how the PTSD can affect personal relationships, marriages, friendships and family.

It's a lonely life because you end up pushing people away with your behavior. I never told anyone about my PTSD because I didn't know I had it until about 5 years ago or so. Always thought it was just anxiety related to my agoraphobia, but one thing is linked to the other.

Some people sadly think you can't have PTSD or CPTSD if you're not a veteran and haven't been in combat. Every time I talk to my doctors or people I open up to about it, the first thing they say after I say I have PTSD is "What branch of the military?". I'm like... "No. I didn't serve in the military." and they usually say something like, "Oh...ok." and change the subject.

It's humiliating and makes me feel like they don't believe me, or they're quietly judging me, like some kind of backwards stolen valor bullshit. They don't realize that real people, anyone, can get PTSD from any traumatic event. It's not just caused by combat.

And while I've been shot at, and chased by people with guns before, I have never been in combat or the military, it was traumatic.

When I was 8 I watched a carload of people burn to d3@th after they wreck in the front yard of the house I grew up in. (I think I was 8...it's hard to remember exact ages because the violent abuse was happening during my whole childhood, so all the normal and other traumatic shit that happened, all of it just kind of blurs together.

I can pick out certain events that happened and general time frames and ages, but if I had to tell you how old I was at a certain time when a certain event happened to me, I could only be general.

Like when I was sexually assaulted by another student in school when I was in second grade. I can't remember my age, I'm going to guess 7 since I was 5 in kindergarten, so I had to be 7.

Then it happened again when I was 16, a guy in a van, with beer, promised me he'd give me some liquor (whiskey) at his place, I had already had a few beers and was drunk already, and he took me back to his apartment and, yeah...16 years old. He was 45 or 50...? It was r@pe, and I've never spoken publicly about it until now. I never told anyone after it happened. I spent years confused and went through another SA when I was 17, and finally one more older man tried to feel me up in his car. I broke his arm and smashed his nose, bl00d went all over the windshield and I jumped out of the car and ran.

I can hear some people blaming me or asking why the hell a 16-17 year old boy is riding around in vans and cars with strange men. Well, I didn't have a car, I let a friend drive my Mustang and they seized the transmission, so I ended up on foot. If I wanted to go see my friends (because I lived so far out in the sticks) I had to find a ride. Most times my adopted parents didn't want to take me anywhere and usually told me no when I wanted to go somewhere. Around 13-14 I started just doing whatever I wanted and going where I wanted, staying out all night and partying with my friends. Drinking and smoking and getting high on weed. I used to like acid and shrooms but my go-to was vodka back then. Then it was rum and coke, and of course beer. Anyway...

I was out and about as much as I could be at that age because it was an escape from the beatings, yelling and screaming and verbal abuse. I spent most of my time fishing. My friends were usually older and could buy beer and cigarettes and the occasional joint, so that was mainly my thing. Go fishing, buy some beer, teach people how to fish.

I stayed out of trouble, mostly. Never got arrested or caught by the cops for anything serious, a few times for trespassing, kid stuff, exploring and fishing. Ran from the cops a few times, dodged them a lot. Mostly I just hung out with my friends and went fishing. That was my happy place.

I never opened up about all the abuse at home or the SA by those men to anyone until now. Except for my exes. They know. I told them. And my sister knows, but only because I only recently told her in the last 5 years. My brothers (adopted) don't know about the SA. And only one brother knows about the physical abuse because he was there for a year or two in the house before he moved out. He is a year older than me, not my real brother, friend of the family, close, grew up together. He moved in with me at my place after I got him kicked out of his parents place by sneaking up to his window late one night around midnight and tried to get him to go fishing. He said no, and when we cranked up the truck to leave, it was loud and woke up his mom. His parents kicked him out after that, and he moved in with my family for a year or two. Not sure how long, that was right before the time my dad and I got into a big fight and I moved out.

I never told anyone about the SA because yeah, it wasn't something I felt needed to be shared. I was dealing with enough violent shit at home at the time that I was in survival mode. The SA was a whole other level of bullshit to deal with and I chose not to deal with it.

That's enough for now. I know I jumped around there a bit, but I wanted to give a little background on my PTSD and why I'm so fucked up.

I pretty much avoid people now. I do my thing online and I do what I need to do to get by, but yeah. This is my life.

I chose to open up and let it go because it has completely destroyed my life by holding it all in. I'm hoping this can be the actual beginning of healing.

I'm getting therapy now, real trauma therapy for all the specific types of trauma I have. And if on this healing journey I can actually heal my self or help someone get through their own trauma in some small way, then I want to share that. Writing all this out is in some way therapy in itself. It helps me cope. It gives me control over it instead of it controlling me. It lets me deal with it. It's the letting go part that is tripping me up. That's a hard part. I have a lot of rage inside me from all of it. I'll get into all that later in another post.

I will be doing videos later about it starting from before my birth, all the way until current day. I'm not ready for video yet. I need to get there and mentally prepare for that. I'll be making videos throughout my healing process and therapy, and I will be including my off grid journey as well.

Thank you for reading, thank you to my friends and family for your support, thank you to all my supporters, fans, followers and folks who are just curious about how to get through trauma and build a better life.

Will I make it? I don't know. I almost died June 2025, now it's Aug '26 and I'm 53 years old. I'm not getting any younger and I'm in bad physical health. I need to lose weight, work out and get my shit together or this trauma is going to be the end of me. I need it out of me and this is my release. If it works then I can finally move on. I think it will work. I believe I can finally deal with what I've been running from my whole life.

Thank you for joining me on my journey.