T.M. Shannon

Before I start, this post contains a section mentioning being sexually abused as a child. No details are given, but it caused me a lot of damage.

If you have been harmed, seek support and do not be afraid to report it to Police or Family Services departments if it is safe. There are links at the bottom of the page – please use them as someone will hear and believe you.

Hi everyone,

Well, gotta say it, I have a following in India, and I’m gonna be proud of it (thanks for your views guys! Don’t forget to follow me on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn!)

My boosted post on FB didn’t do well, having targeted Australia and New Zealand. I tried to refine the audience and not much happened. I suppose thems the breaks, along with no likes, but I have picked up more followers.

I’ll go more into this venture 1^st of September for the Writing/Blogging post, but I will say my expectations are returning to reality, taking Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays off posting really working wonders for my sanity.

Long journey after all, I might be 6 chapters from completion, but there’s line editing to be done, then waiting on availability of an editor, and needing to get a cover done – maybe I’ll get bookmarks as well for sale, who knows?

But enough of this, here goes with how it all fits together for me, how some unfortunate things got in the way, and how it never quite worked out.

Growing Up

There are a couple of moments in childhood, innocent but unhealthy, that hindsight tells me were clear signs. They would linger far in the background, and it’s not my place to discuss them.

But I found I liked that famous volleyball scene in Top Gun. I don’t know if I was moved by it at the time, but I’m willing to go 50/50 there was a little something going on, I was just aware enough to see anything of it.

Also, Dolly Parton. I’ll let you guess what I was attracted to.

One problematic part were the constant moves, where I went to new schools, went through bullying for being the new kid multiple times, and for being perceived as weak, and these weights would add to the others.

But the most insidious thing I went through was child sexual abuse.

Horrible Experiences

If you feel this section will be trigger you, please skip to the next section.

I’m a survivor with three offenders.

The first was a family friend who abused me on two summer family camps, then at his home where other parents were present on an upstairs deck, and I would see him abuse someone else.

The second was my Scoutmaster, who abused me on a camp and then in the Scout Hall, a career abuser who is currently in jail. This story, though, has a positive conclusion, as I pressed charges that he pleaded guilty to, and received compensation from the Redress Scheme.

The third was when I ran away from home the fourth time, confused and willing to go through anything to get out of home and away from my family, where it wasn’t a supportive environment for me. That included getting into a stranger’s car, and him taking advantage of me.

I have been through a lot of physical pain and mental anguish over these moments, especially the last one as I entered it willingly, as confused and vulnerable as I was.

The greatest breakthrough to these lifelong agonies came around 2012/13, when I started EMDR therapy – Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprogramming.

I highly recommend this therapy trauma survivors, especially those who are experiencing PTSD. Thanks to this, the events are memories and not active moments causing acute pain, though I’m still paying for it in small ways.

And as I’ve come to faith, and said the Lord’s Prayer a lot, I’ve realised I’ve been forgiving my abusers for about 5 years now. We won’t ever reconcile, a two-way street I won’t embark on, as to see them would cause more pain.

But for now, and the future, the animosity, hatred, fear, and shame has lifted, and I am a better person because of it.

The Unhealthy Inlets

Late night movies on SBS became my go-to, a plenitude of films from less-prudish nations, generally scenes between men and women, but a few scenes with just women.

Throw in exposure to non-gay porn, and interest was blooming – I was definitely into girls, but any attempt at going out became a mess.

I would wind up in my dad’s collection of porn, and then his hook up magazines, which also had porn stories in them. But there was a gay men’s section at the back, and more porn there – and I liked it.

Porn continued online as well, back in the early www.com days, and I did end up on a gay site, worried at first then hiding it away second – but it was just the once. And then I had my psychotic episode, and a long bout of recovery. I still didn’t know I was into guys.

I wound up in cruise lounges, along the way getting dragged to Sydney with one guy and getting the hots for another, a guy on the Central Coast who liked me, then a married guy I met in a chat room – while I was myself in relationship with a woman.

One of the first times, it really hit me – I knew I was bi, though I still had no idea what to do with it. That dalliance with the married man was part of the reason my then “fiancé” broke it off, the other getting lost in a video game.

Still in recovery, that experience with the Coast guy shared and then being my outing to the recovery group I was in, uncomfortably asked if it meant I was into members of the group (I had to say no many times, I knew the difference between friends and the guys I got with).

But I was avoiding reality. Thankfully I came out to my case worker, and he sent me to the young gay men’s group that ACON ran in Sydney – there to run into someone I knew from years 5 and 6, in a small world indeed.

I would come to like an English guy, and we were together for a night in the share house he stayed at to study at Uni, but notions of being together freaked me out. The abuse and bullying had done near-irreparable damage.

Sheer Fright

The guy on the Coast took me home after a very long night out, with a discomfort that grew the longer that taxi ride took. I bounced between the discomfort and excitement, then the gay porn grossed me out, and I left.

I found I had to be in control of the situation to be with him, going back and sharing a moment, leaving happy but unable to go back.

I felt I was in control when I continued going to cruise lounges, but I wasn’t in control at all, and only out to men in a little theatre that showed porn.

I met a gorgeous young blond guy one night out at a gay bar in Sydney – where I never failed to get picked up – and I got his number. But I had no idea how to explain I could’ve been going out with a guy, scared to the back teeth of what people would really think of me, and I never called him.

A troublesome night out came, where I got with a trans prostitute at 9pm then in a bar at 10 with another guy who found me attractive. He was complimenting me like crazy, but I was reminded of my Scoutmaster’s build up/tear down, and I left post haste.

He said, “I’m just an old f** who wants to treat you right,” but that notion was fraught long before he said that. It was only in EMDR that I realised I could’ve been assertive, said I was a survivor and uncomfortable, and gotten his number to see him in a better frame of mind.

Picked up another time, I kneed the poor guy in the nose when we tried to have sex.

The fear but earnest interest would eventually come to me entering my 4^th-last relationship and quickly closeting myself because she was far from accepting, plus I believed in committed relationships, nothing open.

Closeting

There were many things wrong with that relationship, and I skipped over red flags in co-dependence. My truth would go deeper into the dark, but of things done wrong she was the one who got me to my EMDR therapy, and that realisation of being assertive in that complimenting situation.

Thinking back, it was probably a call to arms to live my sexuality, but I was committed. I would eventually see myself painted into the corner, with the only escapes being over the paint or out the window, and I stepped out of the closet and sought advice online on how to be my authentic self.

It was unfortunately a site that argued if I was going to be bisexual in a committed relationship with a woman, I had to have sex with men on. I did not give it any thought, there was no way in hell I would that.

But I had to live myself , and the best thing I had to do that with was my writing. Three Ways was born, and I would get most of the first half done. I started reading it to my partner, and she was fine with the guy/girl parts, but didn’t want me to read the guy/guy parts, when I needed to share.

Many things ended that relationship, but wholeheartedly I knew I wanted to be in a relationship with a guy, so I walked away with sadness, knowing our kid would go and live with her overseas.

(But it’s not doom and gloom, I’m in constant contact, I visit him, she brings him over to visit, I spoil him rotten, and I buy his presents on Amazon).

Actual Dates and Comfortable Moments

I know I dated too soon, but as it went that relationship with a guy would never happen.

I hung out with a younger guy for a few hours and I was comfortable with it, though even he was saying, “There’s still a chance with her.” I didn’t have the heart to tell him the red flags or co-dependence, and left that day without any further contact.

I went on a first date with another guy, and we had the conversation about when we knew we weren’t straight, and I felt a little bit of connection. Funny memory, we were outside at a café, and a piece of the façade fell off and whacked me in the head (top class headache the next day).

I thought, “Does God hate me right now?”

Maybe it was a sign that it wasn’t meant to be, as a weekend later he intimated wanting to hook up, I gave him repeated opportunities to make that happen, then he texted me to say he was in the city. I blocked him.

Another attempted date, the app I was using failed to send a message and waiting at my chosen meeting place, I was paranoid that someone was going to bash me up, or stab me, and I turned tail and fled.

I went out to a gay bar with the intent to meet someone, and I remember being attracted his legs when we were dancing. We were quick to kiss, and I was quick to ask him out before I left for home.

We would only be together a few times. Unfortunately, he sent a message that I found objectifying, and had to call it off while also being diplomatic about being a survivor, and got it when I told him that I’d been triggered.

My last date with a guy was the best, wined and dined at one of the best Thai restaurants in Sydney, my hand held when I related my experiences, all without me flinching. I got gooey, and chatting him after there were signs we would hook up – until he ghosted me.

Oh well. His loss.

There were two more relationships with women, and then courtesy of trying to go off one of my meds I wound up having my very religious manic episode. Embarrassed of my impromptu sermon outside St Mary’s in the city, one thing was certain – I found God, or more likely He found me.

A night in the PECC ward and a shaky Thursday shift later, I walked into Church that Friday, stuck around for the rosary, took notes (got worried because I thought we were going to do all 14 Stations of the Cross), and got The Secret of the Rosary from one of the acolytes there that day.

Then I fronted up to the priest saying I was looking to be baptised, and took my first Communion the day after my birthday in 2018.

It Will Have to be The Book

I had never given up on Three Ways, but it had been rather shelved, not quite having the reason to write it. Becoming Catholic, I kinda got it back – living my authenticity while choosing to abide by the Catechism.

I would meet my partner, a loving wife who is my 100% support, and who I came out to by letting her read Three Ways (along with showing her even more of my life).

Sure, some fire and brimstone types will shout me down for writing grievous error (apparently me being with a guy is the worst sin imaginable, pure God-hating, never mind they forget, “Love your neighbour as yourself,” and are the ones hating God by hating someone God created).

I’m going to let them come, try their worst, and serenely accept the quintessential queer religious experience with forgiveness.

Feminine Understanding

I don’t get it myself, but my sincere relations to guys are feminine, partly in a sense of, “Being the girl,” but more in a sense of the feelings felt. In the right circumstance, attention makes me gooey, butterflies in the stomach, a schoolgirl smitten with a heartthrob, all the cliches you can think of.

I’m sure there’s a lot of psychology behind it, maybe it begins unhealthily, but it’s genuine, and perhaps what stopped me entering a male relationship when I was 19/20, being the vulnerable one, seeking a man to express my emotions to, feeling flattered by attention.

Am I unrequited never getting to the romance, relationship stage? Yes. My book is the outlet for it at least, and I’m not sad or reminiscent about it. My life just took a different direction, and I’m now okay with it.

At Peace

I’m in a supportive relationship, having come out to my partner by letting her read The Ways In, having her come with me to the Acceptance masses, sharing my different opinion on safety and fairness – and she got me a stack of pins, one bi-themed, and one with the inclusion flag in.

I won’t get to enjoy purple cupcakes for Wear It Purple day this year, taking Fridays off to focus on my writing and help with the bipolar – but I’ll be there in spirit (and on Teams), wearing my pinned-up Mando shirt, and there’s still IDAHOBIT Day next year.

And apart from my blog, attending a queer 12-step group, and soon to buy a bi flag or themed shirt, go to a Pride event this year, I hope to make steps towards community involvement, or being vocal against problematic views.

Ad Finitum

And I’m going to call it a day there with that faux-Latin.

Whoever and wherever you are, I hope you are safe, and as I mentioned way up at the top, there are services available for support if you’ve been harmed, and do not be afraid to report to Police or Family Services departments if it is safe to do so.

Take care,

T. M.

Help For When You Need It

• Bravehearts Australia (Adult and Child Survivors)
• Heal For Life Australia (Survivors support services)
• Survivors of Abuse Recovering (Canadian and US services links)
• India support lines and services (via Find a Helpline)
• Ireland support lines and services (via Find a Helpline)
• Tautoko Tane New Zealand (for Male Survivors)
• Wellstop New Zealand (North and South Island services)
• South Africa support lines and services (via Find a Helpline)
• Sexual Abuse Support UK (HM Government)
• Enough Abuse (USA Support Services in English and Espanol)
• Adult Survivors of Child Abuse (US, Canada, Great Britain meetings)