When I was a boy of about 12 or 13 years of age, I remember meeting a young man who was probably old enough to be my father. I recall this man as being very kind, handsome and generous. He was highly respected and a much valued contributor in our church. This man, whom I shall call “Alan”, was extremely charismatic and had made a point of volunteering huge amounts of his personal time with the boys from my class.

He used to provide us with transportation to and from local sporting events and oftentimes took us to the movies on Saturday evenings to see films like “Enter the Dragon” and “Cooley High”. Admittedly, I loved being in Alan’s company. He made me feel special.

He had this knack for saying the dumbest things and making you laugh, and since I was being brought up in a single parent home, I welcomed his attention. Gradually, our situation evolved into one where we spent more and more time alone. I would come by his home on Saturday afternoons to help him wash his car or truck, and was elated when he paid me well to do so.

I had clearly taken a shine to this man and I wanted him to fill the role of my absentee father. Indeed, it seemed like things were going in that direction. I remember him referring to me as his “son” from time to time, and whenever he did that, I couldn’t have been happier. It never occurred to me to wonder why a man in his early thirties whom was neither married nor had a girlfriend, wanted to spend so much time with a boy in his pre-teens…but I found out in due time.

It took me years to recover from the emotional damages that were inflicted on me. Most children don’t volunteer information about the details of what took place when they are approached by an adult for sex. The hard part is realizing that the moment a grown person initiates any type of sexual contact with a minor, it opens a door in that child…a door that cannot be closed. Their lives are changed forever and their attitudes about sex are temporarily altered. The good news about all of this is that you can get it back. You can reclaim your innocence, that is, if you are first aware that your innocence has been taken. The process may take a while because most people don’t realize that something is wrong when something like this occurs, especially if the incident wasn’t painfully traumatic.

The child’s view of sex and inter-relationships are changed and what’s in its place is viewed as normal behavior because their perception of life for that time period is their current reality. The views that have been developed, healthy or otherwise, is what is real and plausible at the moment. What this means is that if you have a twelve year old who was molested by an adult, the perspective of that child changes, possibly hindering them from having and maintaining healthy intimate relationships with other human beings later in life.

Believe me, I thought long and hard before I wrote this. I knew that in a country of this size, I couldn’t be the only one that this happened to, and if that’s the case, there may be other people that need to hear exactly what I have to say. I wondered how much easier life would have been for me if Alan and I had never met; and as this thought crossed my mind, I recalled one thing that he had said to me that I will never forget. He told me about the first time that he laid eyes on me. He said that he had walked into the school gym which doubled as the cafeteria and saw this gleeful little boy in a blue shirt and tie running around laughing and playing handball with his classmates. At the time that he said this, I was flattered that he noticed me. But as an adult, I wonder what all of the boys looked like to him including myself. Did he see us all as sex objects, ripe for the picking? I can’t help but wonder about that. And while I’m on that train of thought, just exactly what was he doing inside of a school that he neither worked at nor had children registered to attend? That’s another one that makes you go “Hmmmmmmmm”. I can’t help but speculate about that because it wasn’t until years later, when I got into my late twenties, that I found out that Alan had messed around with a boy a year my junior. That boy was a grade behind me and we had been good friends in that time period, but Alan allegedly hadn’t approached him until he reached the eighth grade, and by that time, I had just become a freshman in high school. Still, I wonder how many other boys were there…and as I sit in my apartment, I’m thinking about how I interacted with other young men as I came of age. I question if I set myself up for emotional and sexual failure resulting in some of the not so pleasant experiences that I’ve had as an adult.

I think about that now because I am acutely aware of the damage that had been done because of a few encounters with a man where I just didn’t know any better. How could I have? I was only twelve or thirteen. I had confused love and lust, and a man old enough to be my father had taken away a part of me that should have been allowed to mature and develop.

I know for a fact that there are other men just like me…men that had been introduced to sex too soon. Some of us just accepted it as the norm while others parlayed it into getting what we needed or wanted, even if that want or need was something as simple as love and acceptance.

I know that I’m not the only one out there and, even more importantly, I’m secure in the knowledge that I’m okay. But I wasn’t always all right. I had to deal with bouts of anger and depression as a young adult without realizing why or how I got to that state. I thought something was wrong with me. Now I know that the deepest scars are the ones that you can’t see – and since I couldn’t see them, I couldn’t rightfully expect anybody else to.

And that brings me to my final point. If you have any questions about yourself as the result of any sexual trauma that you may have experienced early in your life, talk to someone – tell someone that you trust. Work your way back to reclaiming what you lost – and you may be happy with what you find.