First things, First ... ((( Charity))), a cyber-hug.

Second Things, Second ... "I'm still here".

Ok now we've got that accomplished. I am feeling a bit agitated, not bc of your content, but bc the damn Right margins on some of your emails continue to extend as far east as Japan - which makes it mechanically difficult to connect w all of the emotion and insight you are sharing.

No Charity, your content doesn't scare me. And I am even as I type flipping a quarter in my head trying to decide how I want to share my story w you. I am a big fan of being in person and eye contact and (even though I shy away many x,) those reassuring touches. But since it will be a while since we see each other in person I may as well just go for broke and put it out there. I feel very safe in communicating w you now, it was mainly an issue of style of sharing vs desire.

1. born 3 wks late - I didn't want to come out of the water even back then, I was swimming laps in there maybe \:\)

2. i was developmentally delayed and didn't walk until almost 3y

3. I was diagnosed w hypothyroidism, placed on synthroid and made huge gains in development.

4. (deep breath) At age 7, I was sexually abused by an Episcopal priest who is a serial pedophile (I want to cry) I can't ever find the words to begin to explain how my life has been impacted and still is today. Charity, this is the beginning of PTSD - this is the core of my fears of myself being happy and successful and in love ... that something which feels safe is somehow going to turn on me. And if you are stupid enough to try and glibly say "that's all in the past" you can consider our conversations over. I am haunted by feeling "not good enough" every day of my life. I am not scared of love, but sexuality (one of the most beautiful pleasures) has always made me lock up w fear, shame or guilt - I am just now beginning to accept and be in contact w myself as a sexual person. And just for the record, to be authentic - I had a Very steamy dream of you and I, last night. But the flip side of that is I have had myself pounced on sexually by several women - and I just shut down bc I was overwhelmed.

5. ok, moving on. I shut down as a child and I have little (few) memories of childhood before 3rd grade. I became the quiet, shy kid who no one played w and who was ridiculed mercilessly. Please Charity, don't miss the significance of my "shutting down" and the emergence here of my life pattern of disconnectedness and dissociation from real life. It was all I had as a child.

6. My parents had to take me out of public school in the 7th grade bc I was getting bullied and beaten up daily. I had begun to shoplift. I had stopped talking, even to my family. shut down.

7. On June 6, 1979 I was walking home from visiting a friends house and God(?), the Universe(?) timed everything perfectly, for me to see my younger sister get hit by a car. I watched her fly off her bicycle. (another trauma). I ran home and broke the news to my mom. I watched my father who was a county fireman, arrive at the scene of his own child's accident. My sister was helicoptered to Johns Hopkins Childrens Center. She didn't die. She arrested and lived in a coma, brain dead for five more years. She died alone in some long term care hospital.

8. I was approached by a man in a tan Volare' who tried to seduce / abduct me while I was walking home from playing video games at the mall. There was another boy in the backseat of the car who was struggling to get out of the car. Realizing the other boy was about to escape the driver sped off w him and left me (another trauma). I have always wondered, worried and felt guilty about how I survived and I don't know what became of the other boy.

9. I was swimming at the ocean when I was taken out by the tides and could not get back in. I almost drowned, I don't remember getting back to shore but obviously I did (another trauma).

10. I never went out on a single date in high school.

11. My early adulthood can be summed up in the terms Triggered and Depressed.

thats all for now.

Geez thats too much anyway and since I am still learning about healthy disclosure, I hope I haven't gone too far. I don't share hardly any of your views about God and that worries me. But I want a relationship bc I like talking w you ... perhaps I am distancing bc I am feeling vulnerable.