Growing up in a world where your predominant thought is I don't want to be here or alive, can be a little stressful. I was born in the 60's to immigrant parents who came in search of a better life from war ravaged Holland. My father was always an amazing man, kind thoughtful a slow to anger. I can count on one hand the number of times I was punished by him. My mother however was a hurt individual. She was angry, snapped at the drop of a penny and lashed out at us. We were always told that we were not good enough, to dumb, to lazy, to useless. She was a different person in front of friends, then she was the was the worlds best mother. Behind the scenes we were punched slapped inched etc.
The first incident of sexual abuse I can remember is at about the age of five, someone performing oral sex on me, a woman. Its like a slide shot, I cant remember who but I can remember the change in my life. It is clearly visible in pictures, the spark of joy was missing in my eyes when I smiled.
From then on I became the local toy. Men and women would molest me, and this continued till the age of 12. It was then that I experienced my first rape, again I was an innocent child on holiday when a woman 5 or 6 years my senior climbed into my bed one early morning. She was naked and she was definitively not the sort of girl that I would have been attracted to, if that was possible at 12. But she fondled me and asked me to climb on top of her and we had sex. It was off course a few seconds as i was not an experienced boy. It was only years later that I realized that this was rape, I was just a child. This set about a series of dysfunctional coping mechanisms in my life, whisky being the main one. I started binge drinking from the age of 13. It was a hobby that I would practice whenever I got the opportunity. Masturbation was another, I was like a bunny rabbit. In those days porn was a little harder to come by, but never mind, If I couldn't get hold of some my wonderful mother managed to smuggle some into the country from the Netherlands. She was a strange one. Most of her jokes were about sex and she would gladly tell her underage sons the joke as well.
From the age of thirteen I was ensnared by a man who would continue to abuse me till I was 19. He was a cunning criminal, really, i found 5 fake passports in his cupboard one day, so he was a con man, but he had a taste for teenage boys. He kept me in his claws till I had to report for duty in the air-force in 1982. It was during basic training that I realized that I could actually tell him to leave me alone, that I was strong enough to beat him if necessary, but, I never did, I was afraid of him. My first suicide attempt was at 16, I tried to ride my motorbike into a bridge to end it all, but a voice in my head echoed what my mother always told me, YOU'LL PROBABLY MESS THIS UP TOO. I pulled out at the last minute. In my 20s i purchased a pistol, a Walther PPK. There were four occasions, that I remember, waking up out of a drunken stupor about to pull the trigger. The pistol was in my mouth, the safety off, a round in the chamber and my finger on the German engineered hair trigger. Scary stuff.
I married a very broken girl when I was 27, she was as damaged as I was, needless to say It wasn't a great relationship. I tried my best to make her happy but no matter the level, I couldn't. There is not enough money in the world to make a broken person happy. We tried the whole house, two cars, a microwave a TV and 2.23 children thing, but we couldn't be happy. We had a beautiful daughter when I was 35, she was my life but sadly the demons in my head made it difficult to raise her without me fearing that Id hurt her, so I drank more and resorted to anger to keep her at arms length. Its not a justification, but something that I had to do as I feared that I would hurt her, after all i was a victim of sexual abuse and you know that victims go non to be perpetrators. It was at my brothers 40th that things began to change in my life. My brother and I were great drinking buddies, together we could polish of a bottle of Jaeger meester and a bottle of scotch, and add in a lot of beer on top of that. That night I got so drunk that I passed out on the lawn at my home and when I awoke in the morning I was alone and naked bar my left sock.. Walking through my home with grass and leaves stuck to my torso and In my hair, I passed my daughters room and thought, what if she saw me like this, what would she think of her daddy. It was to much and I gave up drinking that day. its been 15 years since i touched a drop.
This is where another fallacy comes into play. Stop drinking and your life will change. Yeah sure. I lay about the house like a sober bum unable to face life on life's terms. Enter a new addiction. PORN I started doing porn 4 to 5 hours a day. It was silly, I couldn't even work I was so hooked on the darned unrealistic women in these images. One day I came home and Tyler Perry was on the Oprah Winfrey and they were talking about me, sounds weird, but they were talking about my dysfunctions, my fears, and how I managed to cope with life. It was surreal, men 13000 KM away knew me better than I knew myself. It was then that the arrow hit the bulls eye. It was the sexual abuse that kept me trapped for all these years. From that day on, I found a new addiction, healing. I wanted to learn as much as I possibly could about the effects of sexual abuse on a mans life and there was a lot to learn. It was two really difficult years, but I managed to get myself to a place where I felt human and actually wanted to wake up in the morning. In fact I couldn't wait to wake in the morning. It was one night when I was crying to God asking him why He allowed all of this to happen to me, explaining that I was only a child,when I heard this sentence. "If it hadn't happened to you, who would go on to help others" That was when MatrixMen was born
The problem now was that I was growing and my wife was not, so of course we divorced and I walked away from my home, my furniture and my little princess, whom I was beginning to form a reasonable relationship with. Next I realized that I was now missing my daughter and I couldn't, try as I might, focus on work. That and a partner that stole another 250k from me, left me literally scraping the bottom of a barrel. I moved into a commune at a church and started growing my spiritual life. From then on things began to happen. I met a beautiful young lady, now my wife, my daughter moved in with us and she had my grandson, my wife and I adopted a son, and although there are some issues, we are pretty much a beautiful family.
Today MatrixMen has helped 100s of men and impacted on the lives of 1000s more through our social media campaigns. We run groups in Jhb and Cape town and will be opening another in Durban next month. The message is slow in getting around, but change is slow. We are bringing a new narrative to the GBV and rape crisis sector, and we all know that society struggles to change. Today we have the slogan, its not a gender problem but a human issue. We believe that we will never begin to heal the world until we include all victims.
