Growing up I was pretty quiet and shy. Okay, very quiet and shy.
I guess with some of my shyness came being naïve also. I always wanted to fit in and I always wanted to please those adults around me.
I trusted almost every adult, authority figure that came in my life.
This wasn’t a problem until I got to the 7th grade. I came across the wrong adult who had issues of their own.

From the 7th until the 8th grade I was sexually abused by someone I looked up to and trusted.
Ironically all of this happened after I accepted Christ and was baptized when I was in the 6th grade.
Nevertheless, this 2 year period of my life felt like and eternity. I felt like I was trapped in some underworld. It felt like I was singled out to be a part of something wrong and dirty.

How could this happen?
Why me?

I couldn’t tell anyone. How could I? What would I say to my friends, my family?
Slowly my self-esteem got even lower. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on.
My schoolwork and even athletics weren’t interesting to me anymore.
My family and I went to church every Sunday but I didn’t understand how God could allow this to happen to me.

Eventually, as I entered high school, this abusive relationship ended.
However, what should have been a new beginning for me was a continuation of pain and confusion.
You see, my abuser exposed me to pornography. He had hundreds and hundreds of magazines available to me at any time.
At first, I was curious like most young boys would be. Then, after a while, it turned into something like a craving for me.
As I got to be an older teen, I would find various ways to get access to porn. I would try to get a glimpse of an unwrapped Playboy magazine at the bookstore or attempt to look at the late-night soft-core versions on a fuzzy television channel.

The more time that went by the more I would want to watch. It became something like a temporary medicine for me to cover the pain of my younger years.
The thing about me was that I didn’t watch porn for the sex.
Sure, it was exciting for my flesh to see what it was seeing but it was more than just that for me.
Watching porn was like entering into some perfect type of world. Everything in it was just right.
The people were beautiful, the scenes were perfect, and they were doing what people who love each other do, have sex.
No one was made to feel bad or upset. People seemed to appreciate each other.

That’s exactly what I was missing in my life, someone to appreciate me and tell me that I was loved. I wished that I could have told my parents about my issues.
Looking back on it now, I realize that I just didn’t love myself.