41 Year Old Virgin
Living with PTSD and Autism
I've been called immature. But, I’ve never been called uncaring
IThe title of this piece is a description of me but provides no insight as to who I am as a person. My friends would praise me as a kind writer with a penchant for business numbers who desires to help those healing from trauma. If pressed, they’d also tell you my weakness: anxiety. My family—that’s a totally different story—they have certain bias.
I’m a military brat who grew up in a two-parent home. My parents are giving people. So much so they allowed someone who would eventually abuse me to move into their home. They had no clue he’d do it. But, he misused their trust and took advantage of me.
Already a child who had an untreated medical diagnoses, being sexually abused compounded the turmoil and other sensitive parts of my personality. I became angry. I acted out. I placed blame. It took a while to find what I needed to heal. In my teens, writing proved to be the only place I felt safe sharing my thoughts, my pain. Poetry, rapping or any written prose by me or others was like a balm to me.
Unfortunately, balms only last for so long. Being sexually abused by two close family members left the residue of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) on my life. If the wound is not properly treated with antiseptic cleansing, the right amount of air and left untouched, balms eventually lose their strength. At a time I felt the most lost, I found God. My personal relationship with Him increased my writing ability to help me on my journey to healing as well as others.
PTSD also led me to counseling, which revealed to me something I had always expected. I was different. In my thirties, I was diagnosed with Aspergers Syndrome, which is often referred to as high functioning autism. That explained the anxiety and my uneasiness in social situations.
At my initial diagnoses in childhood, my parents did what Black parents who had never lived with psychological disorders do. They retreated into denial, under the misinformed idea that my disorder could be disciplined away. As an adult, not only did I have to work on the trauma of being abused I had to get the help I needed to live with autism.
No matter what happened to me as a child and young adult, I always had a deep desire to do what is right. I chose to remain abstinent, to save myself until I met the person who I would share my body with for the rest of my life. Some people would argue I did it because I’m afraid or because I have autism. The truth is it could be a part of it. But, most of it is believing that sex should be consensual, between two married adults who love each other.
A forty-one-year-old virgin? Yes. I’ve never consented to any sexual act. So, for the past twenty-nine years since my last day of abuse, I made the conscious decision to remain abstinent. Is it my disability?
No. It is my desire to live a full life, governed by my decisions—ones that were taken from me as a child—in an effort to love God, to love me and the woman I will eventually share my life with.
At my initial diagnoses in childhood, my parents did what Black parents who had never lived with psychological disorders do. They retreated into denial, under the misinformed idea that my disorder could be disciplined away. As an adult, not only did I have to work on the trauma of being abused I had to get the help I needed to live with autism.