PORT ST. LUCIE, Fla. -- New York Mets knuckleballer R.A. Dickey openly discussed Tuesday the sexual abuse he said he endured as a child, which he chronicles in detail in memoirs due to hit bookstores later this week.

Dickey, author of "Wherever I Wind Up," said he was victimized by two separate perpetrators during the summer he was 8 years old -- by a 13-year-old female babysitter and a 17-year-old male.

"I started writing the book in 2005, and it was too painful then to write," Dickey said. "So I set it down a couple of years until I felt like I had the equipment to be able to hold it well and talk about it, in an effort not only for my own catharsis, but as a possibility to help other people. Sure, it's been difficult, but I feel like I'm OK with it.

R.A. Dickey said he began writing "Wherever I Wind Up" seven years ago, but he set it aside because it was too painful for him to be open about his ordeal. Courtesy of Blue Rider Press

"It's almost like the bullying stuff," he continued. "Unless you talk about it, unless it gets out there, unless you know there are people that care about you regardless of what has happened to you, unless you know that, it's hard to get to the place where you feel comfortable not only talking about that, but talking about what it's made you into.

"One of the hopes I have for the book, and will have as long as it's out, is that people will be able to draw something from it that may help them -- whether it's to talk about it more, not to be afraid, to be open with what's happened, and that there are people available that will love you no matter what. I kind of grew up in a place where I didn't necessarily feel that."

In the autobiography, Dickey also discusses finding a syringe in the Texas Rangers' clubhouse in 2001.

As detailed in the book, Dickey reveals how he felt disgust with the prospect of teammates cheating when he spotted the syringe. He made four appearances for the Rangers during the '01 season, while primarily pitching for Triple-A Oklahoma City.

"The sight of it makes me cringe, the shiny thin needle lying randomly on the tile floor," Dickey writes. "My mind races with thoughts about how and why it got there. I know as much about needles as I do about jewelry, but I'm pretty sure this isn't a sewing needle. I don't know if this syringe injected a Ranger with insulin or cortisone or B12 or anabolic steroids, though you can hazard a guess when you run through the roster of my muscle-laden teammates.

"I'd never seen a syringe in a baseball clubhouse before. I've not seen one since. It may have been used for the most benign of purposes, but the mere sight of it makes me feel as though I am looking straight at Evil -- like seeing a weapon somebody left behind at a crime scene."

Dickey said he did not feel he violated clubhouse etiquette writing about the syringe because he was nonspecific in terms of potential violators.

"That was so much more of just a general observation," Dickey said. "I wouldn't know where to begin on that team. I mean, Ken Caminiti, for one -- admittedly. [He] was on that team when I was there. You just never know."

Dickey said the clubhouse culture with respect to tolerance for cheaters has changed anyway.