After many years of misandric conditioning, I no longer accept that my father helped to pave the downward spiral of self-hate, self-negation and paranoid narcissism that exemplified the path I took. For nearly two decades, I aloofly hurled myself into an abyss of depraved personal and social deconstruction while working diligently to appear lucid to the outside world. My apathetic antics were a constant source of personal shame that I was able to numb by projecting contradictory values. It would be years before I would come to terms with the preceding factors that waged psychological warfare against my development but once I did, I justly stopped the castigation of my paternal influence.

Not only was I reared in an environment that pointed the finger at men no matter what the infraction, I was also indoctrinated into a definition of manhood that was based on the complete refusal to be male. A select few who are close to me have told me that my story is one of anomalous circumstances. Whether or not that is the case I don’t know as I’m sure many had it worse than I did, but I do know that my past stands as a stark outcome of misandric calamities.

Because my father was deemed public enemy number one by my mother and because she smothered me with her narcissistic need for affirmation (which became my only social outlet as I wasn’t allowed friends), my development was hijacked and replaced with intersexual insecurities that essentially mirrored my mother’s. Her hatred for men was entrenched in my psyche from birth. What I was taught as a child revolved around mom being an innocent victim, and dad being the evil perpetrator.

My mother did provide me with concrete reasons (that I later discovered were lies) to hate my father.

Her most referenced myth was that he sexually molested my older brothers. As a child I found it odd that he didn’t molest me as well, but my mother said it was because he didn’t like fat people and I was a chubby kid. It was this fetid detour from development that would mold the confusion and desperation that prompted my next action. I compensated for this lack of attention by making myself as sexually approachable to my father as a young boy could be imagined to. (I know that is disturbing to think about, but this was the only environment I knew as a youngster.) Due to the aberrational atmosphere my mother created, I literally thought that in order to get dad’s attention I essentially had to “put out” and offer him sexual favors that my mother refused to. I was convinced it would get his attention and love. But even though my mother explained exactly what he enjoyed sexually, and what she wouldn’t do for him in graphic “pity me” detail, my efforts were futile.

When my mother learned of this she, of course, blamed my father for “ignoring” me. I began hating my father as well as all other “heartless men”, and my mother fed the rage. It didn’t help matters that my two oldest brothers had molested me at a very young age and my mother’s response was “that is what men do”. I don’t harbor resentment towards my brothers as they weren’t men at the time but that didn’t faze her. It never fazed her that my growing sexual obsession with my father was unusual and unhealthy. It also never fazed her to not relay sexually graphic information about her sex life to her barely-walking sons. (Side note: She did eventually send me to therapy but not for any of these reasons. Around the age of 12, she thought I was a danger to her because I listened to “sick and violent” music.)

I further arrested my manhood during adolescence by prostituting myself to men in order to gain self (and fatherly) approval, albeit on a subconscious level. In order to do this I had to completely disregard my heterosexuality and essentially convince myself that I was either gay, or female. I chose the former because certain physical traits would have proved the latter more difficult. Not ironically, at times I did wish to be female in order to receive less torment from my mother. Her pain over having boys was too much for her to bear at times, as her depression was deemed “all our fault”. Knowing I was the cause of the misery that bounced back on me tenfold was too much for me to bear at times.

I was reminded time and time again how badly she wanted me to be a girl because her pregnancy with me was the “last time she stretched herself out for a fuckin’ kid”. It was subtleties like this mixed with the occasional crypto-crossdressing she subjected me to as a toddler while repeating comments such as “you would have made such a pretty girl” that stuck with me well past adolescence. It was surprisingly easy to take the path of male prostitution because the lies I told myself were rooted in the belief that all sex with women equaled rape as my mother had taught me, so why bother pursuing women in the first place?

Because I repressed my heterosexuality to such a debilitating level, I began to HATE women…ALL women. My misogyny became unparalleled. Ironically, it was the type of woman I hated the most that I unknowingly emulated in my relationships with men, both straight and gay alike. It is no wonder why I was never “one of the guys” in the way I desperately wanted to be. I hated women for not being approachable and I hated men for making them that way.

It wasn’t until after years of drug use, countless unsafe sexual encounters with the intention of catching AIDS (surprisingly I came out of it unscathed), and endlessly aching for a healthy connection with a woman, that I started to snap. My emotional crashes and drug-induced physical breakdowns were occurring on a regular basis before I realized something had to change or I was going to die, voluntarily or otherwise. I didn’t want to die without ever knowing the touch of a normal woman or a life free of my mother’s mental invasions. I had to purge her from my life, which I eventually did.

Shortly after turning 30, I started taking responsibility for my actions, and I changed my life completely. Cut to the present, I have since counseled and (legally) medicated myself into a more adjusted person. I still don’t feel altogether like a man, and I suspect I never will, but it won’t stop me from trying. I am finally able to admit that not only do I want to be male but I like being male. That may sound trivial to most, but the metamorphosis was huge to me. I’m not to be mistaken for one of those “reformed homosexual” cases you sometimes hear about. I knew the whole time I was with men that I wanted to be with women but the level of hatred and disgust I had for myself kept me caged in the cell my mother had built in my head. I hated myself for being male and for having the normal inclinations of one. And it was easy to be a street hustler. I knew more about sex than anything else. In some ways, it really was what I jokingly referred to as “the family business”. It’s like a light went off when I was a kid and I spent adulthood trying to turn it back on.

I missed out on a lot of things during my years of misandric self-enslavement.

I’ve just recently experienced what a lot of men take for granted. I’ve taught myself much of the things I should have learned from my father, some of which are very basic life lessons. I discovered all of the innate things men are capable of after I cleared my head of its previous female conditioning and allowed my manhood to shine through. I started to take pleasure in things I missed out on like championing honor over turning the other cheek when it came to personal accountability. Even little things like teaching myself how to play a sport became a liberating focus.

Now I am ready to form healthy friendships with men and I can draw on my past experiences to help men who are seemingly lost. It’s a really good feeling. I am nowhere near the man I wish to be, but I’m closer than I was 5 years ago. I have never sought pity for my lot in life nor do I expect understanding. I don’t know if there are many cases like mine in which a man in his 30’s “comes out of the straight closet” after years of sexual disorientation, but if so then maybe reading this might help them realize that they are not alone. My story is bizarre and there is no way that in one posting I could or would drive the reader down all of the avenues leading into the locked maze of manic misandry that was my brain, but nonetheless I am honored to say that I am here among you; among the living and no longer immersed in a lifestyle of terminal self-destruction.

As for my father – I don’t really know much about him. I’m not even sure if he is still alive. I severed ties with my family years ago. I believe he did his best given what he had to work with and against. He did want to teach me how to be a man as he saw fit, but my mother prevented it with all of the fire and scorn of a self-hating narcissist. It took years to turn the table on the real perpetrator, but once I did I was able to relieve myself of the guilt and shame of hating my mother. It’s funny how the words “I hate my mother” shock our society yet “I hate my father” is usually received with “yeah, so do I” or “mine was an asshole too”.

I feel it is important to start sharing my story in order to shed light on the women who are not held accountable for the mental and/or physical destruction they inflict upon their children. My mother’s anti-male brainwashing, albeit uncontrived in the sense that she wasn’t smart enough to be intentionally devious, was unprecedented. And for what? To have a lifetime of emotional control over her sons? Why is it so important for so many women to have such a manipulative stranglehold on their children? How can a woman prioritize the mitigation of her selfish insecurities over, and at the expense of, the emotional well-being of her kids? Perhaps we may never know. At least not until society recognizes that women are just as guilty of child abuse as men are. Regardless, it is high time after all of these years that I give dad a break.

I’m left to wonder how many other dads out there deserve the same.