It isn't easy. As a guy with a lot of traditions around me and in society, we are pigeon-holed in a way to try to do it on our own.

Even with help it is easy to stumble and fall. While in Therapy I trust to come to peace and trust and to find the thing I could thank my rapist (like I did with the sexual abuse as a child), but it just overwhelmed me.

So now, I am working on earlier things given I was raised in a hyper traditional family (do note I love my parents 110%), and the damage it did to me.

What some folks that may not see the invisible scars is it damages your ability to communicate and trust and feel effectively.

It leads to oversharing, and not keeping up boundaries, when good and normal situations happen and go bad because you are in an arena where there is no pain or abuse.

I have to fight drug side effects from immunotherapy to deal with allergic asthma (now my therapists and family say move and they are right but my wife has horses). So I have a saying that even fits for those that are normalizing themselves to life.

The absence of pain is not pleasure