Awakening

My name is Alex and I am 38. Today I cried, for relief and fear. Until recently my mind was clouded by drug use and self destruction, I guess. After 20 years of struggle with my past and the consequences of it suddenly today I dropped the denial that I have maintained all my life. And it felt very good indeed.I do not want to annoy any one but it look like I have to explain myself to myself. Until last summer I tought my life path was set in stone. I was a junkie with very bad addiction, no family, no friends and no real knowledge of myself.. My mother was, and I Think still is, very depressed and very strict. She had her own baggage, now I understand, but at the time I was very scared of her, she used her hands freely, sometime heavily on both me and my brother.  He never really tried to be friendly with me, he is four years older than me and always resented me for being born, or so the story goes. My father was probably a good guy, but completely subdued to my mother, as all of us were. He left when I was nine. By the time I was in my twenties I had a heroin addiction, not many friends and the relationship with my mother was at breaking point. My job as a chef always maintained my addiction and took me places. At 26 I come in the UK on the conscious decision to cut all ties wiyh my family and my life in my homeland. I came here because I wanted to die on drugs, as high as I could go, that was my state of mind, completely hopeless and with no consideration for me or my body. Nothing did mattered any more. Today I am 38 , bearing the phisical and mental scars, paying the price for that mistake. I always led a lonely life, always scared that everything i did was wrong. The only place I found to feel safe was the cellar under the block of flats where I lived. In there I could hear and see if she was coming for me, and it felt safe to know I had that little advantage. In there there were my dad old comics and classic books, so I read and hide.And I started playing with myself, and I liked it and felt guilty about it, specially after I started to play with botttles and brush handles. I felt bad but I did like it. As the years passed I started to think that I was not really normal to have those strange feelings and experiences, but life did go on, I had some not memorable experiences with girls, putting on the back of my mind my cellar days, trying to balance my family life with my teenage years. At about 15 I got a saturday job in a print shop, the owner was a sweet bachelor that today you would probably call a paedophile, thank God he just touched me. He scared me out for sure but it got me thinking again about my feelings and likings, my sexuality. By now I was going at a live in college, away from home and for the first time free. I was having oral sex with my room mate almost straight away, but we never talked about it. The familiar feeling of guilt and anormality make me hate my room mate and I asked to change room. During this early years of travel I had another two or three encounters with peadophiles, the last time I almost had full sex, but I chickened out. They never really hurt me, but it make me wonder why people looked in my eyes and knew that it was OK to approach me, I never said anything. At 20 I did military service. Until now my experiences were only sexual, they were just a different way to off load. And then I met this guy and eveything changed. I think it was my first love, a feeling pretty strange to me thanks to my family, but this was wonderful. We had some beautiful times together,  we touched and cuddled and laughed, but we never get down to it. We were in military barracks, not exatly the best place to let your feelings known to everybody. That was really when I decided I would be a"straight" guy. Less problems and easier life. Probably my biggest mistake, but it was not time. Drugs started to get hold of my life and only last summer I felt that everything was wrong and something have to change. Almost in my fourties with nothing to show for it. I tried to con myself . I had some relationships with girls, but never felt right, never horny or aroused, never able to open myself to anyone. By myself sex toys and videos kept me going , even if they never satisfy me, they always make me feel stupid, after I shot I alwaysfelt dirty and wrong. All these years I almost convinced myself that I was the son of my mother, crazy, neurotic and depressed. And then last summer I finally waked up. I managed to quit heroin, throwed away all the toys, deleted all my contact numbers and started with a clean slate. In the last two months I have not be working, you see as headchef I had a good pay, but it always went on drugs. Now I can do what I want, when I have enough to pay the rent  I am OK. I am trying to understand what happened to me and why.  After weeks of emotional up and downs it downed on me. At first I tought "kick the drugs and everything will be ok", but it didn't work. Something  is still missing, maybe a family, not my mother family  but my family, I tought get out there and find a girl and get going, but again it didn't fell right. And then I understood. All of a sudden I said out loud  "I am gay". Fullstop. And everything felt right, scary but OK. And I started crying, relieved that just maybe from now on I can be Alex, gay, single with a lot of past and scars , but is OK. My biggest regret is that I lost a lot of time. I do not even have a real friend to who to come out to. And my fear is that some how I will not be able to finnd a soulmate that can help me and take by the hand. I am scared that I will die as an old sad man with too many regrets and no one to love me. I just need someone that can love me for what I am.           That's it.