Here I am embarking on a project that is about the deepest and rawest aspects of my life, and I am hesitating to give my name. Maybe that makes sense. It DOES make sense. If I am going to be honest, if I am going to do what I hope to do and find something beautiful and funny and entertaining in this story, if I am going to inspire you to be less ashamed and more free with your experience, maybe I should probably introduce myself properly.

But then again – this blog is also trying to be NOT about me. It’s about the hell many of us are in, but from my specific vantage point – that of someone who feels like he has gone through all the shit and come out the other side. I’m waving down from the far lip of the pit that some fuckhead has put you in, and I’m yelling Cheer up! You’re not alone! It GETS BETTER!!!

The first of my names is Jonno. One day I may be brave enough to post the rest of it. I was sexually abused by my godfather, a prominent surgeon who shall here be known as The Good Doctor (or more likely El Pedo), from the time of my earliest recollections until I was twenty years old. When I was twenty-one, with the help of my family and an exceptional girlfriend (C.C.), I put El Pedo in jail. I don’t know how long he served, but I think his sentence was eight or nine years. Either way, he’s been out a long time. To my knowledge, he has never admitted what he did, and it doesn’t matter. I very rarely think about him.